Yiddish in Israel

Rachel Rojanski

Description

Yiddish in Israel: A History challenges the commonly held view that Yiddish was suppressed or even banned by Israeli authorities for ideological reasons, offering instead a radical new interpretation of the interaction between Yiddish and Israeli Hebrew cultures. Author Rachel Rojanski tells the compelling and yet unknown story of how Yiddish, the most widely used Jewish language in the pre-Holocaust world, fared in Zionist Israel, the land of Hebrew.

Following Yiddish in Israel from the proclamation of the State until today, Rojanski reveals that although Israeli leadership made promoting Hebrew a high priority, it did not have a definite policy on Yiddish. The language's varying fortune through the years was shaped by social and political developments, and the cultural atmosphere in Israel. Public perception of the language and its culture, the rise of identity politics, and political and financial interests all played a part. Using a wide range of archival sources, newspapers, and Yiddish literature, Rojanski follows the Israeli Yiddish scene through the history of the Yiddish press, Yiddish theater, early Israeli Yiddish literature, and high Yiddish culture. With compassion, she explores the tensions during Israel's early years between Yiddish writers and activists and Israel's leaders, most of whom were themselves Eastern European Jews balancing their love of Yiddish with their desire to promote Hebrew. Finally Rojanski follows Yiddish into the 21st century, telling the story of the revived interest in Yiddish among Israeli-born children of Holocaust survivors as they return to the language of their parents.

Acknowledgements

A Note on Transliteration, Translation, and Archival Signatures

Introduction

1. "Even the Stones Speak Hebrew": The Melting Pot, and Israel's Cultural Policy

2. The Heart of Yiddish Culture: Yiddish Press 1948-1968

3. "We are Jewish Actors from the Diaspora": Yiddish Actors, Yiddish Theater, and the Jewish State, 1948–1965

4. "To Assemble the Scattered Spirit of Israel": High Yiddish Culture – Di goldene keyt and the Yiddish Chair at the Hebrew University

5. "We Are Writing A New Chapter in Yiddish Literature":The literary Group Yung Yisroel and the Zionist Master Narrative

6. "You No Longer Need to be Afraid to Love Yiddish": 1965, The Production of Di megile, and the Return of Eastern Europe to Israel's Collective Memory

7. The End of the 20th Century: Private Memory, Collective Image and the Retreat from the 'Melting Pot'

Epilogue

Bibliography

Sujets

• Hebrew
• Middle Est
• Jewish Studies
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Israel
• History of the Middle East
• Zionism
• Yiddish language
• Middle East
• Hebrew language
• Yiddish
• Germany
• Hébreu

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 07 janvier 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253045171
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

