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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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University of Connecticut Rejects Dialogue With Pro-Hamas Group After Antisemitic Incident Targeting President
UConnDivest, a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) spinoff demonstrating at University of Connecticut. Photo: UConnDivest/Instagram
University of Connecticut administrators have canceled a planned meeting with UConnDivest (UDC), a spinoff of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), following the group’s creating what a local newspaper described as an antisemitic caricature of President Radenka Maric, who is Jewish.
According to The Hartford Courant, UDC on Monday distributed an illustration portraying Maric as a devil-like figure with red horns against a backdrop of money and missiles. The tactic continued a smear offensive SJP has been waging against Maric since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, which has included creating altered images in which the face of a clown — graffitied across the forehead with the phrase “I Genocide — is imposed on her visage. In other communications, SJP has accused Maric of being both a puppet and puppet master, one who facilitates a genocide of Palestinians and, as it said in May, “inherently sides with ruling class interests.”
Maric’s administration, aiming to calm the campus months after she ordered the arrests of some two dozen pro-Hamas protesters, still agreed to hold several meetings with UCD to discuss their demands for a boycott of Israel and amnesty for protesters facing criminal charges despite their repeated violations of school rules and promotion of antisemitic tropes. The first of what was to be a series of meetings was held in late August. They were slated to continue throughout the fall semester, but after UCD’s latest outburst, the administration has stated that its patience is exhausted and that a dialogue with the students cannot continue.
“Whatever the intent, these images are examples of grotesque and unacceptable antisemitism that will be instantly recognizable to countless Jews,” high-level university officials on Thursday told UCD in a letter, portions of which were shared by the Hartford Courant. “It is deeply wrong and dangerous to deploy imagery such as this. Depicting a Jewish female administrator with ‘devil horns,’ as a pig, or using obscene and vulgar expressions, are not amusing caricatures — they are dark and troubling images deeply rooted in history that have been associated with hatred and violence for centuries, in addition to being openly misogynistic.”
The letter continued, “We witnessed expressions and actions that are deeply disturbing, counter to our values as an inclusive community, and make further meetings or discussions with your student group at this time untenable.”
UCD responded to the letter by vowing to continue its behaviors until its demands, which include a face-to-face standoff with Maric, are met.
“UConnDivest is fighting to end the genocide of Palestinians and to end the violence and oppression imposed upon so many other peoples around the globe,” the group said in an Instagram post. “UConnDivest will never cease speaking out against human rights abuses and fighting for what is right. Our Palestinian siblings are forever in our hearts.”
Writing to the Courant, the group accused the university of fabricating antisemitism allegations to sidestep Israel’s war with Hamas.
“UConnDivest condemns the administration’s weaponization of antisemitism to deflect criticism over its involvement in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza,” it said.
Pro-Hamas and anti-Zionist groups are already resuming the disruptive behavior they perpetrated last academic year, when Jewish students across the US were assaulted, spit on, and threatened with mass murder.
In August, pro-Hamas students at Cornell University vandalized an administrative building, graffitiing “Israel Bombs, Cornell pays” and “Blood is on your hands” on it and shattering the glazings of its glass doors. Earlier this month, several resident assistants employed by Rutgers University left an antisemitism awareness program because a speaker explained that Hamas’s antisemitism and desire to destroy the world’s only Jewish state precipitated the Oct. 7 massacre. Weeks earlier, a masked man poured red paint on the Alma Mater sculpture at Columbia University, symbolizing the spilling of blood.
Anti-Israel activity on college campuses has reached crisis levels in the 11 months since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, according to a new report the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued on Monday.
Revealing a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena, the report — titled “Anti-Israel Activism on US Campuses, 2023-2024” — paints a bleak picture of America’s higher education system poisoned by political extremism and hate.
The report added that 10 campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents, 52 and 38, respectively. Harvard University, the University of California, Los Angeles, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others filled out the rest of the top 10. Violence, the report continued, was most common at universities in the state of California, where in one incident anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.
The ADL also provided hard numbers on the number of pro-Hamas protests which struck campuses across the country following Oct. 7, a subject The Algemeiner has covered extensively. According to the report, 1,418 anti-Zionist demonstrations were held at 360 campuses in 46 states during the 2023-2024 academic year, a 335 percent increase from the previous year.
“The antisemitic, anti-Zionist vitriol we’ve witnessed on campus is unlike anything we’ve seen in the past,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement announcing the report. “Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the anti-Israel movement’s relentless harassment, vandalism, intimidation and violent physical assaults go way beyond the peaceful voicing of a political opinion. Administrators and faculty need to do much better this year to ensure a safe and truly inclusive environment for all students, regardless of religion, nationality, or political views, and they need to start now.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post University of Connecticut Rejects Dialogue With Pro-Hamas Group After Antisemitic Incident Targeting President first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Houthis Prepared for ‘Long War of Attrition’ With Israel, Says Terror Group’s ‘Defense Minister’
Houthi policemen ride on the back of a patrol pick-up truck during the funeral of Houthi terrorists killed by recent US-led strikes, in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia is prepared for a “long war” against Israel and its allies, according to the US-designated terrorist organization’s so-called “defense minister,” who described fighting the Jewish state as a “religious duty.”
