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News of Greater Phoenix
Letters to the Editor
April 21, 2006
Yiddish is dead - long live Yiddish!
Editor:
I am writing in response to the article by Leon H. Gildin ("Will
Yiddish survive another generation?" Jewish News, April 7).
I admire Gildin's work. As a matter of fact, I have given copies of his book to relatives and friends. He is well qualified to discuss the state of Yiddish.
In response to his quote of the old saying "A shprakh muz hobn a gas," I maintain that the Internet has become the new "gas" (street) for Yiddish. Not only is there a very large amount of Yiddish on Internet sites, but it is now possible for any two Jews to communicate in Yiddish via the Internet.
With respect to the National Yiddish Book Center's project to translate Yiddish classics, I feel that the NYBC has been derelict in its duty to create the readers who will read the books it has collected.
I agree with Gildin that, for the most part, future Yiddish will be in the hekherer fentster (the high windows of academia). However, I would like to answer his question, "So where do we find Yiddish today? It is still spoken by the Orthodox but for how long remains to be seen." Actually, the best answer has been given by professor Dovid Katz in his book "Words on Fire: The Unfinished Story of Yiddish." Katz shows that Yiddish is far from being a dying language because it is making a resurgence among religious communities, and it will still be thriving well into the next century.
Morrie Feller
Phoenix