YIDDISH IN ISRAEL
PERSPECTIVES ON ISRAEL STUDIES
S. Ilan Troen, Natan Aridan, Donna Divine, David Ellenson, Arieh Saposnik, and Jonathan Sarna, editors
Sponsored by the Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies of Brandeis University
YIDDISH
IN ISRAEL
A History
Rachel Rojanski
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2020 by Rachel Rojanski
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-04514-0 (hdbk.)
ISBN 978-0-253-04515-7 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-253-04518-8 (web PDF)
1 2 3 4 5 25 24 23 22 21 20
For Adam,
mayn basherter
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
A Note on Transliteration, Translation, and Archival Signatures
Introduction: They Are Ashamed of Us Yiddish Writers
1 Even the Stones Speak Hebrew : The Melting Pot and Israel s Cultural Policy
2 The Heart of Yiddish Culture: The Yiddish Press 1948-1968
3 We Are Jewish Actors from the Diaspora : Yiddish Actors, Yiddish Theater, and the Jewish State, 1948-1965
4 To Assemble the Scattered Spirit of Israel : High Yiddish Culture- Di goldene keyt and the Yiddish Chair at the Hebrew University
5 We Are Writing a New Chapter in Yiddish Literature : The Literary Group Yung Yisroel and the Zionist Master Narrative
6 You No Longer Need to Be Afraid to Love Yiddish : 1965, the Production of Di megile , and the Return of Eastern Europe to Israel s Collective Memory
7 The End of the Twentieth Century: Private Memory, Collective Image, and the Retreat from the Melting Pot
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
W RITING THIS BOOK HAS BEEN PART OF MY life for a long time. It started in Israel with a review I published in the daily Ha aretz of a TV show about Yiddish. The review generated a heated debate about the history of Yiddish in Israel and its place there, and this aroused my interest in the subject. Sometime later, I thought that maybe I should write a book about it. I had no idea then that I was embarking on a journey that would take me back to my childhood years in Tel Aviv.
I owe this book (as well as many other things) first and foremost to my parents, Ida (n e Sapir) and Dov-Ya akov (Yasha) Rojanski z l , who came to Israel from the Jewish communities of Kovna and Bialystok respectively, at different times and under very different circumstances. They loved Yiddish but chose Hebrew as the language of our family. In our small apartment in the old north of Tel Aviv, the walls were covered with Hebrew books only, and a Hebrew daily was waiting at the door every morning. Nonetheless, Yiddish had a huge presence in our life-not in written form but as a day-to-day language. My parents spoke Yiddish with each other and with other Yiddish speakers. They never spoke it in public and certainly never to me. They strongly believed that the generation that was born in the state of Israel should speak Hebrew, not Yiddish.
Writing this book has made me understand that this childhood experience not only aroused my scholarly interest in Yiddish and pushed me to study it seriously in a later stage of my life but actually enabled me to understand how subtle was the negotiation of Yiddish speakers with both languages and how complicated and nuanced was the tension between the two for those who loved Yiddish and wanted a Hebrew future for the next generation. I thank my parents for this, as well as for instilling in me the love of learning, for teaching me the values of hard work and honesty, and especially for their unconditional love that made me who I am.
I would like to thank the institutions and foundations that supported this research with grants over the years. I am especially grateful to the Israel Science Foundation, which gave me a generous three-year grant that enabled me to do intensive research in archives and libraries in Israel and the United States, the Yad Ben Zvi Institute in Jerusalem, the Research Authority at the University of Haifa, the Katz D. Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, the Humanities Research Funds, and the Program in Judaic Studies at Brown University.
I benefited a lot from the help of many librarians and archivists who shared with me their knowledge and demonstrated much goodwill. The veteran librarians of the Jewish studies reading room at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, Elona Avinezer, Ruth Flint, Tzipora Ben-Abu, and Aliza Alon; the devoted archivists of the YIVO institute in New York, Fruma Mohrer and especially Leo Greenberg, who has been a source of knowledge and good advice to me ever since I started visiting the YIVO archives as a graduate student; and Judith Leifer, the unique reference librarian of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies Library, who knew how to unearth long-forgotten Yiddish newspapers, after I had lost hope of ever finding them. I thank them all.
I was privileged to be helped by some veterans of the world of Yiddish in Israel. The writer Yossel Birstein z l , who opened his heart to me and shared his knowledge of the archives at the National Library of Israel, as well as his wonderful and unforgettable stories; the legendary editor and leader of Yiddish in Israel, Mordechai Tsanin z l , who told me his life story, gave me some documents from his personal archives, and, more importantly, provided me the opportunity to meet in person the greatest fighter for Yiddish in Israel, and the veteran writer and journalist Yitzhak Luden z l , who edited the last Yiddish newspaper in Israel and was a great source of knowledge about Yiddish in Israel. I benefited greatly from meeting with the poet and remarkable woman Rivka Basman-Ben Haim, who told me her life story and discussed with me Yiddish literature in Israel in the 1950s and 1960s. Shmuel Atzmon-Vircer, the founder and longtime director of the Yiddish theater in Israel, Yiddishpiel, shared with me documents and information on the history of his theater, told me its story, and answered difficult questions, and Lidya Ophir, Israel Shumacher s daughter, generously helped clarify some matters.
Over the years I have benefited from the help of several research assistants: Amy Simon, Boris Tarnopolsky, and especially Ilya Vovshin, who is now a scholar in his own right.
I am grateful to the many friends and colleagues who, over the years, provided help and advice, put at my disposal their knowledge, read parts of the manuscript, and gave me helpful comments. Avrahan Novershtern shared with me his broad knowledge of Yiddish literature and Yiddish sources; David Engel read the entire manuscript and offered helpful and important suggestions and comments; Benny Mer and Ella Bauer read parts of the manuscript; Joel Berkowitz graciously read the chapters on Yiddish theater and provided invaluable comments; Mordechai (Motke) Naor, a scholar, writer, and one of the veterans of the Israeli journalistic scene, answered patiently and generously numerous specific questions and proved again that Google can t compete with an extraordinary human mind and memory. Pnina Lahav helped clarify some of the legal questions raised in the book and offered friendly support along the way.
My Yiddish teacher, who became a good friend, Esther Rollansky, was always there for me to answer questions, to support, and to listen in a most helpful way.
Shlomo Berger z l , who was a partner for stimulating intellectual conversations and ideas, passed away suddenly and untimely, leaving his many friends all over the world shocked and devastated.
Other colleagues answered questions, referred to sources, clarified matters, or provided ideas, comments, and insights: Dalit Assouline, Yaakov Barnai, Justin Cammy, Kimmy Caplan, Shimon Cohen, Jonathan Decter, Hasia Diner, Ofer Dynes, Gennady Estraikh, Tuvia Friling, Aviva Halamish, Dov-Ber Kerler, Rafi Mann, Kenneth Moss, Leonid Roitman, and Jonathan Sarna.
Special thanks go to Elissa Bemporad, who gave me much-needed advice at a critical moment.
Since English is not my first language, I used the help of some editors. Most important was the contribution of my father-in-law, Neville Teller, MBE. A professional English writer and experienced editor, he generously read the entire manuscript, edited it, and made very useful comments. I thank him for this very much.
I would like to extend my deepest thanks to S. Ilan Troen, the chair of the Publications Committee of the list Perspectives on Israel Studies at Indiana University Press. Ilan supported my project enthusiastically and generously, always giving his wise and friendly advice and offering encouragement at times when it was very much needed.
Many thanks to Dee Mortensen at Indiana University Press who believed in my manuscript from the first time we were in contact and navigated the publication process in a professional and friendly way, to the anonymous readers for their helpful comments, and to the entire team at Indi