bull

from Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Soviet Nation~l Languages Their Past Present and Future cd Isabelle T Kreindler Amsterdam Mouton 1985 pp 277-309

1

RAKIIMIEL PELTZ and MARK W KIEL

Di Yiddish-Imperye The Dashed Hopes for a Yiddbh Cultural Empire in the Soviet Union

1 Introduction Yiddish Language and Culture Until the Revolution

Yiddish speaking Jews came from West and Central Europe and settled in Poland Lithuania and the western Ukraine starting in the thirteenth century The acquisition of these territories by Russia after the partitions of Poland and the Napoleonic wars put the largest Jewish community in the world at that time under Tsarist rule Official policy towards the Jews in the Russian empire was bipolar directed towards isolating them on the one hand and assimil r RlissTfYirigUlem on the other Jewish domicile was restricted to a Pale of Settlement a ong Ie 0 the frontier of the Old Polish Kingdom Jews were prohibited from Jiving in the cities unless they received special privileges granted only to a few wealthy and Russified Jews Internal religious and communal administration as well as official relations with the central governing authorities were carried out by the Kcllie the local Jewish self-governing body Most Jews lived in small towns alongside Poles and to a lesser degree Germans Ukrainians Belorussians and lithuanians1

Yiddish the language of Ashkenazic Jewry has been spoken for about a thousand years it is thought to have arisen when speakers of Romance vernaculars moved into the area near the Rhine and Moselle AsllkellQz is the traditional Jewish term for the Jewish community which developed on Germanic territory The language evolved as a fusion of elements modified from many stock languages The major components of Yiddish are Germanic Semitic (mainly derived from Hebrew and Aramaic but herein referred to as Hebrew) and Slavic (chiefly derived from Czech Polish Ukrainian and Belorussian) The Yiddish vernacular exhibited a digfossic relationshjp with Hebrew which was generally reserved for religious and communal functions Although the Germanic component predominates as a result of the eastward

2 78 Rilkhmie Peltz and Mark W Kie

migration the Slavic component was integrated in the language in lexical and morphologial forms as weU as grammatical constructions Gennanic in fonn but Illoddled after SI~vic usage Jews were largely multilingual and usually had a knowledge of one or several of the languages descended from the stock languages lIf Yiddish Therefore despite the integrated nature of the commiddot ponents speakers of YidOish--orten developed a sensitivit to aspects oT commiddot pOII~ I erences le comp Icated interrelationship between Yiddish and its source Ianguages which sometimes continue to serve as coterritorial vernaculars have influenced standardization processes both in towardmiddot German (or Hebrew o~ Slavic) developments and awaymiddotfrommiddotGerman (or Hebrew or Slavic) developments2

Both from within and without the Jewish community Yiddish was submiddot jected to denigration scorn and criticism with attacks on its lack of authentishycity beauty and autonomy However it was the major language for Jewish cOlllmunication as indicated by the declaration by 97 of the Russian Jews in the 1897 census that Yiddish was their mother tongue Slowly the language gained public defenders especially starting in the nineteenth century It was then that the societal functions of Yiddish expanded in Congress PoshyImd and other parts of the Russian empire Despite problems with official censorship and permission to publish a full range of modern belles lettres developed aided by a stable weekly press starting in 182 A RussianmiddotYiddish diltionary was published in 1869 and a Yiddish-Russian dictionary in 1876 By the end of the century the functions of Yddish embraced such social niches as popular theater and revolutionary propagalda Although Yiddish had betn the centuries-old mediator language for religious education it was first applied as the sole language of instruction in schools with a secular curriculum at the tum of the century In addition at the end of the nineshyteenth century the first Yiddish dailies appeared in America and by 1903 there was one in Petersburg At the outbreak of World War I thirteen Yiddish and two Hebrew dailies were appearing in Russia

The new secular functions of Yiddish were opposed both by the religious establishment and by the emerging political and cultural Zionist movement Hebrew was also being developed at that time as a modern literary language and Zionists generally advanced it as the Jewish national language On the other hand many Jewish labor and revolutionary organizers turned from their base in Russian culture to the formation of Jewish parties and the support of Yiddish The Jewish socialist movements coupled tqeir fight against capitalism with the advocacy of expanded functions for Yiddish in order to broaden the cultura and intellectual horizons of the masses

Di Yiddish-Jmpcrye 279

Influenced by stirrings on the East European ethnic front supporters of a Yiddishmiddotbased nationalism appeared during the years between the revolution of 1905 and World War I Besides demanding political rights intel1ectuals colIected folklore delved into philological research and attempted to codify grammar and orthography All Ihese factors added to the rising prestige of Yiddish4

During the first World War and its aftermath the subject of national minority rights ranked high on the political agenda of the Allies and the emerging mltions The strongest claims Jews made to parity status in Eastern Europe were tied to the role of language in defining the national character of a people In the platforms of the various Jewish nationalist parties emphasis was placed on propagating national culture in Yiddish in literary expression in governmental affairs where Jews were concerned and in slate recognized and supported Jewish school systemss

13y the time the 130lsheviks took power a host of Yiddish political and cultural institutions were in full operation in the former territories of the

-(Tsar However unlike the other revolutionary parties in Russia the Bolshysheviks had virtually neglected work in Yiddish_ Consequently they were unprepared to administer Jewish society Furthermore many of the Yiddish cultural leaders had spent their formative years in Jewish socialist parties and even after some of them joined the Bolsheviks after the Revolution they were never forgiven for their former competing socialist achievement The Bolsheviksl0llowed an ambivalent poli~both granting Jew national statUs and at the same tiamp+le fevslinglheir aSSImilation into the new Soviet

society ---r(ll~t Qm411Jij~t ~11l~ 4J-r1 1f 2 The Short-Lived Cultural Construction After the Revolution

Language Status Planning and Institutional Development

In the years following the Revolution there was a flowering of newly formed Yiddish-language institutions including newspapers schools courts sovitts and industrial and agricultural collectives The construction of a Yiddishshybased culture in many social sectors in geographic areas with sizeable Ashshykenazic Jewish populations namely the Ukraine Belorussia and to a lesser extent the Russian republic paralleled cultural construction for other nationshyalities in the 1920s Later in the 1930s Yiddish institutions were also deveshyloped in Birobidzhan the Jewish autonomous region This deliberate status planning for the Yiddish language had overwhelming consequences for the

l

2 78 Rilkhmie Peltz and Mark W Kie

migration the Slavic component was integrated in the language in lexical and morphologial forms as weU as grammatical constructions Gennanic in fonn but Illoddled after SI~vic usage Jews were largely multilingual and usually had a knowledge of one or several of the languages descended from the stock languages lIf Yiddish Therefore despite the integrated nature of the commiddot ponents speakers of YidOish--orten developed a sensitivit to aspects oT commiddot pOII~ I erences le comp Icated interrelationship between Yiddish and its source Ianguages which sometimes continue to serve as coterritorial vernaculars have influenced standardization processes both in towardmiddot German (or Hebrew o~ Slavic) developments and awaymiddotfrommiddotGerman (or Hebrew or Slavic) developments2

Both from within and without the Jewish community Yiddish was submiddot jected to denigration scorn and criticism with attacks on its lack of authentishycity beauty and autonomy However it was the major language for Jewish cOlllmunication as indicated by the declaration by 97 of the Russian Jews in the 1897 census that Yiddish was their mother tongue Slowly the language gained public defenders especially starting in the nineteenth century It was then that the societal functions of Yiddish expanded in Congress PoshyImd and other parts of the Russian empire Despite problems with official censorship and permission to publish a full range of modern belles lettres developed aided by a stable weekly press starting in 182 A RussianmiddotYiddish diltionary was published in 1869 and a Yiddish-Russian dictionary in 1876 By the end of the century the functions of Yddish embraced such social niches as popular theater and revolutionary propagalda Although Yiddish had betn the centuries-old mediator language for religious education it was first applied as the sole language of instruction in schools with a secular curriculum at the tum of the century In addition at the end of the nineshyteenth century the first Yiddish dailies appeared in America and by 1903 there was one in Petersburg At the outbreak of World War I thirteen Yiddish and two Hebrew dailies were appearing in Russia

The new secular functions of Yiddish were opposed both by the religious establishment and by the emerging political and cultural Zionist movement Hebrew was also being developed at that time as a modern literary language and Zionists generally advanced it as the Jewish national language On the other hand many Jewish labor and revolutionary organizers turned from their base in Russian culture to the formation of Jewish parties and the support of Yiddish The Jewish socialist movements coupled tqeir fight against capitalism with the advocacy of expanded functions for Yiddish in order to broaden the cultura and intellectual horizons of the masses

Di Yiddish-Jmpcrye 279

Influenced by stirrings on the East European ethnic front supporters of a Yiddishmiddotbased nationalism appeared during the years between the revolution of 1905 and World War I Besides demanding political rights intel1ectuals colIected folklore delved into philological research and attempted to codify grammar and orthography All Ihese factors added to the rising prestige of Yiddish4

During the first World War and its aftermath the subject of national minority rights ranked high on the political agenda of the Allies and the emerging mltions The strongest claims Jews made to parity status in Eastern Europe were tied to the role of language in defining the national character of a people In the platforms of the various Jewish nationalist parties emphasis was placed on propagating national culture in Yiddish in literary expression in governmental affairs where Jews were concerned and in slate recognized and supported Jewish school systemss

13y the time the 130lsheviks took power a host of Yiddish political and cultural institutions were in full operation in the former territories of the

-(Tsar However unlike the other revolutionary parties in Russia the Bolshysheviks had virtually neglected work in Yiddish_ Consequently they were unprepared to administer Jewish society Furthermore many of the Yiddish cultural leaders had spent their formative years in Jewish socialist parties and even after some of them joined the Bolsheviks after the Revolution they were never forgiven for their former competing socialist achievement The Bolsheviksl0llowed an ambivalent poli~both granting Jew national statUs and at the same tiamp+le fevslinglheir aSSImilation into the new Soviet

society ---r(ll~t Qm411Jij~t ~11l~ 4J-r1 1f 2 The Short-Lived Cultural Construction After the Revolution

Language Status Planning and Institutional Development

In the years following the Revolution there was a flowering of newly formed Yiddish-language institutions including newspapers schools courts sovitts and industrial and agricultural collectives The construction of a Yiddishshybased culture in many social sectors in geographic areas with sizeable Ashshykenazic Jewish populations namely the Ukraine Belorussia and to a lesser extent the Russian republic paralleled cultural construction for other nationshyalities in the 1920s Later in the 1930s Yiddish institutions were also deveshyloped in Birobidzhan the Jewish autonomous region This deliberate status planning for the Yiddish language had overwhelming consequences for the

l

bull 2110 Rakhllliel Peltz and Mark W Kiel j future development of Jewish culture in the Soviet Union Synagogues and ) religious sdlOols were closed and secular Hebrew literature and thealer were

0 t (i Jhaltcd6 Left with no ~vert competition on the Jewish scene tle new Yiddish i h institutions dominated Jewish culture ~ t--Jr ~ion the only society offering considerable governmental ~v finilllcial support of Yiddish cultural work attracted many Yiddish intelmiddot

ICltulls who envisioned a highly developed Jewish secular culture as an integral part of the new Soviet society Leading Yiddish writers and critics including Bergelson Der nister Erik Markish Shtif and Viner migrated to t1le Soviet Union by 1930s Some were more committed to communism than others but it is extremely difficult from the evidence available to us to describe the complexity of both overlapping and conflicting loyalties of the Soviet Jewish cultural leaders A segment of the Jewish intelligentsia bOlh inside and outside the Soviet Union were advocates of YiddishisllI the espousal of Yiddish language and culture as the major factor for Jewish national identity7 Yiddish language was regarded as the self-conscious medium of secular Jewish culture as law and custom had been the medium

~~ 111 (IV of traditional religious Jewish culture Within the SOviet Union the Yiddish - JvJ language came to be defined as the organic expression of the Jewish people (I -J embodying and insuring an authentic balance struck between Jewish national

tradition and the new culture of Soviet society which itself was a composite of many nationalities Yiddish culture could thus develop within the constelshylation of Soviet nationality cultures Of course the increasing competition with Russian a language already known by a large portion of the growing Jewish urban population caused the Jewish cultural leaders to constantly

~(ll~~ look over their shoulder as they strove to raise the status of Yiddish in its IV assigned social roles ~l~ TIle Jewish sections of~unist party the Yevstktsye (formed

in 191 gana disbanded in 1930) assumed general responsibility for Jewish cultural and economic reconstruction after the Revolution It is hard to disentangle the contradictory attitudes of the Communist Party to Yiddish cultural activity even for the period of widespread construction in the 1920s Jewish members of the general Party resented the existence of the evsekrsye and their cultural work in Yiddish8 Of 45000 Jewish Party members in 1927 18000 declared Yiddish as their mother tongue but of these only 2000 belonged to Yiddish kemerlekh (ceUs) where business was conducted in Yiddish For most Jewish Communists Russian had higher status even some Yevsektsye leaders spoke Russian at home and sent their children to Russian schools At the inception of the Yevsektsye some of its

Di Yiddish-Imperye 21S I

leaders had delcared that they werl) not fanatices of the Yiddish language and as Communists would not bemoan total language assimilation in the future 9 Although the Yevsektsye acquired a negative reputation in many Jewish circles because of assimilationist tendencies and their role in uprooting traditional Jewish Institutions recent stu lies have also demonstrated their variegated nature and positive accomplishm~nts

It was in a hierarchy permeated with ambivalence that the Yevsektsye confronted the central Party and had to justify their custodianship of Yiddi~h cultural activty and indeed their own ~xistence

Most Yiddish institutions housed affiliated local party Kemerlekh owshyever many of the cultural leaders including teachers writers and reseaHhcrs were not party members These veteran architects of Yiddish ism hild to constantly fight for their constructive recommendations 0

Let us brieny examine some of the diverse institutional settings in which Yiddish developed after the Revolution Yiddish nourished as a lal1guage of literature and the arts The greatest contribution of Soviet Jewish culture has been in the area of Yiddish belles lettres1

I But creativity was not limited to the written word Yiddish theater was very popular and it developed on a high artistic level in addition the film medium was experimented with 2

Looking at the record of Soviet publications in Yiddish we see an abunshyJ Jr~J- dant variety of periodicals ranging from daily newspapers to journals in

1- I~ ~ specialized fields of agriculture and industry from magazines for children ~IJV to academic serials J With regard to books 849 Yiddsh books amI bromiddotun IJI) chures appeared just in the first five years following the Revolution4

Altogether some 7237 Yiddish books and pamphlets appeared in the Soviet Union from 1917 through 1948 Of these about half were transla tions mainshyly from Russian belles lettres childrens literature and government writings which included party matters and propagalda Less than ten per cent of the works originally written in Yiddish were of a general party nature 111US

about forty per cent of the publications were of a more Jewish nature in the sense that they were directed towards a specifically Jevish audience TIley spanned diverse subjects but editions of the Yiddish classics (Mendele Sholem Aleykhem and Perets) predominated Of course the works of Sovit Yiddish writers were highly represented reflecting in their thematics new developments in Soviet societyJ 5 TIle Soviet writers consisted of those who had established reputations before the Revolution others who first developed their skills in the flurry of activity after the Revolution and a younger group who were products of the Soviet Yiddish educational system

After they came to power the Comn mists appropriated the existing

~ ~(~Vlht cMM~~ ~ I-shy

CJM I v 1A1 1- Yfl(dlf IH ( 11

_ 2112 Haklullid Peltz alld Mark 11 Kiel

secular Jewish schools and Sovietized them Over the next ten years there was tremendous growth of new Yiddish schools These encompassed a host of premiddotschools four and seven year schools and by 1930 ten year schools beginshyning at age eight Better than fifty per cent of all Jewish children attended Yiddish schools at the height of Yiddish educational development in 1932middot33 While this figure may have lagged behind those of some other ethnic groups it far outstripped the number of students attending Yiddish schools in America and Poland the two other major centers of Yiddish speaking JewryJ6 Only 37 of Jewish students attended middle and professional schools in Yiddish and an even smaller figure went to the Yiddish sections of the universities The few Yiddish institutions of advanced training did not leel the varied needs of the Jews Parents kept their children from attending iddish schools in general because they feared that the inadequate training

in tlrese schools in Russian the regional language or German would prevent I admission to schools of higher education1 7 The Yiddish school curriculum 11 du f~ did in fact include these languages although it was dirficult to teach them

