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Israeli Hebrew didn’t kill Yiddish. As a new exhibit in NYC shows, it gave it a new place to nest.
(New York Jewish Week) — Just before the end of the second millennium, Ezer Weizman, then president of Israel, visited the University of Cambridge to familiarize himself with the famous collection of medieval Jewish notes known as the Cairo Genizah. President Weizman was introduced to the Regius Professor of Hebrew, who had been allegedly nominated by the Queen of England herself.
Hearing “Hebrew,” the president, who was known as a sákhbak (friendly “bro”), clapped the professor on the shoulder and asked “má nishmà?” — the common Israeli “What’s up?” greeting, which some take to literally mean “what shall we hear?” but which is, in fact, a calque (loan translation) of the Yiddish phrase vos hért zikh, usually pronounced vsértsəkh and literally meaning “what’s heard?”
To Weizman’s astonishment, the distinguished Hebrew professor hadn’t the faintest clue what the president was asking. As an expert of the Old Testament, he wondered whether Weizman was alluding to Deuteronomy 6:4: “Shema Yisrael” (Hear, O Israel). Knowing neither Yiddish, nor Russian (Chto slyshno), Polish (Co słychać), Romanian (Ce se aude) nor Georgian (Ra ismis) — let alone Israeli Revived Hebrew — the professor had no chance whatsoever of guessing the actual meaning (“What’s up?”) of this beautiful, economical expression.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Yiddish and Hebrew were rivals to become the language of the future Jewish state. At first sight, it appears that Hebrew has won and that, after the Holocaust, Yiddish was destined to be spoken almost exclusively by ultra-Orthodox Jews and some eccentric academics. Yet, closer scrutiny challenges this perception. The victorious Hebrew may, after all, be partly Yiddish at heart.
In fact, as the Weizman story suggests, the enigma of Israeli Revived Hebrew requires an exhaustive study of the manifold influence of Yiddish on this “altneulangue” (“Old New Language”), to borrow from the title of the classic novel “Altneuland” (“Old New Land”), written by Theodor Herzl, the visionary of the Jewish state.
Yiddish survives beneath Israeli phonetics, phonology, discourse, syntax, semantics, lexis and even morphology, although traditional and institutional linguists have been most reluctant to admit it. Israeli Revived Hebrew is not “rétsakh Yídish” (Hebrew for “the murder of Yiddish) but rather “Yídish redt zikh” (Yiddish for “Yiddish speaks itself” beneath Israeli Hebrew).
That said, Yiddish had been clearly subject to linguicide (language killing) by three main isms: Nazism, communism and, well, Zionism, mutatis mutandis. Prior to the Holocaust, there were 13 million Yiddish speakers among 17 million Jews worldwide. Approximately 85% of the approximately 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust were Yiddish speakers. Yiddish was banned in the Soviet Union in 1948-1955.
It is high time that a Jewish institution address the issue of Zionism’s attempted linguicide against Yiddish. I am therefore delighted to hear about YIVO mounting a fascinating and multifaceted exhibition in Manhattan titled “Palestinian Yiddish: A Look at Yiddish in the Land of Israel Before 1948,” which opens today. I commend Eddy Portnoy, YIVO’s academic advisor and director of exhibitions, for an exquisite exhibition on a burning issue.
Characterized by the negation of the diaspora (shlilát hagalút) and continuing the disdain for Yiddish generated by the 19th-century Jewish Enlightenment, Zionist ideologues actively persecuted the language. In 1944-5 Rozka Korczak-Marla (1921-1988) was invited to speak at the sixth convention of the Histadrut, General Organization of Workers, in the Land of Israel. Korczak-Marla was a Holocaust survivor, one of the leaders of the Jewish combat organization in the Vilna Ghetto, Abba Kovner’s collaborator, and fighter at the United Partisan Organization (known in Yiddish as Faráynikte Partizáner Organizátsye).
