 |
~`photo by This is Tel Aviv
|
Many people who don’t have a lot to do with the
Jewish culture, find it hard to define the differences between Hebrew and
Yiddish, or even wonder if it’s not the same language - “uhm, the one all these
Jews speak, right? ”. Although both of them are written with the same alphabet,
they are never ever supposed to be confused. Not only they come from two
distinct language groups and have been spoken in different parts of the world
by people of different ethnicities. In Israel, they also represent two opposite
worlds that have a completely different vision of what being a Jew means.
But let’s start with the linguistic aspects.
Yiddish was used by the Aschkenazi families in Eastern Europe. Some scholars
consider it just a Judeo-German dialect, others describe it as an independent
language. Hebrew is a Semitic language of Afroasian origin. Classical Hebrew is
the ancient, Canaanite version in which the Bible is written, therefore today
it is used mainly for religious purposes. However, in this article I’m referring
only to Modern Hebrew - don’t get lost. This language is quite peculiar,
artificial in a way. It has actually come into being only at the end of 19th
century, as a fruit of the Hebrew revitalization project. All the Jews settling
in Palestine about that time needed a common language to unite the diverse,
arising nation. The Zionist linguists and writers (Ben Yehuda in particular)
modernized the old, biblical Hebrew by changing various grammatical rules,
making the sentence structure more Slavic and borrowing many words from various
Jewish or foreign dialects. Since the establishment of the State of Israel,
this hybrid has become (beside Arabic) one of the two national languages.
The whole Zionist movement that led to it was
based on the importance of Jewish identity, but most of its secular activists
would perceive it somewhat differently than the Ultra-Orthodox haredim. The establishment of the Jewish
state meant breaking off with the “diaspora mentality” and creating a brand new
exemplar, totally different from the pale, bearded intellectual of the past.
The pioneer Sabras were supposed to
be strong, direct, plain and persistent; full of ideological socialist-zionist enthusiasm; liberally distanced from the Hasidic religious tradition, dividing time between the strenuous
farming work, Hebrew poetry and heated debates in the kibbutzim communities. The Jewish identity has been replaced (or smoothly
transformed?) by the new Israeli one. The words perfectly mirrored that
transition. Many Zionists after coming to Israel would symbolically change their old names into
new ones – take Ben Gurion, ex-Dawid Grün. Erec
Israel signified a new beginning. They associated Yiddish with the ghetto-shtetl
provincialism and treated the Eastern European Jews with a sense of superiority
or contempt. It was only later that Yiddish gained back a bit of respect and
started to be considered another part of the rich Jewish tradition. Nowadays, it
returns to being in young Israelis’ favors, it can even be studied at the Israeli
universities.
If you wish to learn one of these languages, it will certainly be a splendid
window on the Israeli life and culture. Nevertheless, you must remember that
each of them will reveal a different image of the country - one of its many,
many faces.