1111 all successfully Besides the general subject matter of all Soviet schools such til as the study of mathematics and Soviet society the Yiddish school also rfJf(lM 11V111 ~J~llItaught specifically Jewish subjects the major ones beng Yiddish language

(W literature and Jewish history with emphasis on the secularization of Jewish tf~1 life and participation in the class struggle 9 Altogether several generations (j ~r of Jews in large numbers passed through the Sovet Yiddish schools until

~A- ~ they WamplJ closed in 1941 YIlt The founding of institutes for advanced study and academic research can

~ bull (iii ~be viewed as the pinnacle of nationality cultural construction Such was the V~tlt case for the Ukrainians and Belorussians and similarly for the Jews Chairs

~~h of Yiddish language and literature were established at several institutions in II I~ I Moscow Minsk Kiev Kharkov and Odessa In addition Yiddish programs ( If~ were offered at a number of professional technical and pedagogical institutes rl-shyThe two major centers of Jewish scholarship were at the Jewish sections of t the Ukrainian and Belorussian Scientific Academies The Kiev Academy housed one of the worlds major Jewish libraries and archives and awarded (11 graduate degress in several programs which were conducted in Yiddish l9

Let us now turn to the inroads Yiddish made in a very different realm of Jewish life in the Soviet Union As a language in the courts and administrative Soviets it experienced a changirl-g history Based on the different guarantees orthe Belorussian and Ukrainian republics Yiddish was tried out in the Vietbsk courts in 1922 by 1931 there were 46 Yiddish courts in the Ukraine ten in Belorussia and eleven in the Russian republic In addition the Jewish

Di Yiddishmiddotmperye 2k3

national soviets and five national regions utilized Yiddish for adminst rative purposes These institutions were manipulated at different times by thc t Jd conflicting interests of the central Russian authority and the ruling nationmiddot U bull ality leaders of the republics Moreover Jews did not always support these Itj institutions or turn to them for help Nevertheless they did function for CDIi almost twenty years requiring such affilates as legal codes in Yiddish as well as police investigators lawyers and judges who could perform functions in the language As late as 1937 there were 20middot25 Yiddish courts amI in 1936 the Kiev court handled 1174 cases20

We will now foclls on Yiddish language planning concerns which grew out of the status planning decisions that assigned societal functions to Yiddish in the Soviet Union Most of the new Yiddish institutions were closed by the beginning of World War II Consequently evaluation of the results of implemellted recommendations an integral part of language planning ill general was rarely achieved by the Soviet Yiddish regulators Moreover in studying the issue today we have little basis for exploring the more commiddot plex relationships such as to what extent language shift in one soci elltl I function may bring about a shift in a second area In retrospect upon COilmiddot

sidering the short lifetime of Soviet Yiddish institutions the accomplishments of language development to meet Jewish needs during this period seem all the more impressive

3 The Arena for Language Development and Planning

The stated goal of the planners was to educate the workers and enrich the Yiddish language so it could be used for new functions Through educatilln the new proletarian Yiddish was to spread under the assumption that the Soviet Jewish worker was interested in pursuing Yiddish cultural 3cl ivily

The extent of organized language planning affected the various sectors differently Conscious planning for meeting language needs was most intense in the press and in the schools soon after the Revolution Linguists and writers created and translated many textbooks for children This was followshyed starting in the mid-1920s by limited activity on the language of the courts and adminstrative governmental bodies Worker organizations were not subject to as much regulation but here too specialized terminologies were eventually developed and worker correspondents actively wrote for local bulletins and the daily press One book for exalilple showed workers how to carryon propaganda work take minules at meetings and dcliver speeches and oral reports

t~frl~uld~1 ul evhJlw IIvv~ ~N(JtI ~W r~

_ 2112 Haklullid Peltz alld Mark 11 Kiel

secular Jewish schools and Sovietized them Over the next ten years there was tremendous growth of new Yiddish schools These encompassed a host of premiddotschools four and seven year schools and by 1930 ten year schools beginshyning at age eight Better than fifty per cent of all Jewish children attended Yiddish schools at the height of Yiddish educational development in 1932middot33 While this figure may have lagged behind those of some other ethnic groups it far outstripped the number of students attending Yiddish schools in America and Poland the two other major centers of Yiddish speaking JewryJ6 Only 37 of Jewish students attended middle and professional schools in Yiddish and an even smaller figure went to the Yiddish sections of the universities The few Yiddish institutions of advanced training did not leel the varied needs of the Jews Parents kept their children from attending iddish schools in general because they feared that the inadequate training

in tlrese schools in Russian the regional language or German would prevent I admission to schools of higher education1 7 The Yiddish school curriculum 11 du f~ did in fact include these languages although it was dirficult to teach them

1111 all successfully Besides the general subject matter of all Soviet schools such til as the study of mathematics and Soviet society the Yiddish school also rfJf(lM 11V111 ~J~llItaught specifically Jewish subjects the major ones beng Yiddish language

(W literature and Jewish history with emphasis on the secularization of Jewish tf~1 life and participation in the class struggle 9 Altogether several generations (j ~r of Jews in large numbers passed through the Sovet Yiddish schools until

~A- ~ they WamplJ closed in 1941 YIlt The founding of institutes for advanced study and academic research can

~ bull (iii ~be viewed as the pinnacle of nationality cultural construction Such was the V~tlt case for the Ukrainians and Belorussians and similarly for the Jews Chairs

~~h of Yiddish language and literature were established at several institutions in II I~ I Moscow Minsk Kiev Kharkov and Odessa In addition Yiddish programs ( If~ were offered at a number of professional technical and pedagogical institutes rl-shyThe two major centers of Jewish scholarship were at the Jewish sections of t the Ukrainian and Belorussian Scientific Academies The Kiev Academy housed one of the worlds major Jewish libraries and archives and awarded (11 graduate degress in several programs which were conducted in Yiddish l9

Let us now turn to the inroads Yiddish made in a very different realm of Jewish life in the Soviet Union As a language in the courts and administrative Soviets it experienced a changirl-g history Based on the different guarantees orthe Belorussian and Ukrainian republics Yiddish was tried out in the Vietbsk courts in 1922 by 1931 there were 46 Yiddish courts in the Ukraine ten in Belorussia and eleven in the Russian republic In addition the Jewish

Di Yiddishmiddotmperye 2k3

national soviets and five national regions utilized Yiddish for adminst rative purposes These institutions were manipulated at different times by thc t Jd conflicting interests of the central Russian authority and the ruling nationmiddot U bull ality leaders of the republics Moreover Jews did not always support these Itj institutions or turn to them for help Nevertheless they did function for CDIi almost twenty years requiring such affilates as legal codes in Yiddish as well as police investigators lawyers and judges who could perform functions in the language As late as 1937 there were 20middot25 Yiddish courts amI in 1936 the Kiev court handled 1174 cases20

We will now foclls on Yiddish language planning concerns which grew out of the status planning decisions that assigned societal functions to Yiddish in the Soviet Union Most of the new Yiddish institutions were closed by the beginning of World War II Consequently evaluation of the results of implemellted recommendations an integral part of language planning ill general was rarely achieved by the Soviet Yiddish regulators Moreover in studying the issue today we have little basis for exploring the more commiddot plex relationships such as to what extent language shift in one soci elltl I function may bring about a shift in a second area In retrospect upon COilmiddot

sidering the short lifetime of Soviet Yiddish institutions the accomplishments of language development to meet Jewish needs during this period seem all the more impressive

3 The Arena for Language Development and Planning

The stated goal of the planners was to educate the workers and enrich the Yiddish language so it could be used for new functions Through educatilln the new proletarian Yiddish was to spread under the assumption that the Soviet Jewish worker was interested in pursuing Yiddish cultural 3cl ivily

The extent of organized language planning affected the various sectors differently Conscious planning for meeting language needs was most intense in the press and in the schools soon after the Revolution Linguists and writers created and translated many textbooks for children This was followshyed starting in the mid-1920s by limited activity on the language of the courts and adminstrative governmental bodies Worker organizations were not subject to as much regulation but here too specialized terminologies were eventually developed and worker correspondents actively wrote for local bulletins and the daily press One book for exalilple showed workers how to carryon propaganda work take minules at meetings and dcliver speeches and oral reports

t~frl~uld~1 ul evhJlw IIvv~ ~N(JtI ~W r~

of the involvement of the press in Inguage planning were the meetings 1 between theoretical standard and actual language use can be quiet called by editors and journalists in Kharkov in 1930 because of their concern ~ C)~~N In Di yidishc sllprakll the chief concern was the ideal kllllIrsllpraklt a

middot2H ilt11kllIllid Idrz alld Mark W Kid

Unguists played the leading role in the language planning process particushylarly after the institutes of advanced Yiddish study were wen organized in Mil1~k starting in I92S and in Kiev a year later Throughout the years howshyever a diverse group of nonlinguist planners were also active in deliberations For example it was the teachers in the Yiddish schools opened for children of displaced faillilies in Russia during World War I who initiated the naturalishy (~~ LMlalioll of the spelling of the Hebrew component of Yiddish They argued that tI orthography based 011 phonetics would make it easier to teach children who ~~ i ~tdid not know lIebrew how to read and write Yiddish correctly Implell1entamiddot ~ J1 tiun was effected by the Yiddish press immediately after the Revolution11 I fAr~t III the early 1920s the press was also tile arena for the first public discussion Ul1ol of which language standard to follow A range of language levels was supportmiddot ~(1) ed in letters to the editor and in meetings with readersl J Another example -

Vi YiddiIt-llllpcryc 2H5

agricultural colonization had become everyday topics for the masses and it was for such needs that ade(luate terminologies were required TIle journal however saw itself in an advisory capacity claiming that it docs not decree it ollly suggests The editor addressed the journal to worker correspondents cultural lelders jurists administrators translators teachers and jourllalists lie invited as contributors nut only language researchers but also COilshy

sumers of the lan1wge3o

SrQlldards TIle standards operating in language planning can be studied from three kinds of sources published descriptions of theoretical standards the producls of corpus planning including terminologies dictionaries grJmmars and the gUidelines described therein and reports of language use Of course the gulf

about non-standardized usage in the nine Yiddish periodicals published rvtlj

there14 Yiddish writers too dicsussed the nature of the literary language in articles and at conferences dedicated to language planning and literary matters15

Other non-linguist planners were active in establishing standards for using Yiddish in its new social niches In working out terminologies for the Yiddish courts lawyers and judges played a key role in the committees first in Minsk and later in Kiev 26 Courses were offered to familiarize party officials with the language of the Yiddish press their chief politital tool27 We do not have much evidence on the working relationship between linguist and nonmiddot linguist planners but one of the only Soviet Yiddish linguists of that period still living reminisces that decisions on lexical differentiation of Yiddish following the Revolution were made in a non-academic environment by linguistic ignoramuses18

The journals and conferences or anized b lin ists b ajor sites for Ian e p anntng Along with a variety of other linguistic research ~1~1~ ~ prgjecir a maJor concern of the linguists was normative work In their first collective volume a product of ac snort-lived philologIcal comniittee in f~II~t Kharkov in 1923 the linguists discussed the principles oflanguage standardishy q(l~zation and called for the active collaboration of teachers school organizers literati and journalists19 The major Soviet journal on Yiddish lingUistics and language planning Di yidishe shprakh IGev was envisioned as a langshyuage laboratory with the aim of breaking conservatism Its editor Shtif claimed that subjects such as international politics law industrialization and

level of language that would apply to diverse situations such as the press teacher conrerences popular science books translalions and the business ornce Three lallguage styles were first offered as potential standards I)

the living olksltprakh defined as the language of buth the existing older generation and or writers up to Sholclll Aleykhem 2) the new literary langmiddot uage reprcscnted by l3ergelson and 3) the actual kllllIrsllprakh most typically represented by the newspaper Confusion over the difference between folk and literary languag was reflected in the definition of olksltprak as hoth spokcn vrnaclllar and literary creation lllis normative journal had detlnite views Rather than mechanically acccpt a foreign inlunshyce the defense of the vlksrpakll was suugh In addlhon tf1el~of the preSs was not a favontest ndard hen tnough it represented a unique style the same linguistic norm were to hold for the press as for the literal) language Although Ilergclsons language loomed high as an acceptable sianshydard reservations were expresseJ about the applicability of the individualistic literary language to the more general kultllrshprakll Even the olksllprakh standard for which Shtif and his journal were later to be repeatedly derided was recognized for its limitations Di )wishe shprukll acknowledgd thDat olksllprakh waS relatively undifferentiated regarding contemporary termiddot minology and was permeated with expressions of the worlds of religion and capitalism3 I

Another point of view was offered by lar ski the leading Soviet Yiddish grammarian who in sited that the maio criterion for Iileralllrc and pnss should be the language which the Jewish worker spoke and understood ll

f~hf ~ V~ltk ~hdIn

2HIJ Nuhlllid llZ awl Mark W Kid

Thus hc ilgreed only partially with Shtirs dual standard which gave primary impol tallce to thc ~pokcll language of the masscs and considercd the languagc of literature secondarily3 3 Pcrhaps the possiblility that the two standards could approach one another was not unreasonable to the Yiddishists who saw the Ianguagc cffect ing a reconciliation betwcen the masses and thc intclshyh~ctualsJ4 Thc Sovict scHool of illgvotekllllik as Iepresented by Zaretski lcccpled ollly thnse critcria for language planning ttat supported the new social order H lie adamantly decried traditional criteria ~tnonnative action

---~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~sllch as purity corrctnes~ beauty and past traditions Such proclamations gave Soviet langutgc plannmg a radical reputation36 _ Indepcndent of wllether this attlihution is appropriate or not recommendations did exclude words tlla suppllrtcd chauvinism and temlS that supported religion Such efforts parlUded tle official exclusion of zhid (derogatory word for Jew) frolll thc new Belorussian dictionary37 These recommendations indicate~ grcat faith in the role that language education could play in trans-milling socialvalues -

If we take -Oe specific example of corpus planning the work of the committee on legal terminology we can see how mUltiple criteria may apply 10 one project TIle committee stated several principles for word fonnation I) understandibility the word of the masses 2)(no hazy broad terms 3) intcrnationalisllls preferred over newly created Yiddish tenns 4) Ukrainian or Russian terms only if used widely by Jews 5) words of Hcbrew origin if they are not archaic remanallts of religious life whose meaning has not been neutralized 6) avoidance of direct calques from Russian38

Ironically by the late 1930s when Yiddish expression and institutions were curtailed the expressed standards for language planning were broadcr more liberal and more variegated than in earlier years This tendency probabshyly rcHected the unwillingness of the planners to be charged with supporting a single standard which could at soml point fall Ollt of favor But much evidence also shows that the linguists eventually operated in a freer frameshywork which allowed them to acknowledge the complex structure and history of Yiddish and to plan for the continuity of its integrity Still despite the acknowledged greater diversification of gUiding principleslimitations remainshycd Unlike thcentir Western contemporaries for example none of the Soviet plannersmtJroposed the language of the talmid-khokiiem the ~eHgious scholar as a suiiibrd ~~ -- _--

