“The Return of the Jew”: The Revival of Yiddish Culture in Post-Holocaust Israel

A lecture with Professor Itay Zutra (Judaic Studies University of Manitoba)

The ideology of the "Negation of the Diaspora" was dominant in Zionist thinking prior to the Holocaust. Yiddish, the language of Eastern-European Jews (and many Zionists), was considered an inferior language, and its culture the symbol for Jewish passivity and victimhood. It had no place in the Jewish state, which favored Hebrew and its new Israeli identity.  At the very least, Yiddish was tolerated as a marginalized relic of the past used by ultra-orthodox Jews and new immigrants. However, after the Holocaust and the establishment of the Jewish state, the Israeli political elite gradually understood the value of Yiddish as the language of Holocaust victims and survivors, and as a way to reach out to Yiddish speaking Jews around the world. Yiddish writers such as Avrum Sutzkever, Yosl Birshtein, Rivke Basman, and others (members of the literary group "Yung yisroel), settled in the country, while others such as Isaac Bashevis Singer, Jacob Glatstein, and Yehuda Leib Teler (among the most notable ones) came to visit. This talk will examine texts by various Yiddish writers (both in Israel and abroad) who insisted on writing in Yiddish in and about the Jewish state. Their commitment to Yiddish culture as the language of Holocaust memory and commemoration made possible in years to come the "return of the Jew", and the rise of a more diasporic, sensitive, and more Jewish state. 

Registration for this online program coming soon.