Left, “Di yidishe shtot Tel Aviv” (The Jewish City Tel Aviv), a Yiddish-language guidebook created by Keren Hayesod in Jerusalem, 1933. Right, wounded Yiddishists after an attack by Hebrew language fanatics, Tel Aviv, 1928. Ilustrirte vokh, Warsaw, Nov. 30, 1928. (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)
She spoke, in her mother tongue Yiddish, about the extermination of Eastern European Jews, a plethora of them Yiddish speakers. Immediately after her speech she was followed on stage by David Ben-Gurion, the first general secretary of the Histadrut, the de facto leader of the Jewish community in Palestine and eventually Israel’s first prime minister. What he said is shocking from today’s perspective:
…זה עתה דיברה פה חברה בשפה זרה וצורמת
ze atá dibrá po khaverá besafá zará vetsorémet…
A comrade has just spoken here in a foreign and cacophonous tongue…
In the 1920s and 1930s, the Battalion for the Defense of the Language (Gdud meginéy hasafá), whose motto was “ivrí, dabér ivrít” (“Hebrew [i.e. Jew], speak Hebrew!), used to tear down signs written in “foreign” languages and disturb Yiddish theater gatherings. However, the members of this group only looked for Yiddish forms (words) rather than patterns in the speech of the Israelis who did choose to speak “Hebrew.” The language defenders would not attack an Israeli Revived Hebrew speaker uttering the aforementioned “má nishmà.”
Astonishingly, even the anthem of the Battalion for the Defense of the Language included a calque from Yiddish: “veál kol mitnagdénu anákhnu metsaftsefím,” literally “and on all our opponents we are whistling,” i.e., “we do not give a damn about our opponents.” “Whistling on” here is a calque of the Yiddish fáyfn af, meaning both “whistling on” and, colloquially, “not giving a damn about” something.
Furthermore, despite the linguistic oppression they suffered, Yiddishists in Palestine continued to produce creative works, a number of which are exhibited by YIVO.
Just like Sharpless, the American consul in Giacomo Puccini’s 1904 opera “Madama Butterfly,” “non ho studiato ornitologia” (“I have not studied ornithology”). I therefore take the liberty of using an ornithological metaphor: On one hand, Israeli Hebrew is a phoenix, rising from the ashes. On the other, it is a cuckoo, laying its egg in the nest of another bird, Yiddish, tricking it to believe that it is its own egg. And yet it also displays the characteristics of a magpie, stealing from Arabic, English and numerous other languages.
Israeli Revived Hebrew is thus a rara avis, an unusual and glorious hybrid.
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The post Israeli Hebrew didn’t kill Yiddish. As a new exhibit in NYC shows, it gave it a new place to nest. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Azerbaijan, Armenia Publish Text of US-Brokered Peace Deal
US President Donald Trump, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, and Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan pose with their documents during a trilateral signing event at the White House, in Washington, DC, Aug. 8, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Armenia and Azerbaijan published the text of a US-brokered peace agreement on Monday, pledging to respect each other’s territorial integrity and formally put an end to nearly four decades of conflict.
The deal was struck in Washington last Friday, when Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met with US President Donald Trump at the White House.
The text of the agreement, which was initialed by the countries’ foreign ministers, says Yerevan and Baku will relinquish all claims to each other’s territory, refrain from using force against one another, and pledge to respect international law.
“This agreement is a solid foundation for establishing a reliable and lasting peace, the result of an agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan that reflects the balanced interests of the two countries,” Pashinyan wrote on Facebook.
Armenia and Azerbaijan, neighbors in the South Caucasus region, have been locked in conflict since the late 1980s over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region at the southern end of the Karabakh mountain range, within Azerbaijan. Baku took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
The European Union, NATO member Turkey, and Russia have welcomed the accord, although Moscow, a traditional broker and ally of Armenia, was left out and warned against foreign meddling.
The deal explicitly bans the deployment of third-party forces along the countries’ shared border, a possible reference to Russia, which has previously deployed peacekeepers to the region and still has extensive military and security interests in Armenia.