SpivakJlo specialized in terminology and morphology and led Yiddish linguistics and ltnguage planning in the later years brought olksllprakh the standard Shtif had championed back to arena He appealed to so-called

~~~

~ I )1(Hl1+-t(l~tt]W) v YINt~ Di Yiddish-Imperye 287

l1UJslltimlckhkayt (the way of the masses) rather than yidishe olkstimlekhshykayt (the way of the Jewish folk) though both actually meant the sallle thing the specifically nationalmiddothistorical form of the language The uniqueshyness of Yiddish Waslotto be O15lTterlned accrudtng to Spi9ak although he supported widespread use of internationalisms Hc argued for lexical stanshydardization an~SCdOiraH ttr~onents of Yiddish which he outlined as linly ~ecoffiiarily Slavk-notlicn-neuiiic Altershynatively we car trace his puristic tendency advocating the elimination of unnecessary Germanisms Hebtaisms that have become superfluous and nonintegrated Sllvisms4 0 bull

While there was an orientation in Soviet Yiddish language planning away from Hebrew and toward Slavic elements we will show latcr in this essay that sllch generalized criteria are greatly oversimplified It should be rshymembered nevertheless that Yidtiish was developing in a society in which both secular and religious Hebrew language activity was drastically curtailed At the same time there was an increasingly p~~e influence of Russian while Yiddish cultural institutions Nere formed side by sidegt91th Ukrainian and Belorussian bodies ~ WIlen we study the structure of Yiddish that was used during this period frIrj in the Soviet Union we find it to have characteristics which are differcnt

Cmiddot1 k Itmiddot from the earlier language as well as from Yiddish of the contemporary period in other parts of the world One published list contained 1500 new terms which dcalt with new social concepts such as one day a week of voluntury work (shabcsllik or kOlmmistisher sllabes) collective farm (kollirt) militant antimiddotreligion campaigners (krigerishe apikorsim) and members of the Communist youth movement (komyugistll) Analogous terms were formed in most languages of the Soviet Union One Soviet observer commentmiddot

l)ltr ed that the common features of the new Yiddish tenninology were thcO emphasis on t e class aspect exactness expressiveness and hightenedU~fhi-J politicization and militancy Structurally the terms consisted largely of

1 cmposites contai~ ing contractions and abbreviations4

IfPj I)~j Along with IFxical innovation morphology and grammar also changed 1(11)111

) Accompanying the productive use of the suffIXes -ish and -ik already COIl1middot lOhil mon to Yiddish -bar common to Gcrman appeared In addition adjectives ~N)IWlJ- were elllployedWiltfe1YwtrmnrotfncoffrpOltfldLwere traditionally used in 11lJhtl1hvM Yiddish Largely under the influence of the Russian language press Yiddish

I V hA I id syntax developed a complicated sentence structure often containing multiph clauscs a tendency that the master sylist Shtif opposed41

eJs~Jd 1 LUI ~ IV

~f I IVf f i f It ~14 yYYuv~~

ll~ ~~t ~_ i N yJwJ11 lM~l lj

-t 10-l~)

t-

yen Ii UItrW ) J ~AII II lllU 11v4~~

2HM RukJllllld Pdtz and Mark W Kid

Confercnces In conferences dedicated to language questions the [l1U scope of language COllst ru t ion was evid~nt the changing publicly approved standards and related dissensions were revealed Foremost on the agenda of the 1928 Sc~und AIlmiddotUnion Cultural Conference in Kharkov was standardized orlllO graphy The conference accepted the guidelines for Yiddish spelling in the Soviet Union which in~~fJhe~eclLwrdtermillal fon~n the alehab~4 3 IJtvakov editor of Der emes (Moscow) gave the key ote address on anguage to the scientific session immediately revealing conflkting standards According to him the folkshprakh should be the object o( linguistic research but only its secular and productive elements For Litvakov however the favored standard was the language of the Soviet press It was the broadmiddotbased field of Yiddish linguistics that was acknowledged in the Conference resolutions Principal attention was given to normative work on the language of schools press and publishing to be accompanied by the production of the gatemiddotkeeping tools of corpus planning - specialized terminologies popular dictionaries for translating Russian Belomssian and Ukrainian and translations of laws into Yiddish Tbe more descriptive work was not neglected however with research planned in fields such as dialecto~ logy and language history FinaUy the idea of institutionalized standardishyzation of language was accepted and norms were demanded for questions of gender plurals verbs inflection and the use of prepositions4 4 _

In 1931 the First All-Union Yiddish Language Conference was convened in Kiev under the auspices of the Institute for Jewish Culture of the Ukrainshyian Academy of Sciences and the AlImiddotUnion Conununist Academy The partishycipation of the latter political group was repeatedly mentioned seemingly to indicate the proper attention to political responsibility that was then required of academic and cultural endeavors The Yiddish work was presented with reference to Marxist goals in general linguistics yet no commitment was made to anyone existing approach Forced to look inward at its faulty record Yiddish language planning was accused of transgressions Despite the highly charged and critical tone the conference of 1931 left room for some diversity and independence Although folksJzprakh was discouraged as a standard a gate was constructed to impede anjnflux of Russian elements into Yiddish~standardiZaTIOnwas maintained but the new mltitall[ fiddtsh shprakJzfront openly decried any individualistic standards A battle against Yiddish linguistics outside the Soviet Union was declared whereas domestically Shtif received the bmnt of criticism especially because of his interest in older language sources In short we see changes in the

Ul~ ltI VI ~ ~l -I ~ f I k f r-f ~+w~~1 IlAIV ) Qvtt ~~ hjU lj~

J~ ~- QY ~ CAn lVN)

Di YiddilhIllperye 21llJ

organizing authorities of the conference the phraseology used the question or the association of Yiddish linguistics to broader Soviet society and in the realm of criticism in which the new vitriolic air rendered previous criticism of standards modest by comparison4

5

The Ukrainian Yiddish Language Meeting in Kiev in 1934 Signified an important assertion by the lingUists and language planners of control over their work The report of the meeting confirms the participation of the proper political authorities as in 1931 but their contributions were limited to short speeches The dominating enterprise was clearly lengthy scientific addresses The list of participants provides a picture of the public setting for language planning at this time Of the 166 voting delegates from 25 citils 33X were researchers 34 journalists 30 teachers and only 27 party leaders 56 were not party members 37 party members and 770 COlli

munist YOllth 59 possessed higher education and 41 high school level education

The prevailing political standards for linguistic work in 1934 were succinctshyly posited by the Jewish party intellectuals LJberberg and Levitan and immiddot portantly corroborated in the speeches of the Ukrainian leaders Zatonski and Khvilya TIle lUltsdemishe and purist tendency of nurturingfolkslimlckllshykayl represented by the then deceased Shtif was to be avoided Rather the masses were to he raised to a higher level At the same time the planners had to refrain bull om leftist imperialist chauvinism mainly the arlilical introduction of Russian as a standard The chief political idea was thus the struggle on two fronts The 1934 meeting distinguished itself however bY the strong critique of the leftist stance a critique only weakly expressed in 1931 Surprisingly the Ukrainian officials backed this position for Yiddish even thollgh the analogous advocacy for Ukrainian vis a vis Russian was considered treason in both 1931 and 1934 By 1934 the linguists strong message was that Yiddish linguistics would continue on an autonomous and purist path They criticized those who ignore the specifics of Yiddish as well as every bureaucratic inteference in language planning in effect rejecting the politicization of 193146

Using publislled guidelines and conference reports from 1928 through 1924 we have followed diversification in both the sources and goals of Soviet Yiddish language planning Even in 1931 the time of electrified faultfinding and political intrusion the initiation of criticism of the leftist position enabled the linguists to later bounce back in 1934 and defend a stance which protected the historical evolution of Yiddish Although the record is full of repeated contradictions Soviet Yiddish linguists remained dedicated to language planning -- ---

)J (Jif~~~ tlJ ~ )~ctw-lt- ~ ll)~-~ lmiddot~ J)J~ l - ~ )W- J~r J 1~~

1~O Rukllllliel Peltz alld Mark hi Kiel

Polcmics lJuring the time of Jewish cultural construction controversy accompanied experirllentJtion on language 47 The polemics which enveloped the appli- calion of Yiddish to an array of social functions covered a multitude of questions relating to the nature of linguistic r~search the language of the ncwspJper the use of traditional phraseology the influence of Russian the relationship to neighboring Belorussian and Ukrainian the role of the Hebrew component and the nature of language in education

The field of Yiddish linguistics was ridiculed for its involvement in theoshyrectical rathcr than practical work even though the linguists maintaincd a consistent and sincere dedication to language planning TIle Minsk institute whkh camc under more political control tlian Kiev after the death of its ICOlJcr Vcyngcr in Ihe beginlling of 1929 was chided for its two hwjor proshyjccts a linguistic atlas and an academic Yiddish dictionary Dialectology was takcn to tlsk for its geographic basis which neglected the study of social dialcctsThe orthodox Marxists were searching for support or the new social order through linguistic research Zaretski and Shtif resisted this pressure by maintaining that linguistics possessed neither the methods nor the experience to depict the social differentiation of contemporary speech48 Both men however suggested programs for recording local speech

TIle mljor sparring however took place over the language of the press The Soviet newspapers in the 1920s represented a range of language levels from a Yiddish full of Russian words (proste Yiddish) in Der veker (Minsk) to the purist Yiddish of the editor Utvakov in Der emes (Moscow) In between stood Di komunistishe fon (Kiev) which declared that we do not write nor do we seek to write either for the inteligent or in a vulgar fashion 49 Journalists and political leaders we~e interested in matters of style and actively took part in evaluating and regulatingthe journalistic language For example Der shtern (Kharkov) surveying the reactions of their readers found that nine hundred out of 1153 respondentswere satisfied with the newspapers language but 138 (mostly older than 30) complained of too many Hebrew words others protested against foreign words and abstruse (tifyidishc) literary terms that were not understandable5o

The response to claims of unintelligibility came from Utvakov Because our Soviet life is becoming Yiddishized new words must be created which are not understandable in the beginning But he also argued to the contrary that the young readers forced the editors to use incorrect nonmiddotYiddhh expressionss I

TIle lingUists monitored the press and analyzed its language52 They

Di YiJdish-lmperye 2lt I

noted the presence of innovative words new kinds of substantivization and adjeclivizat JIl and use of suri1xes which connote great emotion such as -a) -ray -ev(ll middotyada for terms describing revolutionary goals Regarding the influence of Russian the newspapers were found to avoid borrowing old Russian words but often to adopt new Soviet Russian words For example in the same pier ispolkom competed with the Yiddish version oJsfirmiddot kOlllitct (executive committee) However the main influence of Russian was identified in sentence structure As we hav~ct-thiswas Shtifs majo bUneof contenIT6rf Heilllied himself with the newSpaper etlitms Utvakoy-and )JiPrakh in defending the traditional phraseology of YiddishS 3

But Utvakov refused to accept this alliance claiming that Shtif and his jnumal resisld everything new while nurturing that which is ancient S 4

011 the pa s of Di yidislte ~Jprakh and the daily press attacks and counterattacks cn~ued during 198middot1929 with the journal ad vocating purism and folkshflraldl and the newsmen defending their revolutionary iallguOlge

open to new words and foreign 10ansS 5 Of course the language of the press was far from monolithic as we have discussed Not only did politicians and jOllfllalists attack linguists but splits developed within the linguist camp with Zaretski and the orthodox party linguist Gitlits disavowing purism as the best approach to planning56 The common address for blame was Shif the linguist holding most responsibility His old interest in medieval Yiddish literature and in collecting folksayings was ridiculed by those who denigrated his planning considerations based on folkshprakh He was the major figure during the public recantation of linguistic work in 1932 After his death in 1933 as had earlier been the case for Veynger he became yet a more convenicnt scapegoaLS 7

flDuring the confusing time of vacillating standards caustic attacks and political pressure (1929middot1932) the linguists sometimes took shortmiddotJivcd ex-rrCillepoSlTloils Thus the encouragement of a new influence of Russian on the developing Yiddish language of culture a position held by only a few political leaders and journalists was transiently espoused by Zaretski5

8

His proposal of a new Yiddishmiddot Russian language was accompanied by a renunciation of Ihis stance by his editor Shtif in a prologue to the work and elsewhere by more lengthy criticism S 9 As we have seen Zaretski was forced to disavow the pOSition which became the disapproved leftist side of the doublemiddotedged plank in the 1934 conference

Although the attitudes of both Yiddish speakers and linguists toward the stock Iallbuages and different linguistic components have always varied th Soviet Yiddish language planners in gelleral accepted lIe old integrated Slavic

1 1 )U~ ~ j~~ ~~n C(yI J f( A2IfPW 1 L(j~ I rtJ~

1L ~I ~ -0 ~ivT1t Uukl~ Imiddot -111 ~ ~ ~

1~O Rukllllliel Peltz alld Mark hi Kiel

Polcmics lJuring the time of Jewish cultural construction controversy accompanied experirllentJtion on language 47 The polemics which enveloped the appli- calion of Yiddish to an array of social functions covered a multitude of questions relating to the nature of linguistic r~search the language of the ncwspJper the use of traditional phraseology the influence of Russian the relationship to neighboring Belorussian and Ukrainian the role of the Hebrew component and the nature of language in education

