"According to Isaac Beshevis Singer, Bergelson and other writers 'lost...their linguistic charm' in the Soviet surroundings. 'It may sound mystical, but some of these writers were actually no longer able to construct a Yiddish sentence; their language had lost its soul' (Bashevis Singer: 267). In fact it was a new sociolinguistic situation rather than mysticism that changed the 'soul' of the language. For Tevje the Dairyman (Bergelson's chief analysis was of this work by Sholem Aleichem) Yiddish was the 'only true language, the instrument of all his inventiveness, the expressive vehicle of all his thoughts and feelings'; therefore 'Sholem Aleichem was able to exploit the full range of the Yiddish language -- precisly because Tevye's limited circumstances and traditional way of life kept him within the sphere of Yiddish and its (abundant) resources' (Wisse 1985: 32). Soviet Yiddish literature, however, as Bergelson (1937: 150) put it, 'ceased to celebrate - both in the language and in content - the poverty of the Sabbath' and instead celebrated the 'riches of the week-days'. Hence, Ruth Wisse's play of words, the 'contrast between the resourceful Yiddish of the poor and the poor Yiddish of the resourceful' (Wisse 1985: 32)" - Estraikh's Soviet Yiddish Language Planning and Lingusitic Development p. 96
This made me recall:
"I am talking to those who struggle to secure cultural rights, the right to create Jewish cultural values - it is not enough to talk Yiddish. You must have something to say!If you have nothing to say, you may talk Yiddish from the cradle to the grave, you may talk it everywhere, at home, in the street, in the synagogue during Reading of the Law, in the street, in the Philharmonia, in the middle of a concert, in the theater, at the opera - what you say will not be Jewish, because it will not mean anything real, it will be an imitation, dead.We stand firm like a wall for Yiddish! We are ready to give our lives for Yiddish! Yet before our eyes the Jewish content, what is essentially Jewish disappears, the Jewish soul dies. We are flooded with plagiarisms, with substitutes, with spurious goals and false trademarks.And the people are happy about it - they say it's European. Where is the original, the distinctively, genuinely Jewish?...Creation is the elevation of the soul. Only the Jewish soul can be the Jewish writer's Shekinah, his holy spirit, his one inspiration and creative force. It must be the eye in his head, with which he sees the world, its past, present and future. He must live and die for the Jewish soul, for the Jewish spirit." - Y.L. Peretz (As quoted by Goldsmith in Modern Yiddish Culture)
Bold Italics added
Questions abound.
Is the "sociolinguistic situation" today very similar to that of the early Soviet Union?
Back then there was an explosion of new political and urban words that had never been an active part of the Yiddish lexicon. Russian influence was overwhelming on these fronts.
Today - technological terms. This couples with the fact that a Jewish "state/territory"
(תּחום־המושבֿ/קהילה) has been widely replaced with the US state and private/rented property which is non-contiguous nor communally organized.
The question of soul/spirit. Under the crushing gravity of the American cultural sphere even the most isolationist and reactionary Jewish settlements (KJ...) would not escape. A modern day Tevye doesn't exist (but then again, he is a fictional character and never existed).
What is the responcibility of the Yiddishist?
What is the responcibility of the Diaspora Nationalist?
Does the future of the Yiddish nation require a Dubnovian /Anarchistic Autonomist program?
help please...
Pirim in Oygust from Jelen! on Vimeo.
אינעם שפּיל
Leana Jelen
Marc Caplan
Naftali Ejdelman
Menachem Yankl Ejdelman
Gedalia Ejdelman
Arun Viswanath
Temma Liba Schaechter
^^^(אַ קורצער פֿילם ,גראַמאַטיק איז שלעכט.אָבער ס'איז אַ גוטער אָנהײב)
איך האָב אָנגעהױבן אַ נײַע "יוטוב" קאָנטע מיט װאָס אַלע ייִדישיסטן קענען אַרױפֿלאָדן זײערע ייִדישע פֿילמען. אױב איר װיל ניצן דער קאָנטע צו אַרױפֿלאָדן דײַנע ייִדישע פֿילמען זײַט אַזױ גוט לאָזט מיר װיסן. איך װעל שיק דיר דעם פּאַראָל