The European Union also has a mission deployed at the border to monitor ceasefire violations, which Baku has repeatedly demanded it withdraw.
CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUE
The peace deal has not yet been signed by the two rivals, who both gained their independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
In a major hurdle to peace, Azerbaijan is demanding that Armenia change its constitution, which Baku says makes an implicit claim on Azerbaijani territory.
On Monday, Baku said “further actions” were required to sign the peace agreement, including amendments to Armenia‘s constitution that would “eliminate territorial claims against Azerbaijan.”
Aliyev, who has led Azerbaijan since 2003, told reporters in Washington last week that Yerevan “has some homework to do” regarding its founding charter, adding that after the changes have been made, “the peace agreement can be signed at any time.”
Pashinyan this year called for a referendum to change the constitution, but no date for it has been set yet.
The potential peace deal would transform the South Caucasus, an energy-rich region neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey, and Iran that is criss-crossed by oil and gas pipelines but has been hamstrung by closed borders and decades-old ethnic conflicts.
At the White House meeting on Friday, the United States gained exclusive development rights to a strategic transit corridor in the region that the Trump administration said would boost bilateral economic ties and allow for greater exports of energy.
The management and development of that corridor, which will run through southern Armenia and connect most of Azerbaijani territory with Nakhchivan, an Azerbaijani exclave that borders Baku’s ally Turkey, was also a stumbling block to initial peace efforts.
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Israel’s Gaza City Offensive May Be Weeks Away, Leaving Time for Potential Ceasefire
Palestinians look at aid packages that are airdropped over Gaza, in Gaza City, Aug. 8, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Israel’s new offensive in Gaza City could take weeks to start, leaving the door open for a ceasefire, officials say, even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it would get underway “fairly quickly” and end the war with Hamas’s defeat.
Two officials who were at a security cabinet meeting on Thursday to approve the plan told Reuters that the evacuation of civilians from affected areas may only be completed by the start of October, giving time for a deal to be pursued.
The plan raised international alarm over the harm it could bring to the shattered enclave, where a hunger crisis has worsened. On Sunday, Netanyahu summoned foreign journalists to explain the blueprint, which includes what he described as a surge of humanitarian aid.
Netanyahu said that Israel will first allow civilians to leave the battle zones before forces move in on Gaza City, which he described as one of Hamas’s last two remaining strongholds, whose defeat will bring an end to the war.
But Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a security cabinet member who has demanded even tougher action, said the plan was designed to pressure Hamas back to the negotiating table, rather than defeat the Palestinian terrorist group, and urged Netanyahu to scrap it.
Indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas over a US proposal for a 60-day ceasefire that would have included the release of half the hostages still in Gaza ended last month in a deadlock, with major gaps still between both sides.
The mediators, Egypt and Qatar, have not given up on reviving negotiations, according to an Arab diplomat who said Israel’s decision to broadcast its new Gaza City offensive plan may not be a bluff, but it also serves to bring Hamas back to the negotiating table.
The diplomat said that there was a new willingness from Hamas to engage in constructive talks toward a ceasefire after they had seen Netanyahu’s seriousness about taking all of Gaza.
Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said the group had informed the mediators that it was still interested in reaching a ceasefire deal.
Netanyahu has not ruled out eventually opting for a deal. A source close to the prime minister said that if a relevant proposal were to emerge, it would be brought before Israel’s security cabinet.
Asked on Sunday whether he would halt the new offensive in favor of a ceasefire, Netanyahu publicly took a tougher stance.
“We are aiming for the release of all the 20 [living hostages] with the goal of defeating Hamas. We were talking about a partial deal, we went for a partial deal, but we were led astray,” he said. “We are going to destroy Hamas, we are not stopping, we are advancing,” he added.
He also said he had instructed the Israeli military to speed up its plans for the new offensive.