The field of Yiddish linguistics was ridiculed for its involvement in theoshyrectical rathcr than practical work even though the linguists maintaincd a consistent and sincere dedication to language planning TIle Minsk institute whkh camc under more political control tlian Kiev after the death of its ICOlJcr Vcyngcr in Ihe beginlling of 1929 was chided for its two hwjor proshyjccts a linguistic atlas and an academic Yiddish dictionary Dialectology was takcn to tlsk for its geographic basis which neglected the study of social dialcctsThe orthodox Marxists were searching for support or the new social order through linguistic research Zaretski and Shtif resisted this pressure by maintaining that linguistics possessed neither the methods nor the experience to depict the social differentiation of contemporary speech48 Both men however suggested programs for recording local speech

TIle mljor sparring however took place over the language of the press The Soviet newspapers in the 1920s represented a range of language levels from a Yiddish full of Russian words (proste Yiddish) in Der veker (Minsk) to the purist Yiddish of the editor Utvakov in Der emes (Moscow) In between stood Di komunistishe fon (Kiev) which declared that we do not write nor do we seek to write either for the inteligent or in a vulgar fashion 49 Journalists and political leaders we~e interested in matters of style and actively took part in evaluating and regulatingthe journalistic language For example Der shtern (Kharkov) surveying the reactions of their readers found that nine hundred out of 1153 respondentswere satisfied with the newspapers language but 138 (mostly older than 30) complained of too many Hebrew words others protested against foreign words and abstruse (tifyidishc) literary terms that were not understandable5o

The response to claims of unintelligibility came from Utvakov Because our Soviet life is becoming Yiddishized new words must be created which are not understandable in the beginning But he also argued to the contrary that the young readers forced the editors to use incorrect nonmiddotYiddhh expressionss I

TIle lingUists monitored the press and analyzed its language52 They

Di YiJdish-lmperye 2lt I

noted the presence of innovative words new kinds of substantivization and adjeclivizat JIl and use of suri1xes which connote great emotion such as -a) -ray -ev(ll middotyada for terms describing revolutionary goals Regarding the influence of Russian the newspapers were found to avoid borrowing old Russian words but often to adopt new Soviet Russian words For example in the same pier ispolkom competed with the Yiddish version oJsfirmiddot kOlllitct (executive committee) However the main influence of Russian was identified in sentence structure As we hav~ct-thiswas Shtifs majo bUneof contenIT6rf Heilllied himself with the newSpaper etlitms Utvakoy-and )JiPrakh in defending the traditional phraseology of YiddishS 3

But Utvakov refused to accept this alliance claiming that Shtif and his jnumal resisld everything new while nurturing that which is ancient S 4

011 the pa s of Di yidislte ~Jprakh and the daily press attacks and counterattacks cn~ued during 198middot1929 with the journal ad vocating purism and folkshflraldl and the newsmen defending their revolutionary iallguOlge

open to new words and foreign 10ansS 5 Of course the language of the press was far from monolithic as we have discussed Not only did politicians and jOllfllalists attack linguists but splits developed within the linguist camp with Zaretski and the orthodox party linguist Gitlits disavowing purism as the best approach to planning56 The common address for blame was Shif the linguist holding most responsibility His old interest in medieval Yiddish literature and in collecting folksayings was ridiculed by those who denigrated his planning considerations based on folkshprakh He was the major figure during the public recantation of linguistic work in 1932 After his death in 1933 as had earlier been the case for Veynger he became yet a more convenicnt scapegoaLS 7

flDuring the confusing time of vacillating standards caustic attacks and political pressure (1929middot1932) the linguists sometimes took shortmiddotJivcd ex-rrCillepoSlTloils Thus the encouragement of a new influence of Russian on the developing Yiddish language of culture a position held by only a few political leaders and journalists was transiently espoused by Zaretski5

8

His proposal of a new Yiddishmiddot Russian language was accompanied by a renunciation of Ihis stance by his editor Shtif in a prologue to the work and elsewhere by more lengthy criticism S 9 As we have seen Zaretski was forced to disavow the pOSition which became the disapproved leftist side of the doublemiddotedged plank in the 1934 conference

Although the attitudes of both Yiddish speakers and linguists toward the stock Iallbuages and different linguistic components have always varied th Soviet Yiddish language planners in gelleral accepted lIe old integrated Slavic

1 1 )U~ ~ j~~ ~~n C(yI J f( A2IfPW 1 L(j~ I rtJ~

1L ~I ~ -0 ~ivT1t Uukl~ Imiddot -111 ~ ~ ~

2S12 Jltuklllllid Ietz and Mark hi Kid

forms (the Slavic component) as a property of the language but stood firmly against the introduction of new Russian forms Soviet linguists paid increased attention to deterllinh~g the historical influence of Slavic languages on tlte development of Yiddish but rarely went beyond using Russian for calques in the new lexicon6o They were generaUy proud of the new Yiddish innvoations which were accepted instead of Russian forms (kemerl vsyatsiteyke party cell kOlirl vs kolkhoz collective faml shlogler vs udalllik shock worker)

In the discussion oflanguage standards there was hardly mention of a new inlhunce of neighboring Belorussian and Ukrainian on the development of the Slav~c component of Yiddish During the official campaigns against the cultur~1 mdependcnce of these nationalities and the purges of their lingUists the Yiddish planners avoided extensive involvement in the issue After the first purge the newly appointed head of the Ukrainian Unguistics Institute published in Yiddish a veiled warning aimed at the Yiddish plallllers6 I

11lc few brief references in Yiddish to the deposed lingUists consistently excoriated the language destroyers (shprakhlekhe shediker) Moreover one of the resolutions of the 1934 Yiddish conference clearly stated the in demiddot pcndence of the Yiddish planners who therein claimed for Yiddish a common lexical base with German not Russian Not mincing words the conference declared Do not apply to Yiddish in a superficial vulgarized fashion the scheme of the struggle on the Ukrainian and Belorussian linguistic fpoundOlIt62

The attempt to dehebraize to remove the lIebrew component from Yiddish is one of the most widely discussed issues relating to Yiddish in the Soviet Union Careful study of the issue shows it however to have been limited to three presentations in the linguistic Iiterature6 3 TIle position was soon rejected by the linguistic establishmentsWng_ahistorICal and against the illtegrity---of nddlslf~ess more than any other issue Ihe

Vi YiduisldtJpcrye 2JJ

required in the dlily news while journalists who were more influenced by the Russian of the day avoided such borrowings6 8 An examination of some of Ihe specialized terminologies shows many recommended terms from the lIebrew component without evidence of dehebraization of the lexicon6 Y

In addition the treatises of the hlllglage planners themselves made fuliuse of the lIebrew component70 Yet evidence emerging from comparing different editions of the sallie text shows that some terms from the Hebrew component were displaced in belles lettres in the 1930s1I A study of language use in various social sectors would be required to determine the extent to whkh conscious dehebraization of Yiddish was practiced Certainly hy the late 1930s Ilebrew was part of the heterogeneous pantheon of souriS in Yiddish- ~ lallguage planning 7

2 )( JVU) IlJY- S ilV-u ~e v~ bullf~ M

Virtually every aspect of the controversies relating to langu ge in general was reflected in the dialogues on the nature of language instruction in the schools On one issue the relative attention givCntograiififfilrrri--tIH curTimiddot culliiilshtif was pitted against grammarians such as Zaretski Shtif thought that grammar as taught in the Yiddish schools since the publication of Zaretskis grammar text in 19267

3 presented lingUistic models from an artistic literary language that were impossible for most students to emulate lie prerered language study through field observation and practical use in writing and speaking rather than the formal study of rules which apply to an esoteric lallguage Hecognition according to ShHf was to be given to the ingrained knowledge that the children brought with them to the primary grades74 Shtif wanted more stress placed on stylistics on the mastering of the langmge which is spoken and written rather than on rules which are formulated hy grammarians lie did recognize a place for grammar in the curriculum but his critics misinterpreted him as denying the legitimacy of

7h I I (he field per se S

suggested dehebraization en~d Yiddish -iIitenectuiISoilTSrae-Ui-e-S6viet Jl e~ l1Vi JIi~ One of the most debated problems dealt with the role of the schools in ~~n S The tiini~~ 1gtf this recom~endat-~on c~n be interpreted ~s-coirlcid-IIlg with great political pressure to cut ties With non-communist planners outside the Soviet Union In addition the discussion of dinlinishing the lIebrew component the component of Yiddish which could be identified as most specifically Jewish occurred at the heigh of the campaign against the Belorussians and Ukrainians for nurturing their natural specificity66 This period 1929-1931 also coincided with the iconoclastic cultural revolushylioll occurring in the Soviet Union in genera167

As with other lanbruage questions the attitude toward the Hebrew commiddot ponent was varied Litvakov often drew from Hebrew for new Yiddish words

CfI ~ i implementing stan~ardized pronunciat~ orthoepia for Yiddish To this day Yiddish cultural leaaers throughout tne w01ld have never expressed consensus on whether standardized pronunciation is necessary But Yiddish teachers both in and outside the Soviet Union in the 1920s were faced with the practical prohlem of determining which dialect to teach their students The Soviet language planners helc various positions Veynger supported the Uthuanian dialect as the spoken standard whereas Tsvayg argued that not even the Minsk State Theater exhibited a uniform spoken language7Igt Spivak as did Bimboym outside the Soviet Union argued against orthoepia as a destructive force in language development 77 It presented the danger of

middot 2~4 Rakhmiel Peltz alld Mark IV Kiel

unsettling the childs linguistic ties to his home where the local dialect was sl ill spoken Teachers pointed to the confusion Jewish children in the Ukraine would face when they would be trained in a standard Yiddish based 011 the Lithuanian dialect and then would have to make sense of the Ukrainshyian Yiddish dialect of Sholem Aleykhems charactersS

Zarctski demonstrated an understanding of the problems complexity and a~ldlilglydistinguished between a maximal and minimal approach to slandardiled pronuncial0n thelOimer a thoroughgoing procesntlitable for theater performances and formal occasions the latter appropriate for the schools and tolerant of al1 but the most extreme provincialisms using it for dklation and reading but not speaking Zaretski made clear the difficulty of the undertaking and stressed the need for greater research into the que~tioll for general conceptual analysis the gathering of statistics 011 word usage and the determination of standardized pronunciation of new intershynational and Russinn borrowing into Yiddish79

Continuities alld Discontilluities (t would be unfair in the light of contradictory standards and shifts in positions of idividual language planners to establish a regular scheme of development for Yiddish in the Soviet Union between the two World Wars Despite the uneven course of Soviet Yiddish language planning which to a certain extent reflects properties of both the general discipline and the specific case of the field in the Soviet Union we must search for explanations of problems related to Yiddish language in both its broadest social perspective and most specific level of the individual speaker and planner The history of Yiddish provides a background for the problem and the greater picture of Soviet society provides a timetable for the observed changes Although we noted divergences from Yiddish developments outside the Soviet Union and from happenings on the internal Soviet nationality front the parallels must also be drawn

Despite the fact that Yiddish was applied to diverse societal settings also in Poland and the Baltic states and to a lesser degree in the communities of Jewish immigration in the western hemisphere nowhere else did the diversity of application and the level of productivity reach that of the Soviet Union TIle major rival language planning effort was that of the Yivo in Vilna which was able to effect a wide range of research and normative projects without government supportJoth the Yivo and Soviet efforts stressed standardization development of a kulturshprakh and the Ydd~~-amp~lha mediator and an oDJect of research The two plans for standardized orthogapnyfor

~ Vu VI 0 JI i f f middotrt-fl(t

Vi Yiddishmiddotmperye 295

example possess many more shared principles than divergent points Compared with the unfoldment of language and culture for other Soviet

nationalities the Yiddish scene presents both similarities and discrepanciesso

In general CIUural construction proceeded through the 1920s but faced more restrictio~cel1fiarconlrotaneLl928 It was then that lolkshprakh as a standard wasatiackedthat some orthe more academic language research projects were curtailed and that dehebraization was suggested For the constructive cultural work Yiddish could follow a tradition started before the Revolution that did not require a cadre of newly trained nationalist leaders as in the korellizatsiia process for other nationalities Many Jewish political and cultural activists previously affiliated with other revolutionary parties joined lilt Bolsheviks sJOn after the Revolution Later Yiddish lallgu~JML[lJJlliliJlg did not undergo the same convulsive purges asdld the Bclorussia n a lid-Uki-ainian- endeavornUn[jnglinhe-rateI920~One reason was that the twoleadirs-Veyriger anaShtif died conven-ieiltly allowing for reorganization The Yiddish effort in Minsk was then greatly diminished and subjected to supervision by Jewish politicians On the Ukrainian nationality language front the work of the newly appointed linguists after the purges has been characterized as polemics of little scholarly substance82Jhe_ Yiddish work in Kiev on the other hand retained a rather high level The new UkfaTfiianllOnnative work shoved a blatant gravitation toward Russian and to decry this standard was treasonous At the same time the rejection of a direct Russian inllllence on Yiddish language planning )as an approvep gllidelinevydciJr4 t(~N S~-~ 4-kJ IIItlvtCf dMJ-atll~

The Yiddish alphabet shared with -Hebrew and other Jewish languages -t pound ( fU was also a sign of the relative independence of Jewish cultural work While most other languages with non-Cyrillic alphabets were subject to Latinization and Cyrillization Yiddish retained its alphabet with relatively minor changes being introduced by the new standards for orthography Latinization was brielly discussed but not any more so than in the non-Soviet Jewish cultural world s

Cyrillization was hardly mentioned Not only was the alphabet conserved but the language as a whole which the planners called Soviet Yiddish starting in 1934 was also largely the same as Yiddish outside the Soviet Union A1though we lack evidence for the spoken language of the period such was the case for the extensive literature produced

Language was embedded in Soviet society and subject to all the disrupshytions which iudividuals and institutions experienced A Soviet Yiddish linguist of the period reminiscing in 1967 commented that the factors which dictatshyed language issues were not the struggles on the pages of newspapers and of

llm jlYr1-f1(p thtamp r~Wt-r l1 ~f

J(I I V IN uJ ho~

~

21J() Hukllllliel Peltz ami Mark W Kiel Ijjfn rtJ ltvJi ~LrvtI1 J(~V JfJI t -I~ ~V1f (Of

Iingnistics journals but life itself83 Vacillating short-lived positions should - fV

not always be interpreted by rational arguments One might expect that the Yiddish wOlk wascloseJy controlled by the central party in Moscow Ilowshyever a former Yelsektsye leader has clainled that such directives were relashytively rare but that the -Yiddish C1tuJ~H _p_r~cticed much second guessing i~ting and reinte[pretirtamp_il_U_~c~lamp_ and -c-ou-riieratacking The imOlediate response to their ihterpretationas ofie-n-baseltCnot on who was more cOllllllunist or liberal but rather on geographic rivalries and quesshytions of hegemony84 In an atmosphere in which no interpretation of a socal is~lIe is guaranteed long life we still can recognize individuality For example even thollgh Shtif and Zaretski were subjected to sharp criticism and forced puhlk recantation they managed to make substantial contributions to descriptive and prescriptive language work in addition to the short-lived extreme positions they represented

The planners were individuals with different backgrounds and capabilities Although exhibiting varying degrees of enthusiasm and dedication their work committed all of them to constructing Yiddish institutions thus conshytinuing a tradition predating the Revolution They operated however in a greater society of Jews and non-Jews which was ambivalent towards their goal This society supported or tolerated their activity during the early 1920s but during the 1930s viewed it as a threat a nationalist deviation Ironically there could be relative freedom in language planning in the late 1930s because the dOlllain for applying decisions was shrinking Much of the vacillation exshyhibited in Yiddish language work points to the tightrope the planners walked as they built Yiddish institutions while at the same time attempting to intershypret the changing and often unarticulated attitudes of the Soviet leadership

By the late 1930s most of the Yiddish institutions were only shadows of their expanding forms of ten years earlier Although Yiddish linguists were not killed at the time of linguistic purgers for other nationalities in the late 1930s many Yiddish political and cultural leaders including a group of outstanding writers in Minsk were arrested and killed8s Soviet Yiddish

ch~~s1n~~~1~~jinitI~~mr1tt~~e~ ~JW~ LkJr 6lw amp l(dcwAshy

4 World War II Until Today M~ Reprieve Destruction Isolated Maintenance

Although Soviet Jews represent the only sizeable East European Jewish cummunity remaining today and exhibiting continuity the cataclysms

Vi Yiddisli-Illlpcrye 21)7

which they have experienced since World War II render futile any comparison with Ihe irst decades following the Revolution Firstly the Soviet-German pact in 1939 put areas to the West with large Jewish populations under SOiet nIle Theil after Germany attacked the Soviet Union Jewish civilians were brutally killed and many Jewish soldiers fell whlle serving in the Red army In addition segmellts of the popUlation were dislocated eastward during the war Defore much chance for recovery practically all remaining Jewish institutions were closeiQYJJ~~state in 2A8-arld betweenthtyeii3iiif 1953 thous~Tcws~~ere incarcerat~d In the late 1960s Jewish emigration mainly aimed at Israel began and associated nationalist dissidence sprouted up All these demographic and political changes jolted every aspect of Jewi~h life

The Yiddish institutions already on the wane never recovered their statme but the onset of World War II did allow for some new activity In the newly occupied areas existing Jewish insitutions were disbanded and Yiddish ones were establbhed 011 the Soviet l11odel including schools and newspapcr~ These lasted until the Germans attacked Yiddish writers however were pUI ill an awkward position by the new Soviet collaboration since they were IlO longer permitted to criticize the Nazis Yet very soon the order was reversshyed The Nazis overran large areas specifically destroying the Jewish popuJshytion Practically the only surviving Yiddish institutions were the newly formed Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and its weekly EJIikayt The sole inheritor of Yiddish language planning and scholarship the smal Office for the Study of Soviet Yiddish IJterature Language and Polkore was evaluated from Kiev to the East Its language planning activity was Iil1lited to a study on the language of the War86 During the war Yiddish books that appeared exhibited more specifically Jewish content This trend continued in the years after the war when Yiddish writers wrote on nationalist themes and expressed solidarity with their decimated people

lJy 1949 a halt was J~YiddisUal1gu~ge institutions the then thrice-weekly 1)mkaJ1fihe Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee the Emes ing house (M()~cow) the short-lived periodicals lIeYllllallt (Moscow) Lkr shtcm (Kiev) and Birobidzhall the few remaining schools ill IJirobidlhan Kovne and Vilna and all Yiddish theaters including the Jewish State Theater in Moscow TIle only remnant was the modest Birobidzllallcr shtcm which still appears three times a week consisting of translations frol11 the Soviet news services but containing almost nothing specific to Jewish culture Access to Yiddish books was lallesLJIlpuhlic libraries and hook stores and the academic collections in Kiev were dumped into caves and used to

-------~-----

r ~ 111 lJUtiJ-1 ~ i~A1~ (J Ji ~

21)8 Rakhlllicl Peltz and Mark W Kid

wrap food The leading Yiddish intellectuals were arrested charged with ~1i61-alld executed in 1952 including the linguist Spivak the actor Zuskin and the writers Bl1rgelson Fefer H9fshteYl)1 ~yitko Markish and Pcrsov87 rf V(~iJmiddotJf 01 JIi middotti I IAJtr~J

Yiddish culture in the Soviet Union never recov~red from that blow The major public voice of Soviet Jews to appear since then Is the journal Sovetish Iwymlaml (Moscow) founded in 1961 and appearing now as a monthly It is thc largest (in pages per year) Yiddish language journal appearing in the wurld Mostly consisting of belles leUres it includes memoirs notes on Prrformanccs art work and political commentary After 1967 it developed a vituperative stance towards Israel Despite the emigration of many writers to brael the journal has been able to maintain rather high literary stanshydardss

S Recently it announced the training of young Yiddish editors and pllh1i~hed some of their writingss

II Two studies of the language of the jourshynal have shown some of the specificities of the past including the influence of the Soviet normativists who were more open to recent German innuence that other Yiddish standardizers9o However on the whole Yiddish literature in the Soviet Union as elsewhere inherited the general standards established in the literary language of the late nineteenth century Since 1958 only about eighty Yiddish books have been published but 444 Yiddish works have been translated into Russian and other Soviet languages One observer calls these translations the major phenomenon of Jewish cultural life in the USSR91 The only ongoing research project in Sovetish lIeymlafd is a lexicon of Soviet Yiddish writers which had been started in Minsk in the 1930s92

Although linguistics and language planning have not been major topics in the journal when Shapiro (the author of an announced but yet to appear new Russian-Yiddish and Yiddish-Russian dictionary) wrote that he recomshyIllended eliminating archaic and bookish elements of the Hebrew commiddot ponen t he was accused from across the ocean of creating an elementary language93 Another polemic in which the focus was reminiscent of the 930s criticized the linguist contributors to the journal for neglecting the olkshprakh standard94 Dut the language planners no longer had institutions for which tu plan On the positive sides monthly Yiddish lessons in Russian were il1Stituted by the journal in 1969 and with the initiation of publication of adjunct booklets to the journal each month three collections of lessons have appeared in this fonn 95 These represent the first Yiddish textbooks to appear in the Soviet Union since before World War II

-The Russian-Yiddish dictionary was published in 1984_ (Editor)

I t1f I l Yiddislt-Impcrye 2)()~ll 1 a (wry (u1Jdi i~~j4gtliwrJGl))

Outside the realm of Sovetish heymland Yiddish activity has only been sporadic and oftill1es discouraged by the authorities No Yhhlish schools have bccn reopened neither was the ~11~uag_e~_~~s~UirulY_olacialJllJiitushytion 1-nmiddot~-fiOwever elementary -Yiddish language instruction was introshyduced in three schools in Birobidzhan and in 1982 a Yiddish primer for schoolchildren appeared there1I6 Requests by individuals to the authorities for perll1ission to start Yiddish classes (not publicized in the USSR) have been met with negative replies II 7 Although the underground nationalistic awakening of Soviet Jews have largely been associated with Zionism Hehrew culture and Hebrew language instruction there have also been reports of SOllie unofficial instruction in Yiddish 98 Despite the fact that Yiddish has sometimes been associated by young activists as an official Jewish culture which collaborates with the government some other youth especially from the Western territories which became part of the Soviet Union more recently identify the language as a positive part of their personal heritage9 9

The clements of Yiddish culture which have had the most popular appeal have been concerts of Yiddish song which were permitted to start in the latc 1950s and theater performances which started in the early I 960S1 00 III addition shortwave radio transmissions in Yiddish from Israel (one halfhouo twice daily in the mid-1970s) are popular among Soviet Jews 101

Throughout our study we have neglected the spoken language because of the abscnce of adequate data We know that schools press and literature will not guarantee maintenance of a language in the absence of actors at home or in the greater society which add to the prestige or positive feeling towards the language Except for the newly expressed dissident movement which has given its support to Hebrew and not Yiddish we know of no group-instigated forces other than the Yiddish language institutions which could further Yiddish maintenance On the other hand since Yiddish was the language of the home of almost all Ashkenazic Jews in the Russian empire continuation of ethnic identity might be aided by warm feelings tu family traditions despite the dislocating forces We must ask has Yiddish been maintained as a spoken language of Jews in the Soviet Union

The evidence is not easily interpreted but shows a continual decline in Yiddish as claimed mother tonuge or second language Mostly based on Soviet census data it is subject to criticism For example a study based on emigrant ethnic Germans has shown that some individuals misdailll nationality and that inexact listing of nationality results from ethnically mixed marriages In addition the assertion of mother tongue was noted as reflecting emotional overtones and not necessarily language knowledge

101oruse

JOO Uakhlllid ldrz alld JIIark W Kid

Spedlk corrections to the data on Jews have to be made bacause uf the calcgllfY Jewish language which includes the Jewish languages of oriental Jews 03 and because comparison for different years should correct for changes in border 04 Corrected figures give a comparison for the per cent or Jews dedaring Yiddish as their mother tongue in the following decreasshying proportion 969 (1897) 726 (1926) 410 (1939) beased on incompletely published data) 179 (1959)10 S Noncorrected data from Snvict sources show further figures of 177 (1970) and 142 (1979V 06

MOIc()ver the census as an indicator of linguistic Russification of Jews slwws even more striking ligures than for the decrease of Yiddish as declared ilOlher tongue In the Slavic republics for example the percentage of Jcws who declared Russian as their first language was betweell 85middot90 ill 1979 and those who declared it as either their first or second language was higher than 98107

Although it is clear that proficiency in s ~akingand understanding Yiddish has ecreasc WI resu ts or Russian having occurred we can also be sure that we do not have any basis for quantitation of this prot1ciency Studies on recent immigrants to the United States give confusing results with which to view the Soviet census data One study of a group with 70 deriving from the Ukraine and only 8 from Moscow and Leningrad showed 13 declaring Yiddish as native language and 30 speaking it fluently another group with only 24 from the Ukraine and 45 from Moscow and Leningrad reponed that 56 spoke or understood some Yiddish 08 The latter group would be expected to be the more lingUistically Russit1ed yet it indicated a high percentage of passive knowledge of Yiddish supposedly the percentshyage for the first group if measured would have been much higher than for the second Therefore the mother tongue and second language census categories should not be considered to be laden with enough information to allow us to discount varying degrees of knowledge and language proficiency The only study known to us about linguistic characteristics of the Yiddish of recent immigrants showed that for older Ukrainian Jews who were often displaced from their birthplace at an early age and claimed to have spoken mostly Russian during their adult lives all phonological markers studied in their Yiddish showed retention of the geographic specificity for the birthshyplace 09 Obviously many more studies have to be made before we can declare that Soviet Jews have not retained their Yiddish language I 6

Notes

I

2

3

4

rufo It ~tl w ~

AlM1f~ ~l$fi~ rf iJJJ ~C1~a ~i rwJ ~~

Di YidJish-Illlpcrye 3() I

Ahhreviations

As Alii shprakltfrolll IJYS Di yidshe shprakh SU SOIetisJ Ileymlald SJA SOljel

Jewislt AIairs