“I want to end the war as quickly as possible and that is why I have instructed the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] to shorten the schedule for seizing control of Gaza City,” he said. The timeline, he said, was “fairly quickly.”
But the plans laid out at the security cabinet on Thursday could take around five months to complete, according to the two officials present at the meeting.
Netanyahu’s remarks on Gaza City being the last bastion whose downfall would hasten Hamas’s defeat echoed statements ahead of another offensive, in southern Gaza, more than a year ago.
In April 2024, during a previous round of failed ceasefire negotiations, Netanyahu vowed to press on with a long promised assault in Rafah that would achieve “total victory” after tackling Hamas’s last remaining brigade there.
Israel moved on Rafah in May 2024, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled the area. The group’s leader and mastermind of the 2023 attack that triggered the war, Yahya Sinwar, was killed by Israeli forces there around five months later.
But even with its top leaders dead and fighters long reduced to a guerilla force scattered among the ruins of Gaza, Netanyahu faces skepticism over the new plan – including from his military chief who called it a death trap – and of any hopes that it will end the war soon.
“This move is a danger to Israel and its security and it is pointless,” said Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid. “The hostages will die, soldiers will die, the economy will fall apart and Israel’s international standing will crumble.”
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Syria Vows to Investigate Footage of Sweida Hospital Killing
A view shows Sweida National Hospital, following deadly clashes between Druze fighters, Sunni Bedouin tribes, and government forces, in Syria’s predominantly Druze city of Sweida, Syria, July 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria‘s interior ministry said on Monday that it would investigate footage showing men in military fatigues shooting an unarmed man in scrubs at point-blank range in the main hospital in the predominantly Druze city of Sweida last month.
Syria‘s interior ministry said in a written statement that it had seen the “disturbing video” and “condemns and denounces this act in the strongest terms.”
The statement said the ministry tasked the deputy minister for security affairs “to directly supervise the investigation to ensure the perpetrators are identified and arrested as quickly as possible.”
The security camera footage, verified by Reuters and by a doctor who witnessed the incident as being filmed inside Sweida National Hospital, shows four men in green military fatigues and one man in a black uniform with the words “Interior Ministry” printed on his back.
In the footage, the five security forces stand in front of a group of about two dozen people in hospital scrubs, kneeling or squatting on the floor. One man in scrubs is standing.
Two of the men in fatigues grab the standing man and slap him, as if trying to force him to sit. The man in scrubs resists and pulls one of the attackers in a headlock and onto the floor.
The other armed men intervene to release their colleague. The man in scrubs is then shot twice while on the floor, first with a rifle by one of the uniformed men and then with a pistol by a second uniformed man.
In the footage, which has no sound, the fighters appear to address the rest of the group, then drag the motionless man away by his feet, leaving a streak of blood on the hospital floor.
The Syrian defense ministry did not immediately respond to questions from Reuters on the incident.
The footage is the latest to emerge of execution-style killings in Sweida, where sectarian bloodshed last month left more than 1,000 people dead, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights. A fact-finding committee has been set up to investigate reports of abuses.
WITNESS
Reuters was able to confirm the location of the footage from the floor, doors and walls, which matched media coverage of the hospital lobby. The date on the CCTV footage says the incident took place at about 3:16 p. on July 16.
Syrian armed forces were deployed to Sweida city on July 15 to quell clashes between Bedouin tribes and Druze fighters, but the violence worsened after they entered.
A senior doctor in the hospital‘s orthopedic department who was in the hospital at the time and witnessed the incident said the security forces had stormed the hospital on July 16.
The doctor identified the slain man as Muhammad Bahsas, a civil engineer who had come to the hospital to volunteer.
The doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals, said one of the security personnel who had shot Bahsas told the rest of the group: “Anyone who speaks up to us will end up like him.”
The doctor said the armed men then combed through the hospital for hours, searching for weapons and repeatedly calling the medical staff and volunteers “pigs.” The security forces kept medical staff confined to hospital rooms overnight and left the hospital by the morning, the doctor said.