Semen M l)ubnovJistory of the Jews ill Russia alld PoliJlld 3 vots (Philadelrhia Jewish Publications Society or America 1916-1920) Louis Greenberg TIle Jews ill Uunia (New Y)fk Schock en Books 1916) Isaac Levitats 111e J(ish (Olll

IIl11lil) ill Uussia 1772middot184-1 (New York Octagon Press 1910) Isa~c Levitgt 171t JclIislt COIIIIIIIity i Rllssia 11144middot1917 (Jerusalem Posner anJ Son 1981) Salo W Baron 171e Rllssiall kw IIIdr nars awl Soliltts 2n1 cd (Nc York Macmillan 1916) Zev Katz The Jews in the Soviet Union ltIlltbuok of Maior SOliel Nlltiulafitits cds Zev Katz Rosemarie Rogers and Frcderic Harned (New York the Free Prcss 1915) pp 355-389 llriel Weinreich Yiddish languagc tllcydopcdia Judaica vol 16 (Jeru~alc Ill

1971) 11 789middot798 Max Weinreich lIistory of the Yiddish Lal~Iage (Chicaln Thc University of Chicago Press 1980) Solomon Birnbaum Yiddish A SUtl(Y alld a Gramlllar (Toronto University of Toronto Press 1979) Marvin L lIcrzo~ Origins and Evolution of the Yiddish Language Gelnic Diseases all()Ig AshkllQzi Jews eds RM Goodman and AG Motliisky (New York RICn Iress 1979) PI 47middot57 Joshua A Fishman The Phenomcnoloical and Linguhshyti Pilgrimage of Yiddish Some Examples of Functional and Struclionallidginishyzal inn and Pcridginization AtIallCCs 1 the Creatiol all(1 R(Iisiml of lIriliH~ SystellS cd Joshua A Fishman (The Hague Mouton 1977) pp 293middot306 Joshua A Fishman The Sociology of Yiddish A Forward 1eler Say Die A Thousalld Y(ars of Yiddisll ill Jewish Life alid Letters cd Joshua A Fhhman

(The Hague Mouton 1981) rp 1middot97 Fishllln 1981 Emanuel S Goldsmith Arcltitects of Yiddislisll at Ille Beginning oj the Twclticlh Celtury (Rutherford Farleigh Dickinson University Pr~ss 1976) Dan Miron A Traveler Disguised (New York Schokcn Books 1973) Yankey Shat ski Ocr Kamf arum gcplante tsaybhriftn far yidn in Kongrcl-ryln (1840-1860) Yivomiddotbleter 6(1934) 61middot83 A KUlshnils Di yidisle prcsc 1 da geveulwr Rllsish(r illflcryc (1823-1916) (Moscow Tsentrlier Fclkcr-farbg

fun FSSR 1930) Katz 1975 Although advocacy of Hebrew achieved rrimacy among various Zionist groups a wide array of Zionist organizations carried out their work and even lotcrct Yiddish cultural activity in the diaspora in contrast to their plans for IJehre in ialestine The socialist workdcS Poalcymiddottsiyoll rarty was one of the SIIonf~s supporters of Yiddish on the Jewish scene in general Fishn1ln 1981 Goldsrnilh 1976 Lucy I)awidowicz cd 11le (TOldell Traditiol (Boston Beacon Press 1967) Ychoshua A Gilboa A Langlage Silenced 11le Suppressio of I-brh literawre und Clliture ill tlte Soviet Ullioll (Ruthtrford Farlcigh Dickimon

University Iress and Nerzl Press 1982)

302 1lt11111111lt1 cr= alld Mark 11 Kiel

5 O~ar Janowsky 17le Jews and Millority RiglllS (New York Macmillim 1933) PI 210-223 Yllysef Tenenboym Di yidishe shprakh af der tog-urd~tUng fun d~r shoclll-knnfcrcnts in Paril 1919 Yilomiddotbletcr 41 (19571958)217-229 Mark i~l The Id~ology of the folks-Partey SJA 5 (1975)75-89 FishmJII I Ill I 1 26 Ary~ Tartakover Di yidishe shu I in Poyln tsvisltn tsvey milkhmnls Smiddotmiddotr IIIJlltalllJYorbllkll 2 (1967) 210middot265

6 The Ahik was dissolwd ill 1918 by act of ye~kolllthe Jewish COlllmissariat lId Ihe 1middot(lsltktsYf the Jewish sections of the Comnlunist party and formally approvshyed hy $Ialin COlllmissar for Nationality Affairs in 1919 The hcillht of the campaign allainst the klleyder or religious primary school took place in 1922shy1923 The n~ar total ex~lnction of Hebrew culture instigated by the YCluktsye was a~hieved by the cariy 1920s Secular lIebrew culture including schools and literary prnduction developed in Poland and the llaltic States between the World Wars In Ihe Soviet Union some religious institutions remained and SOllie writcrs continued 10 wrile in lIebrew but their works were not published Zvi Gitclman k ish NlJtiullulily all1 SOIiet Politics (Princcton Princeton University Ircss 1972) pp_ 271-272 277-281 305 Gilboa lIebrcw Literature in the USSR 11 Jews ill SUIiet Russia sillce J9 J7 3rd cd ed Lionel Kochan (Oxford Oxford Univcrsity Press 1978) pp 226-241 Gilba 1982 loc cit Joshua Ruthenberg rile Jewish ReligiollII the Soviet Ullioll (New York Ktav PlIblishing lIouse Inc 1971) Roth~nberg Jcwish Religion in the Soviet Union 111pound Jcws ill SOIict RlIssiaSillce 1917pp168-196

7 In the mouth of Soviet Yiddish writers in the thirtiesyidishizm became a tcrm of opprobrium Actually it stood mme narrowly for the activities of the Yiddish rcctr~h institute in the West the Yivo in Vilna Vaysrusishe visnshaftmiddotakadcllIye yidbher slktur Falizirler yidisllizlII UII zayn Vislshaft (Minsk Vaysrusishe vislisliaftakadcmye 1930)

8 Gildltlan 1972 Murdekhay Althuler Haye~sektsye be~ritmiddothamoatsot (1918shy1930) btl1eumiyot likomunizm ITelmiddotAviv Sifriat Poaim 1980)

9 Gitelman 1972 pp 110322-323366-367 Altshuler 1980 pp 133middot155 158 10 One of the major problems in the historiography of Soviet Jewish culture is

ddcrmining the extent of Partyc(lntrol of cultural activity Recent memoirs by former Party cultural leaders of tIlls period who are presently residing in Israel stress that certain institutions attracted grassmiddotroots popular support and that some ye~stktsye leaders were more dedicated to Yiddish culture than others H~rsh Smolyar Frill ine~eYllik zikhroynes vegn der ye~sekuye (Tel-Aviv PeretsshyfarlJll 1978) Ester ROlental-Shnayderman Oyfvegn un IImveg1 vol 2 (Telmiddot Aviv 1978) ROlental-Shnayderman Oyf der partey-reynikung YeruslltLymcr amalakh 11 (1980) 144-155

II Ch Shmcruk Yiddish Literature In the USSR The Jews in Soviet Russia since 1917 pp 242middot280 Kh Shmeruk ed A shpigl oyf a shleyl antologye puczye WI proze fun tsvelf farshnitene yiddishe shraybers in Ratn-farbald (Telmiddot Aviv Farlag Di goldene keyt-Farlag YL Perets 1964) Irving Howe and Eliezcr Greenberg cds Ashes out of Hope Fiction by Sovietmiddot Yiddish Writers (New York Schucken Dooks 1977) Chimen Abramsky The Rise and Fall oC Soviet Yiddhh Lilerature SJA 12 (1982) 3544

Di Yiddislt-bnperye 303

12 Nahma Sandrow Vagabond Stars A World History of Yiddish 17rater (New York Barper and Row 1977) pp 222-250 Nakhman Mayzil Dos yidilw shaft 1111 dcr yidisher shrayber ill Sovetllarband (New York Ikuf-farlag 1959) pp 161-167 Lois Adler Alexis Granovsky and the lewish State Theater of Moscow 1111 Dralllo Review 24 (1980) 2742 Faina Durko The Soviet Yiddish Thcather in the Twenties (PhD dissertation Southern Illinois Univershysity 1978) Beatrice Picon-Vallin Le 17leatre Jllif SO~ittiqlte peldam less Altlaes Villgt (Lausanne La Cile-LAge dlIornme 1973) Eric Goldman The Soviet Yiddish Film 1925-1933 SJA 10 (1980)13-28

13 Kh Shmeruk Ilapirsumim biyidish bevrit-hamoatsot bashanim 1917-1960 Iirslllllim yilllllJiim bcvrirmiddotlamoatsut 1917middotJ960 cd Kh Shmeruk (jerusalcm The llistorical Society of Isracl 1961) pp LV-CXXXI

14 Mayti pp 154 159middot160 IS Shmcruk iirSlimilll pp LXIV-LXIX CXUt 16 Elias Sdltlman A llistory 0 Jewish EducatiOIl in the Soviet Vnjoll (New York

Ktav 1971) Zvi Halevy Jewish Schools under Czarism alld COIIIIIIIism (New York Springer 1976) Y MinlSin Shul bildung ba yidn in Rusland un Poyln

SlidtIl ar ekollomik un statistik vol I cd Y Lestshinski (Berlin Yivo 1928) p 243 N Gergel Di lage filii yidn ill Rlisialld (Warsaw llrzoza 1929) p 22rJ ercentages of students in lewish slhools were hillhest in the Baltic ((lunlrks Eli Ledcrhcndlcr Jewish Nationality in the Baltic Soviet Republics (Ma~lers thesis Jewish Theological Seminary 1977) p 12

17 Zvi lIalcvy Jewish Ulliversity Studcllls and Professionals ill Tsarisr alld SUIjet

Russia (Tel-Aviv Diaspora Research Center 1976) p 132 18 GittIlan 1972 pp 339-343 Sthultnan pp 97middot122 Altshuler 1980 pp 316shy

329 19 Alfred Abraham Greenbaum Jewisll Scllolarship and Schowrly II1S(illlliolls ill

SOIiet Russia 1918-195] (Jerusalem The Hebrew University of JcTlstlcIII Cenllr Cor Rc~arch and Documentation of East European Jewry 1978) Y Ubcrbcrg lJj yididlc visnshaftlekhe arhet in Ratnfarband Yidll ill FSSR cd Sh Dilllanshtcyn (Moscow Farlag Emcs 1935) pp 123-130Gitclll1an1972p J48 Y Reznik )j aspirantur ftln Institut far yidisher pruletarishcr kultur ViSllshaji WI revlutsye 1-2 (1934) 133-140 E Shulman Yidishe kultur-tetikeyt in Min~k 1917-1941 A vrOIll Golomb VO)ImiddotI-bllkll cd Moyshe Shtarkman (Los A IIgds 1969middot1970 pp 779-798 Mordecai Altshuler Jewish Studies in the Ukraine in the Early Soviet Peiod SlA 7 ( 977)22-30

20 Benjamin Pinkus Yiddish-Language Courts and Nationalities Policy in the SUlict Union SI I (1971)40-60

21 M GUlits lrozaliSImiddotgeslletlekh sllprakh (Moscow Farlag Emes 1932) 22_ The traditional spelling for this component was based on the Ilcbrew model

but witholll vowel markings The orthographic reform was based on phonctilts and morphology using the literary language as a standard for general consideramiddot tion of pronunciation TIlc press did encounter opposition in instituting the new rules in 1917-1919 lelkOI decided to naturalize or aryiJish the spelling in November 1918 ctlvernmcnt decree in 1920 required naturalization to be observed in all Soviet schools and puhlishing facilities B Slulski Tsu der oyslcyg frage DYS 8-9 (1928)27middot32 Elye Falkovitsh A vort tsu der zakh

30middot1 Rakhmielleltz omi Mark W Kiel

polcmik SII 2(1978)180middot190 MikW Yankivskl Fuftsik yor sovetishcr Yidishmiddot oyslcg SII 11 (1978) 173middot175 Rachel Erlich Politics and Linguistics in the Standardization of Soviet Yiddish SJA 3 (1973) 71middot79 Gilchnan 1972 p 129 O)sllg ntllllcr DYS 8middot9 (1928)

23 A Zaretski Far a protfarisher sllprakll (Kharkov Tsenterfarlag 1931) pp 11-20 Kh lIollllshtok Furtsn yor oktyaber-revolutsye lin der yidisher shprakhmiddot front (cynike ~akhaklcnJ TslIII 1itSlltll yonog okt)aber-relolIts)e lit(flfisil illggillishlf talllbllkll (Mink Jewish Section Belorussian Academy of Sciences 1932) PI 45middot75 Kh Faynzilber Fuftsn yor leksik ubet 7sum IItmtll yorlUg PI 113middot140

24 Thc kadillg figure in ti)ese discussions was Kamenshteyn administrator of the Yiddish section of the Centrol Publishing House in Kharkov lie was known for his slIjgcslions of original purist neologisms using the Gcrman component but following an awarmiddotfrommiddotGcnnan principle (ie lIiJlkayt and ~iazo)kayt for 1l1an tilY and quality (Sol and halitet or eykhes in standard Yiddish Oi shpmkh baratung in Kharkov DYS 23middot24 (1930)85middot90

25 D lergdson leksik problemen in der yidisher literature Forpost 4 (1937) 141middot153

26 Institute far vaysruslendisher kultur yidisher opteyl Yllridishe termillology Iroyltkt (Minsk 1926) Y Pekar Oi arbet fun der yuridisher tcrminologisher kOlllisgtc ba dcr 1iI010gisher sektsye funem Institut far yidisher kultur (Kkv) D YS 26middot27 l931 187middot94

27 S Vi halt dus mil Yjdish kenen DYS 34 (1927)77middot78 28 Iersonal ~llrrcspondence between Leyzer Vilenkin Jerusalem and Rakhmicl

Peltz Septermbcr 18 1981 29 YiLl ihe filologishe komisye bay der tsentraler byuro fun Folkombild Yidisll

ashe tumlung (Kharkov 1923) 30 Oi yidi~he shprakh DYS I (1927)1middot6 31 Ibid 32 A Zarelski Problernen fun yidisher Iingvotekhnik DYS 20 (1930)1-10 33 N Shtif Shprakhkultur Ill 00 sotsyale natur fun der shprakh di sotsyale

difcrcntsgtatsye in der shprakh vi azoy vayzt men dos shulkindcr D YS 23middot24 (1930)8

34 Goldsmith 1976 p 67 35 Zaret~ki Problemen fun yidisher Iingvotekhnik loc cit 36 Mordkhe Schaechter PQur Schools of Thought in Yiddish Language Planning

Midligall Germanic Swdies 32 (1977) 34-66 37 The terms reserved for non-Jews that were suggested to be discontinued included

goy (nonmiddotJew) slteygets (youth) and peygern (to die) Among the terms that supported religion were opgot (false god) got ~eys (God knows) and got tSIl dallk (thank God) Zaretski Far Q proletarisher shprakll pp 79middot95

38 Pckar loc cil 39 cr Yudl Mark lomir oyfhitn dl ashires fun dem talmid khokhcms shprakh

YidislJ shlrakh I (1941)65middot77 40 E Spivak Tsu der problem fun leksisher fareynhaytlekhung un regulirung inem

literarhhn Yitlish AS 1 (1937)346 Spivak Naye portshalIllg (Kiev 1939) pp 141 158

Vi Yiddishmiddotmperye 305

41 II Shklyar om sovetishe naybildung in Yidish Lingvislishe zamillng 2 (1934) 4690 Shklyar Di antviklung flln dcm revolutsyonern Icksikon in YiLlish AJil liSllsllajtlekllllrullt 7-g (1935) 159-160

42 N Shtif Yidislll stilistik (Kiev Tsenterfarlag 1930) 43 The detailed plan was worked out largely by Veynger (Minsk) and Zaretski

(MoscoW) Most of the points wcre similar to the later schemc of the Yivo (Vilnamiddot New York) except for the Soviet naturalization For evidence of the suppression of overwhehning support for natumlilation at the Yivo orthographic confcrcntc sec Yudl Mark Vi halt men mitn eynheytckhn oysle~g Yidishe sllWak 19 (1959) 83middot96 The main Soviet innovation of 1928 involved the finallcllcrs As with other ltlspects of corpus planning tJli~ linguists disagreed on Ihe necessity of this stel and Illaue plans for gradual implementation Slutski 1su dr oyslcyg frage loc cit Tsveyter alfarbandisher kuturtsuzamcnlor in Kharkov lin Ji shlrakhmiddotarbet D YS 10 (1928)53

44 Tsvcyter alfarbandishcr kuturmiddottSllzamenfor 49middot60 45 The mllllC change of Di pidislle sllprak to Aftl sllrakllront was realized soon

lifter the conference inauguarating at least symbolically an era of militancy and struggle Rczolutsycs ongenument af der crshtcr alfarbandiher yiJishcr shprakh konferents ill Kiev DYS 25 (1930)15middot24

46 Ukraynishe yidishe shprtkhmiddotbaratung 7middot11 May 1934 y AS 3middot5 (1935) 47 Erlkh I tic cit 48 11 Shklyar Di yidishe dialcklologishe forshung in sovyctnfarband TslIII

i1tSltII yoroK pp 141-163 A Zaretski Vos ken men tun af di crter far yidisher shprakhmiddotarbel DS 11-2 (1928) 57)4 Zarchki l)crlclIIl ji sotsyalc uifcrcntsyatsyc in Yidish program far aklivistn tiS 26-27 (1931) 69-80 Shtil Shlrakhkultllr III loco cit

49 Zarelski Far a proleorislIr xlpra PI 11middot19 quotation p 1350 F Shprakh Ocr masnmiddotlcyner vegn der hay tung shprakh DYS 10 (1928)15middot20

51 Zaretski Far a proletariser sllprakh pp 18middot19 M litvakov III UlllnI vol 2 (Moscow Shul un blkh 1926) PI 157middot158

52 n Slutski Oi arbel fun der filologisher scktsye ba der katedrc far yidisher killtur (Kiev) af der shprakh fun der sovcti~her yidisher prese DYS 16 (1929) 23middot26 M Khayimski Oi shprakh fun der provinlsycler prese AS 28 (l932) 21middot34

53 Fun der rcdaktsyc DYS14 (1929)53middot54 54 Fun der redaktsye nole added 10 B Slut~ki Tsvey yor Oi idishc shprakh

Dcr rilles February 91929 55 A GlIrshtcyn Vegn eynlke taynes tsu Ier yidishcr shprakh DrS 14 (1929)

39middot44 Sit Oobin Kegn di taynes (an enlfer del11 Kh A GUIshleyn) DrS 14 (929)43middot54 Fun der redaklsye DYS loc cit SIUlski Tslcy gtor Der ellles loc cit

56 A Zaretski note altached to Sh Katsnelson Vegn fargrcbung un farkriplulIl fun der rusisher shprakh DYS 15 (1929)42 A (M) Gitlils Kegn klasnmiddot frcmde tcoryes in der shprakhvisnshaft veg Kh Shtirs acbcw RalllbilJulIg

34 (1932)108middot126 57 Rcvizycmiddotnlllnbcr AS 31 (1932) M Gurevitsh N Shtif der lingvist D

tilleS May 15 1933 p 2 M Maydanski Problemes fun shprakhmiddotunterikhl In Kh Shtirs arbetn AS 2 (1934) 39middot67

306 Raklulid Peltz and Mark W Kid 58 Zaret~ki Problemen fun yidisher lingvotekhnik 1930 loe cit 59 A R Tsvln~ LinlNotekhnisher ekizm D YS 21middot22 (1930)49middot52 60 Shklyar Igti antviklung fun der revolutsyonern leksikon op cit 129middot161 61 N Kaganovitsh Folks-shprakh un literarishe shprakti DYS 21middot22 (1930)

39middot48 23middot34 (1930)67middot74 62 Ukrarnhhe yiishe shprakhmiddotbaratung 1935261 63 Nokhm Shtif Di sotsyale diferentsyatsye in Yldish DYS t 7middot18 (1929)

1middot22 Shtll Revolutsye un reakuye In der shprakh AS 26middot27 (1931) 33middot54 211 ( 9 32) 11middot22 Zaretski Far a proetarishersllprak 193121middot78

64 I Spivak Vegn dehebrerizatsye un vegn dem hebreyishn element in Yidish (Isum Kh Shtils shleln di frage) AS 2(1934) 3middot22

65 Maks V Jynra)kh Vos volt Yidish geven on Ilcbreyish Di Tsukllllt 36 (1931) 194middot205

66 Iakhlllki Peltz Ochebraization as an Issue In the Language Planning lfforts of the SlIvi~1 Yidish LinllUisls (Masters essay Linguistics Dept Colul1Ihi3 Univcrmiddot ily19111)

67 Sheila Fitzpatrick Cultural Revolution as Class War CUltural Revolutio ill RlI5sia 1928middot931 ed Sheila Fitzpatrick (Bloomington Indiana University Press 1978) pp 840

68 Perhaps the most often cited e)lample is his choice of nllshkhls for the Soviet concept of saboteur or wrecker (Antdekt a vaysgvardeyishe mashkhisim organizatsye title of an article Der emes Aug 25 1928 p 4) This word has been discussed in many sources from Zaretski Far a proletarisller slprakh 42middot 43 to Uriel Weinreich The Russificatlon of Soviet Minority Languages Promiddot hcIIIS o Commulism 2 (1953) 5~ Mashkhis competed with the Yiddish innovashytive word sluiker a Germanic componentlexeme and the word used in contemmiddot porary Russian m~ditel A readerl of Der emes wrote to the editor that Jewish furmen only lise the Russian word because the hard Russian r connotes morc feeling to them tlin the weak shnof mashkhis

69 Peltz lkhebraiLation 61middot66 70 NI (Noyekh Prilutski) Tsum vikuakh vegn di hebreyizmen Yidish far ale

3 (1939) 65middot75 7 Kit Shmeruk Araynfir A hpgl oya shteyn ppxxv-xxvii 72 E Spivak Problemes fun sovetishn Yidish AS 3-4 (1935) 28-76 Spivak

Nave vortshafung loc cit 73 N Shtif Shprakhkultur un gramatishe kultur an entfer mayne oponentn

Drs 23middot24 (1930) 61 A Zaretski Praktishe vidishe gralllQtik far lerm LIn Stldenlll (Moscow Silul un bukh 1926)

74 Shtif Shprakhkultur un grarnatishe kultur 52ff 65 Shtif Shprakhkultur 111 DrS 21middot22 (1930) 235810

75 KII Loybker Vegn dCIll tsushtand funem shprakhmiddotlimed in shul AS 34 ( 935) 202 207 cf AF Tsvayg MutershPrakh in shul fun der ershtershtue melodisher halltbukh (Moscow Tsenterfarlag 1929) and M MaydanskjS criticshyism Vegn di lernbikher af Yidish AS 3-4 (1935) 230middot249 Schulmn A Jlistory of Jewisll Education pp 99middot104 Debra SilinmiddotVinograd Kavim ledmuto shel bcthaeyfr hayehudi bivrit hamoatsot Behinot 5 (1974) 106 220 E falkovihh Yidhh in shu I AS 3-4 (1935) 193 Fallcovitsh Shprakhkultur

Vi Yiddisll-fIliIJerye 307

un grallHltik DYS 23middot24 (1930)59 Sh Dobln Gramatik un stilistik DrS 23middot24 (1930)29-42

76 M Veynger Vcgn yidishc dialektn Tsayhllit 2middot3 ( 921) 615 AR Tsvayg Materyaln fun a sistem yidishe ortoepye DYS 15 (1929)24

77 A Zaretski Vegn yidisher ortoepye DYS 15 (1929) 29middot26 on Spiv~k sec Ester ROl~ntalmiddotShnayderman O) vegl 111 IlIIIVpoundgll vol 3 (TelmiddotAviv Perctsmiddot farlag 1982) pp 165middot179 l1irnboym now in his nineties still maintains this position in his recent Yiddislt A SIIrIey and Gramlllar op iL pp 100middot10 I

78 Zaretski Vegn yidisher ortoepye 26 79 bid 27 31-33 80 U Weinreich The Russification loc cit Paul WexlerPurism aldlaIlli(1middot

(Illoolllington Indiana University 1974) 81 Wexler p lSI 82 N Shtif and E Spivak Vegn latinizatsye AS 29middot30 (1932) 93middotIOU David

1 Gold Successes and Failures in the Standltlrization an Impklllcntllion of Yiddish Spelling and Romanization AdlalHes in till CrtOlioll (1( RtIlIirm of Writillg Systems op cit pp 307middot369

83 M Shapiro Eynike bazunderhaytn funem eynhaytlekhn Iiterarishn Yiish in Sovetnfarband SII 3 (1967)141

84 Smolyarop cit pp 435middot437 85 At this time although no linguists wee killed many leaders of the fomer

Yelesktsye were tried and killed The purged leaders included Litvakov DimJnmiddot shteyn (former head of Yevkolll) Frumkin Levitan and liberberg (former head of the I nstitute for Jewish Prolctarian Culture of the Ukrainian Academy of Sdcnces an newly appointed head of the Jcwish autonomous regions lJirohidmiddot zhan) The Minsk writers included Akselrod Khraik and Kulbak When th~

Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture in Kiev was dissolved in 1936 the literary historian and critic Erik was arrested he died in a Siberian prison camp

86 This office had been reconstituted in 1936middot1937 after this dissolution of the Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture where more than one hundred rcsearchfS had worked The new ofrice with only a few workers was calkd b Jeli~h

cultural leaders dos sdovIIImiddotbetl frill der lidisltmiddotSOIetislter klllfllr (the lie of Sodom of Soviet Yiddish culture) Spiyuk was its director until it was do~~d in 1949 lie authored Di slrprakll i di teg UII der ourklldisltel lIIilkltmllt (Kiev 1946) Ester Rozental (Shnayderman) Ocr Babimiddotyar fun yidishn mrt Di goldelle kelt 69middot70 (1970) 75middot103 Shrneruk 1rsumilll 1961 enlrr 919

87 The planned decimation of Yiddish culture was lauched in January 1948 hr the death of tile most popular altor and director of the Moscow Thcdtcr lIikhods who had also been head of the Jewish AntimiddotFascist COllllllitlcc llis deJlh hJs been interpreted as murder at the hands of the se~ret policl Rcferences for thl fate of Yiddish culture during and after the war Ychoshua Gilboa nt Bldc Years o Soviet Jewry 1939middot1953 (Boston Utter Brown 1971) pp 23middot29 106 187middot193 Rozental (Shna)dcrrnan) 1970 loc cit Kh Sioves SoIpoundllshe yidise lIIelllkltesllkeyt (Paris 1979) For infMmntion on the BirobltillllIIr slrtem today sec lIya Falkov Starn azoy an entfer o)f dcr cndung fun Uim bidzshan r shtern Forlerrs January II 1983

30middot1 Rakhmielleltz omi Mark W Kiel

polcmik SII 2(1978)180middot190 MikW Yankivskl Fuftsik yor sovetishcr Yidishmiddot oyslcg SII 11 (1978) 173middot175 Rachel Erlich Politics and Linguistics in the Standardization of Soviet Yiddish SJA 3 (1973) 71middot79 Gilchnan 1972 p 129 O)sllg ntllllcr DYS 8middot9 (1928)

23 A Zaretski Far a protfarisher sllprakll (Kharkov Tsenterfarlag 1931) pp 11-20 Kh lIollllshtok Furtsn yor oktyaber-revolutsye lin der yidisher shprakhmiddot front (cynike ~akhaklcnJ TslIII 1itSlltll yonog okt)aber-relolIts)e lit(flfisil illggillishlf talllbllkll (Mink Jewish Section Belorussian Academy of Sciences 1932) PI 45middot75 Kh Faynzilber Fuftsn yor leksik ubet 7sum IItmtll yorlUg PI 113middot140

24 Thc kadillg figure in ti)ese discussions was Kamenshteyn administrator of the Yiddish section of the Centrol Publishing House in Kharkov lie was known for his slIjgcslions of original purist neologisms using the Gcrman component but following an awarmiddotfrommiddotGcnnan principle (ie lIiJlkayt and ~iazo)kayt for 1l1an tilY and quality (Sol and halitet or eykhes in standard Yiddish Oi shpmkh baratung in Kharkov DYS 23middot24 (1930)85middot90

25 D lergdson leksik problemen in der yidisher literature Forpost 4 (1937) 141middot153

26 Institute far vaysruslendisher kultur yidisher opteyl Yllridishe termillology Iroyltkt (Minsk 1926) Y Pekar Oi arbet fun der yuridisher tcrminologisher kOlllisgtc ba dcr 1iI010gisher sektsye funem Institut far yidisher kultur (Kkv) D YS 26middot27 l931 187middot94

27 S Vi halt dus mil Yjdish kenen DYS 34 (1927)77middot78 28 Iersonal ~llrrcspondence between Leyzer Vilenkin Jerusalem and Rakhmicl

Peltz Septermbcr 18 1981 29 YiLl ihe filologishe komisye bay der tsentraler byuro fun Folkombild Yidisll

ashe tumlung (Kharkov 1923) 30 Oi yidi~he shprakh DYS I (1927)1middot6 31 Ibid 32 A Zarelski Problernen fun yidisher Iingvotekhnik DYS 20 (1930)1-10 33 N Shtif Shprakhkultur Ill 00 sotsyale natur fun der shprakh di sotsyale

difcrcntsgtatsye in der shprakh vi azoy vayzt men dos shulkindcr D YS 23middot24 (1930)8

34 Goldsmith 1976 p 67 35 Zaret~ki Problemen fun yidisher Iingvotekhnik loc cit 36 Mordkhe Schaechter PQur Schools of Thought in Yiddish Language Planning

Midligall Germanic Swdies 32 (1977) 34-66 37 The terms reserved for non-Jews that were suggested to be discontinued included

goy (nonmiddotJew) slteygets (youth) and peygern (to die) Among the terms that supported religion were opgot (false god) got ~eys (God knows) and got tSIl dallk (thank God) Zaretski Far Q proletarisher shprakll pp 79middot95

38 Pckar loc cil 39 cr Yudl Mark lomir oyfhitn dl ashires fun dem talmid khokhcms shprakh

YidislJ shlrakh I (1941)65middot77 40 E Spivak Tsu der problem fun leksisher fareynhaytlekhung un regulirung inem

literarhhn Yitlish AS 1 (1937)346 Spivak Naye portshalIllg (Kiev 1939) pp 141 158

Vi Yiddishmiddotmperye 305

41 II Shklyar om sovetishe naybildung in Yidish Lingvislishe zamillng 2 (1934) 4690 Shklyar Di antviklung flln dcm revolutsyonern Icksikon in YiLlish AJil liSllsllajtlekllllrullt 7-g (1935) 159-160

42 N Shtif Yidislll stilistik (Kiev Tsenterfarlag 1930) 43 The detailed plan was worked out largely by Veynger (Minsk) and Zaretski

(MoscoW) Most of the points wcre similar to the later schemc of the Yivo (Vilnamiddot New York) except for the Soviet naturalization For evidence of the suppression of overwhehning support for natumlilation at the Yivo orthographic confcrcntc sec Yudl Mark Vi halt men mitn eynheytckhn oysle~g Yidishe sllWak 19 (1959) 83middot96 The main Soviet innovation of 1928 involved the finallcllcrs As with other ltlspects of corpus planning tJli~ linguists disagreed on Ihe necessity of this stel and Illaue plans for gradual implementation Slutski 1su dr oyslcyg frage loc cit Tsveyter alfarbandisher kuturtsuzamcnlor in Kharkov lin Ji shlrakhmiddotarbet D YS 10 (1928)53

44 Tsvcyter alfarbandishcr kuturmiddottSllzamenfor 49middot60 45 The mllllC change of Di pidislle sllprak to Aftl sllrakllront was realized soon

lifter the conference inauguarating at least symbolically an era of militancy and struggle Rczolutsycs ongenument af der crshtcr alfarbandiher yiJishcr shprakh konferents ill Kiev DYS 25 (1930)15middot24

46 Ukraynishe yidishe shprtkhmiddotbaratung 7middot11 May 1934 y AS 3middot5 (1935) 47 Erlkh I tic cit 48 11 Shklyar Di yidishe dialcklologishe forshung in sovyctnfarband TslIII

i1tSltII yoroK pp 141-163 A Zaretski Vos ken men tun af di crter far yidisher shprakhmiddotarbel DS 11-2 (1928) 57)4 Zarchki l)crlclIIl ji sotsyalc uifcrcntsyatsyc in Yidish program far aklivistn tiS 26-27 (1931) 69-80 Shtil Shlrakhkultllr III loco cit

49 Zarelski Far a proleorislIr xlpra PI 11middot19 quotation p 1350 F Shprakh Ocr masnmiddotlcyner vegn der hay tung shprakh DYS 10 (1928)15middot20

51 Zaretski Far a proletariser sllprakh pp 18middot19 M litvakov III UlllnI vol 2 (Moscow Shul un blkh 1926) PI 157middot158

52 n Slutski Oi arbel fun der filologisher scktsye ba der katedrc far yidisher killtur (Kiev) af der shprakh fun der sovcti~her yidisher prese DYS 16 (1929) 23middot26 M Khayimski Oi shprakh fun der provinlsycler prese AS 28 (l932) 21middot34

53 Fun der rcdaktsyc DYS14 (1929)53middot54 54 Fun der redaktsye nole added 10 B Slut~ki Tsvey yor Oi idishc shprakh

Dcr rilles February 91929 55 A GlIrshtcyn Vegn eynlke taynes tsu Ier yidishcr shprakh DrS 14 (1929)

39middot44 Sit Oobin Kegn di taynes (an enlfer del11 Kh A GUIshleyn) DrS 14 (929)43middot54 Fun der redaklsye DYS loc cit SIUlski Tslcy gtor Der ellles loc cit

56 A Zaretski note altached to Sh Katsnelson Vegn fargrcbung un farkriplulIl fun der rusisher shprakh DYS 15 (1929)42 A (M) Gitlils Kegn klasnmiddot frcmde tcoryes in der shprakhvisnshaft veg Kh Shtirs acbcw RalllbilJulIg

34 (1932)108middot126 57 Rcvizycmiddotnlllnbcr AS 31 (1932) M Gurevitsh N Shtif der lingvist D

tilleS May 15 1933 p 2 M Maydanski Problemes fun shprakhmiddotunterikhl In Kh Shtirs arbetn AS 2 (1934) 39middot67

306 Raklulid Peltz and Mark W Kid 58 Zaret~ki Problemen fun yidisher lingvotekhnik 1930 loe cit 59 A R Tsvln~ LinlNotekhnisher ekizm D YS 21middot22 (1930)49middot52 60 Shklyar Igti antviklung fun der revolutsyonern leksikon op cit 129middot161 61 N Kaganovitsh Folks-shprakh un literarishe shprakti DYS 21middot22 (1930)

39middot48 23middot34 (1930)67middot74 62 Ukrarnhhe yiishe shprakhmiddotbaratung 1935261 63 Nokhm Shtif Di sotsyale diferentsyatsye in Yldish DYS t 7middot18 (1929)

1middot22 Shtll Revolutsye un reakuye In der shprakh AS 26middot27 (1931) 33middot54 211 ( 9 32) 11middot22 Zaretski Far a proetarishersllprak 193121middot78

64 I Spivak Vegn dehebrerizatsye un vegn dem hebreyishn element in Yidish (Isum Kh Shtils shleln di frage) AS 2(1934) 3middot22

65 Maks V Jynra)kh Vos volt Yidish geven on Ilcbreyish Di Tsukllllt 36 (1931) 194middot205

66 Iakhlllki Peltz Ochebraization as an Issue In the Language Planning lfforts of the SlIvi~1 Yidish LinllUisls (Masters essay Linguistics Dept Colul1Ihi3 Univcrmiddot ily19111)

67 Sheila Fitzpatrick Cultural Revolution as Class War CUltural Revolutio ill RlI5sia 1928middot931 ed Sheila Fitzpatrick (Bloomington Indiana University Press 1978) pp 840

68 Perhaps the most often cited e)lample is his choice of nllshkhls for the Soviet concept of saboteur or wrecker (Antdekt a vaysgvardeyishe mashkhisim organizatsye title of an article Der emes Aug 25 1928 p 4) This word has been discussed in many sources from Zaretski Far a proletarisller slprakh 42middot 43 to Uriel Weinreich The Russificatlon of Soviet Minority Languages Promiddot hcIIIS o Commulism 2 (1953) 5~ Mashkhis competed with the Yiddish innovashytive word sluiker a Germanic componentlexeme and the word used in contemmiddot porary Russian m~ditel A readerl of Der emes wrote to the editor that Jewish furmen only lise the Russian word because the hard Russian r connotes morc feeling to them tlin the weak shnof mashkhis

69 Peltz lkhebraiLation 61middot66 70 NI (Noyekh Prilutski) Tsum vikuakh vegn di hebreyizmen Yidish far ale

3 (1939) 65middot75 7 Kit Shmeruk Araynfir A hpgl oya shteyn ppxxv-xxvii 72 E Spivak Problemes fun sovetishn Yidish AS 3-4 (1935) 28-76 Spivak

Nave vortshafung loc cit 73 N Shtif Shprakhkultur un gramatishe kultur an entfer mayne oponentn

Drs 23middot24 (1930) 61 A Zaretski Praktishe vidishe gralllQtik far lerm LIn Stldenlll (Moscow Silul un bukh 1926)

74 Shtif Shprakhkultur un grarnatishe kultur 52ff 65 Shtif Shprakhkultur 111 DrS 21middot22 (1930) 235810

75 KII Loybker Vegn dCIll tsushtand funem shprakhmiddotlimed in shul AS 34 ( 935) 202 207 cf AF Tsvayg MutershPrakh in shul fun der ershtershtue melodisher halltbukh (Moscow Tsenterfarlag 1929) and M MaydanskjS criticshyism Vegn di lernbikher af Yidish AS 3-4 (1935) 230middot249 Schulmn A Jlistory of Jewisll Education pp 99middot104 Debra SilinmiddotVinograd Kavim ledmuto shel bcthaeyfr hayehudi bivrit hamoatsot Behinot 5 (1974) 106 220 E falkovihh Yidhh in shu I AS 3-4 (1935) 193 Fallcovitsh Shprakhkultur

Vi Yiddisll-fIliIJerye 307

un grallHltik DYS 23middot24 (1930)59 Sh Dobln Gramatik un stilistik DrS 23middot24 (1930)29-42

76 M Veynger Vcgn yidishc dialektn Tsayhllit 2middot3 ( 921) 615 AR Tsvayg Materyaln fun a sistem yidishe ortoepye DYS 15 (1929)24

77 A Zaretski Vegn yidisher ortoepye DYS 15 (1929) 29middot26 on Spiv~k sec Ester ROl~ntalmiddotShnayderman O) vegl 111 IlIIIVpoundgll vol 3 (TelmiddotAviv Perctsmiddot farlag 1982) pp 165middot179 l1irnboym now in his nineties still maintains this position in his recent Yiddislt A SIIrIey and Gramlllar op iL pp 100middot10 I

78 Zaretski Vegn yidisher ortoepye 26 79 bid 27 31-33 80 U Weinreich The Russification loc cit Paul WexlerPurism aldlaIlli(1middot

(Illoolllington Indiana University 1974) 81 Wexler p lSI 82 N Shtif and E Spivak Vegn latinizatsye AS 29middot30 (1932) 93middotIOU David

1 Gold Successes and Failures in the Standltlrization an Impklllcntllion of Yiddish Spelling and Romanization AdlalHes in till CrtOlioll (1( RtIlIirm of Writillg Systems op cit pp 307middot369

83 M Shapiro Eynike bazunderhaytn funem eynhaytlekhn Iiterarishn Yiish in Sovetnfarband SII 3 (1967)141

84 Smolyarop cit pp 435middot437 85 At this time although no linguists wee killed many leaders of the fomer

Yelesktsye were tried and killed The purged leaders included Litvakov DimJnmiddot shteyn (former head of Yevkolll) Frumkin Levitan and liberberg (former head of the I nstitute for Jewish Prolctarian Culture of the Ukrainian Academy of Sdcnces an newly appointed head of the Jcwish autonomous regions lJirohidmiddot zhan) The Minsk writers included Akselrod Khraik and Kulbak When th~

Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture in Kiev was dissolved in 1936 the literary historian and critic Erik was arrested he died in a Siberian prison camp

86 This office had been reconstituted in 1936middot1937 after this dissolution of the Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture where more than one hundred rcsearchfS had worked The new ofrice with only a few workers was calkd b Jeli~h

cultural leaders dos sdovIIImiddotbetl frill der lidisltmiddotSOIetislter klllfllr (the lie of Sodom of Soviet Yiddish culture) Spiyuk was its director until it was do~~d in 1949 lie authored Di slrprakll i di teg UII der ourklldisltel lIIilkltmllt (Kiev 1946) Ester Rozental (Shnayderman) Ocr Babimiddotyar fun yidishn mrt Di goldelle kelt 69middot70 (1970) 75middot103 Shrneruk 1rsumilll 1961 enlrr 919

87 The planned decimation of Yiddish culture was lauched in January 1948 hr the death of tile most popular altor and director of the Moscow Thcdtcr lIikhods who had also been head of the Jewish AntimiddotFascist COllllllitlcc llis deJlh hJs been interpreted as murder at the hands of the se~ret policl Rcferences for thl fate of Yiddish culture during and after the war Ychoshua Gilboa nt Bldc Years o Soviet Jewry 1939middot1953 (Boston Utter Brown 1971) pp 23middot29 106 187middot193 Rozental (Shna)dcrrnan) 1970 loc cit Kh Sioves SoIpoundllshe yidise lIIelllkltesllkeyt (Paris 1979) For infMmntion on the BirobltillllIIr slrtem today sec lIya Falkov Starn azoy an entfer o)f dcr cndung fun Uim bidzshan r shtern Forlerrs January II 1983

306 Raklulid Peltz and Mark W Kid 58 Zaret~ki Problemen fun yidisher lingvotekhnik 1930 loe cit 59 A R Tsvln~ LinlNotekhnisher ekizm D YS 21middot22 (1930)49middot52 60 Shklyar Igti antviklung fun der revolutsyonern leksikon op cit 129middot161 61 N Kaganovitsh Folks-shprakh un literarishe shprakti DYS 21middot22 (1930)

39middot48 23middot34 (1930)67middot74 62 Ukrarnhhe yiishe shprakhmiddotbaratung 1935261 63 Nokhm Shtif Di sotsyale diferentsyatsye in Yldish DYS t 7middot18 (1929)

1middot22 Shtll Revolutsye un reakuye In der shprakh AS 26middot27 (1931) 33middot54 211 ( 9 32) 11middot22 Zaretski Far a proetarishersllprak 193121middot78

64 I Spivak Vegn dehebrerizatsye un vegn dem hebreyishn element in Yidish (Isum Kh Shtils shleln di frage) AS 2(1934) 3middot22

65 Maks V Jynra)kh Vos volt Yidish geven on Ilcbreyish Di Tsukllllt 36 (1931) 194middot205

66 Iakhlllki Peltz Ochebraization as an Issue In the Language Planning lfforts of the SlIvi~1 Yidish LinllUisls (Masters essay Linguistics Dept Colul1Ihi3 Univcrmiddot ily19111)

67 Sheila Fitzpatrick Cultural Revolution as Class War CUltural Revolutio ill RlI5sia 1928middot931 ed Sheila Fitzpatrick (Bloomington Indiana University Press 1978) pp 840

68 Perhaps the most often cited e)lample is his choice of nllshkhls for the Soviet concept of saboteur or wrecker (Antdekt a vaysgvardeyishe mashkhisim organizatsye title of an article Der emes Aug 25 1928 p 4) This word has been discussed in many sources from Zaretski Far a proletarisller slprakh 42middot 43 to Uriel Weinreich The Russificatlon of Soviet Minority Languages Promiddot hcIIIS o Commulism 2 (1953) 5~ Mashkhis competed with the Yiddish innovashytive word sluiker a Germanic componentlexeme and the word used in contemmiddot porary Russian m~ditel A readerl of Der emes wrote to the editor that Jewish furmen only lise the Russian word because the hard Russian r connotes morc feeling to them tlin the weak shnof mashkhis

69 Peltz lkhebraiLation 61middot66 70 NI (Noyekh Prilutski) Tsum vikuakh vegn di hebreyizmen Yidish far ale

3 (1939) 65middot75 7 Kit Shmeruk Araynfir A hpgl oya shteyn ppxxv-xxvii 72 E Spivak Problemes fun sovetishn Yidish AS 3-4 (1935) 28-76 Spivak

Nave vortshafung loc cit 73 N Shtif Shprakhkultur un gramatishe kultur an entfer mayne oponentn

Drs 23middot24 (1930) 61 A Zaretski Praktishe vidishe gralllQtik far lerm LIn Stldenlll (Moscow Silul un bukh 1926)

74 Shtif Shprakhkultur un grarnatishe kultur 52ff 65 Shtif Shprakhkultur 111 DrS 21middot22 (1930) 235810

75 KII Loybker Vegn dCIll tsushtand funem shprakhmiddotlimed in shul AS 34 ( 935) 202 207 cf AF Tsvayg MutershPrakh in shul fun der ershtershtue melodisher halltbukh (Moscow Tsenterfarlag 1929) and M MaydanskjS criticshyism Vegn di lernbikher af Yidish AS 3-4 (1935) 230middot249 Schulmn A Jlistory of Jewisll Education pp 99middot104 Debra SilinmiddotVinograd Kavim ledmuto shel bcthaeyfr hayehudi bivrit hamoatsot Behinot 5 (1974) 106 220 E falkovihh Yidhh in shu I AS 3-4 (1935) 193 Fallcovitsh Shprakhkultur

Vi Yiddisll-fIliIJerye 307

un grallHltik DYS 23middot24 (1930)59 Sh Dobln Gramatik un stilistik DrS 23middot24 (1930)29-42

76 M Veynger Vcgn yidishc dialektn Tsayhllit 2middot3 ( 921) 615 AR Tsvayg Materyaln fun a sistem yidishe ortoepye DYS 15 (1929)24

77 A Zaretski Vegn yidisher ortoepye DYS 15 (1929) 29middot26 on Spiv~k sec Ester ROl~ntalmiddotShnayderman O) vegl 111 IlIIIVpoundgll vol 3 (TelmiddotAviv Perctsmiddot farlag 1982) pp 165middot179 l1irnboym now in his nineties still maintains this position in his recent Yiddislt A SIIrIey and Gramlllar op iL pp 100middot10 I

78 Zaretski Vegn yidisher ortoepye 26 79 bid 27 31-33 80 U Weinreich The Russification loc cit Paul WexlerPurism aldlaIlli(1middot

(Illoolllington Indiana University 1974) 81 Wexler p lSI 82 N Shtif and E Spivak Vegn latinizatsye AS 29middot30 (1932) 93middotIOU David

1 Gold Successes and Failures in the Standltlrization an Impklllcntllion of Yiddish Spelling and Romanization AdlalHes in till CrtOlioll (1( RtIlIirm of Writillg Systems op cit pp 307middot369

83 M Shapiro Eynike bazunderhaytn funem eynhaytlekhn Iiterarishn Yiish in Sovetnfarband SII 3 (1967)141

84 Smolyarop cit pp 435middot437 85 At this time although no linguists wee killed many leaders of the fomer

Yelesktsye were tried and killed The purged leaders included Litvakov DimJnmiddot shteyn (former head of Yevkolll) Frumkin Levitan and liberberg (former head of the I nstitute for Jewish Prolctarian Culture of the Ukrainian Academy of Sdcnces an newly appointed head of the Jcwish autonomous regions lJirohidmiddot zhan) The Minsk writers included Akselrod Khraik and Kulbak When th~

Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture in Kiev was dissolved in 1936 the literary historian and critic Erik was arrested he died in a Siberian prison camp

86 This office had been reconstituted in 1936middot1937 after this dissolution of the Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture where more than one hundred rcsearchfS had worked The new ofrice with only a few workers was calkd b Jeli~h

cultural leaders dos sdovIIImiddotbetl frill der lidisltmiddotSOIetislter klllfllr (the lie of Sodom of Soviet Yiddish culture) Spiyuk was its director until it was do~~d in 1949 lie authored Di slrprakll i di teg UII der ourklldisltel lIIilkltmllt (Kiev 1946) Ester Rozental (Shnayderman) Ocr Babimiddotyar fun yidishn mrt Di goldelle kelt 69middot70 (1970) 75middot103 Shrneruk 1rsumilll 1961 enlrr 919

87 The planned decimation of Yiddish culture was lauched in January 1948 hr the death of tile most popular altor and director of the Moscow Thcdtcr lIikhods who had also been head of the Jewish AntimiddotFascist COllllllitlcc llis deJlh hJs been interpreted as murder at the hands of the se~ret policl Rcferences for thl fate of Yiddish culture during and after the war Ychoshua Gilboa nt Bldc Years o Soviet Jewry 1939middot1953 (Boston Utter Brown 1971) pp 23middot29 106 187middot193 Rozental (Shna)dcrrnan) 1970 loc cit Kh Sioves SoIpoundllshe yidise lIIelllkltesllkeyt (Paris 1979) For infMmntion on the BirobltillllIIr slrtem today sec lIya Falkov Starn azoy an entfer o)f dcr cndung fun Uim bidzshan r shtern Forlerrs January II 1983

rmiddot jill) Iuflllllici Id and Mark IV Kid -

11 JI~cph Ilrumbcrl and Abraham Brumberg Sovetish Heymland - an Analysis

Itlllipound lilltlritits ill Iltc SOIiel Ullioll cd Erich Goldhagen (New York Iracgcr 11) Ip 214middot315 Ch Shmcruk Yiddish Literature in the USSR loc cit LlIks IIirslowiclmiddotThe Soviet Jewish Problem Internal and [nternationill Delclopments 1912middot1976 17le JelliS ill SOIicl Rllssia sillce 19171978 op cit pp 366-409

119 Vcrk fun studentn fun der yidisher grupe af di hekhste Iiteraturkursn bam Iil~rarbhn in)titut af Gorkis nomen SII 12 (1981) 140-157SII 10 (1982) 97-138 HAf der pcnarcr zitsung fun der redkolcgye fun Sovetish heylHlandmiddot SI ) t 1983) 127-134 Elye Shulman Naye penimer in der yklisher litcratur in Rusand FuncrlS November 211982 pp 1218 Mrdkh Shkhter nos loshn fun Sovelish Iwymland Yidislte slt1lakli 29 ( 9(9) I (]middot42 30 ( 971) 32middot65 Solomon A Birnbaum Sovict Yiddish SJI 9 ( 979129middot41

91 Lukas IlirslOia Translations from Yiddish Published in the USSR 1958shy1959 SJA 12 (19M2) 34

92 d KD Vcgn soyetishn yidishn Iiterarishn lek sik on Afll lislIshafllekllll frolll 5-6 (1934) 184middot191 and Her Kahn Materyaln far a leksikon fun dr yitlisher SHyCI hlllr literaturc Di ISlIkllllfl 88 ( 982)252-254

93 Shapiro 1967 144 Yankev GlaUhteyn II der veil mit Yidisll (New Ynrk Congress for Jewish Culture 1972) p 377 94 Myshc Margolin Tsu di problemen fun hayntsaytikn Yidish SII I (1978) 154middot161 Ialkovilsh 1978 loe cit

95 Shimn Sandler Limlldim 1m Yidish books 1 2 and 3 (Moscow SOlletski Phatd 1980 1982 1983) supplements to the following issues of S1 110 8 I)I() lIoM1982no 71983

96 Yidilhe shlrakh in di shuln fun Birobidzshan SH 3 (1981) 150middot151 Mn Vlrgdis Del aktbeys un dos Icbn SII 5 (1983) 160middot165 Leybl Jlotvinik Yidhhe OYSYCS on a simin fun yidishkcyt Forverls August 19 1983 p 9

97 Shimcn Teplitski Briv fun leyner Yir hot a toyes tayerer fraynd Morgll frlJllIall July 27 1980 pp 5 11

98 lf William Korey International Law and the Right to Study Hebrew in the USSR Shl II (1981)3middot18 and Yoysef Kerler 12ler Oygllsl 1951 1ilmiddot rOYIIs artiklclIlider (Jerusalem farlag eygns 1978)

99 I)ovid-Ilirsh Roskes Yidn in Sovetnmiddotfarband - an crshtmiddothantiker reportazsh YlIglllllf 24 (1971) 5-7 15-18 25 (1972) 13-17 Dovid fishman Protret fun a yungn yidishn held YIIglllruf 51-52 (1981-1982) 5-7 Davoid Toker A ncder Yllgllruf51middot52 (1981middot1982) 8middot9

100 IlirsLQwicl 1978 loc cit Kerhr loc cit Sh L Shnayderman Kreml shlogt propagandc ktpital fun yidishn teater Forverls february 24 1980 pp 8 20

101 Jushua Fishman and David E Fishman Yiddish in Israel A Case Study of UTorl to Revise a Monocentric Lanbllage Policy Advallces ill rhe StlIdy of Sojelal Mullilingualism ed IA Fishman (The Hague Mouton 1978) p 226

102 Rasma Karklins A Note on Nationality and Native Tonblle as CensUs Catemiddot goriesin 1979 SUIjet SlIIdies 32 (1980) 2742

103 Mnrdkhay Altshllkr flakibuts lIevdllldi bevritmiddotllfl1noatsor biyamf)llII nitlokll sUHyomiddotd(middotJIoliraJi (Jerusalem Magnes Press 1979) pp 206-234 Harold lIaar-

Vi Yiddilh-Jlllpcrye 30)

lIlann Stlldkll 111111 MIltiillgllalislllS asclkellasischer IIIld orienralisclrer 111(pound11 illl usiutiscull 1i~i der StlwjetllltiOIl (l1II11burg llelmut Bukse Verlag 1980) LlikaSl llirswwicz Further Data on the Jewish Population from the 1979 Sovict Census SJA II (1981) 53middot61 Y Kantor Some Notes and Conclusions ahout the Published TOlals of thc Soviet Census of January 151959 Swdies i J(1IS Biography History alld Literature ill HOIor of I Edward Kiev (Nc York 1971) p 150 Katz loc cit Thomas E Sawyer nil Jewish Alilloril) ill rile Soviet lIlIioll (lJollhler Colorado Westview Press 1979) pp 62middot64 268middot280

104 Harry Lipset A Note on Yiddish as the Language of Soviet Jews ill the Censu of 1939 Jewish Joumal ofSocioloKY 12 (1970)55-57

105 Ibid 106 John L Slherer ed USSR Facts amp FiJ1lfes Annllal vol 5 (Gulf Ilrccze Florida

Academic I nternalional Prcss 1981) J) 51 Alila act ivisls (those demand ing emigration to Israel) in the USSR urged Jews to list Yiddbh as mother tOil gHC in 1970 Altshuler 1979 p 2011

107 lIimowiez 198155 108 Jerolllc J Gillson The Reseltlement of Soviet Jewish Emigres Rcsults of a

Survey in Baltimore Sludies of Ihe ntird l1Iave RetCIII MigraliOIl of SOIIt 11s to tile United States cds DJn N Jacobs and Ellen Frankel Paul Illluldcmiddotr Colorado Westview Iress 1981) pp 29-56 Stphen C Feinstein SmcitshyJewish Immigrants in Minnelpolis and St Paul Altitudes and Reactions to Lir~ in America Stlldies of tIll ntird l1Iale pp 57middot75 Altshuler mentioned a ql1C~shytionnatier of immigrants to Israel in 1975 in which only 45it responded tliat a Jewish language w~s spoken in the family whereas 948 listed Russian Altshulcr 1979 p 207 In Gitelmms study of Soviet immigrants to Israel tomiddot thirds or the Jews from the more rccnlly acquired wcstern areas and onemiddotthird of the respondents from the rest of the USSR (overall average one half) said their parents spokc Yiddish at home Only 15 of the immigrants thcmsdvcs callcd Yiddish their native language while twomiddotthirds identified Russian Zvi Giclman Bccomillg Israelis Political Resociali1alioll oj SOIiet alld Americull Imlligrallls (New York Praeger 1982) pp 203middot204

109 Rakhmicl Peltz Yiddish in the Ukraine A Project with Recent Soviet Immimiddot grants (unpublished paper Linguistics Depts Columbia Univcrsity 1981)