“The Yemeni Army holds the key to victory, and is prepared for a long war of attrition against the usurping Zionist regime, its sponsors, and allies,” Mohamed al-Atifi was quoted as saying on Thursday by Iran’s state-owned Press TV network.
“Our struggle against the Nazi Zionist entity is deeply rooted in our beliefs. We are well aware of the fact that this campaign is a sacred and religious duty that requires tremendous sacrifices,” added Atifi, who has been sanctioned by the US government.
His remarks echoed those of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who on Monday said his Palestinian terrorist group was prepared for prolonged fighting against Israel in a message to the Houthis.
“We have prepared ourselves to fight a long war of attrition that will break the enemy’s political will,” Sinwar said, claiming that Hamas and allied Iran-backed groups across the Middle East would defeat the Jewish state.
The Houthis began disrupting global trade in a major way with their attacks on shipping in the busy Red Sea corridor after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, arguing their aggression was a show of support for Palestinians in Gaza.
The Houthi rebels — whose slogan is “death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory to Islam” — have controlled a significant portion of Yemen’s land in the north and along the Red Sea since 2014, when they captured it in the midst of the country’s civil war.
The Iran-backed movement has said it will target all ships heading to Israeli ports, even if they do not pass through the Red Sea, and claimed responsibility for attempted drone and missile strikes targeting Israel. Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught, which launched the ongoing war in Gaza, Houthi terrorists in Yemen have routinely launched ballistic missiles toward Israel’s southern city of Eilat. In July, they hit the center of Tel Aviv with a long-range Iranian-made drone.
Then on Sunday, the Houthis reached central Israel with a missile for the first time. Israeli air defenses intercepted fragments of a surface-to-surface missile launched from Yemen that exploded over Israel’s central region. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would inflict a “heavy price” on the Houthis for the attack.
Sinwar congratulated the Houthis for Sunday’s attempted strike.
“I congratulate you on your success in sending your missiles deep into the enemy entity, bypassing all layers and defense and interception systems,” Sinwar said in his message addressed to Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi.
According to reports, Houthi fighters recently arrived in Syria from Yemen as “a prelude to a new phase of escalation against Israel.” The Algemeiner could not independently verify these reports, although they fit with Sinwar’s stated goal of fighting Israel on all fronts.
“Our combined efforts with you” and with groups in Lebanon and Iraq “will break this enemy and inflict defeat on it,” the Hamas leader said on Monday to his Houthi counterpart.
Meanwhile, the leader of the Iran-backed Iraqi militia Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, another US-designated terrorist organization, also praised the Houthis for their opposition to Israel.
“Yemen’s support for Palestine represents a model to be emulated. Yemenis have proven to the whole world that they are capable of creating miracles and changing the balance of power,” Qais al-Khazali told al-Masirah TV on Thursday. “What the Yemeni nation has obtained under the aegis of leader of the Ansarullah resistance movement Abdul-Malik al-Houthi is a great achievement, which every Arab and Muslim could be proud of.”
The US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released a report in July revealing how Iran has been “smuggling weapons and weapons components to the Houthis.”
The report noted that the Houthis used Iranian-supplied ballistic and cruise missiles to conduct over a hundred land attacks on Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and within Yemen, as well as dozens of attacks on merchant shipping.
Iran also backs Hamas, providing the Islamist terror group with weapons, funding, and training.
While the Houthis have increasingly targeted Israeli soil in recent months, they have primarily attacked ships in the Red Sea, a key trade route, having a major economic impact by disrupting global shipping and raising the cost of shipping and insurance. Shipping firms have been forced in many cases to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa to avoid passing near Yemen.
Beyond Israeli targets, the Houthis have threatened and in some cases actually attacked US and British ships, leading the two Western allies to launch retaliatory strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.
The post Houthis Prepared for ‘Long War of Attrition’ With Israel, Says Terror Group’s ‘Defense Minister’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli Singer Eden Golan to Perform at UN ‘October Rain’ Song About Hamas Attack Rejected by Eurovision
Eden Golan performing “Hurricane” for Israel at the second semi-final for the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest at Malmo Arena on May 9, 2024. Photo: Corinne Cumming/EBU
Eden Golan, Israel’s representative in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, will perform her original song “October Rain” at the United Nations to mark the one-year anniversary of the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel.
Golan will perform the track at a ceremony on Oct. 7 that will be hosted by Israel’s Foreign Ministry, according to ILTV News. Families of hostages currently being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip are expected to attend the event along with Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield, and diplomats from other countries, the news outlet reported.
The lyrics of “October Rain” reference the Oct. 7 massacre, and in the chorus, Golan sings: “Dancing in the storm/We got nothing to hide/Take me home/And leave the world behind/And I promise you that never again/I’m still wet from this October rain.”
Golan had originally planned to perform “October Rain” at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Sweden, but the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the contest, rejected the song, deeming it too political. Golan instead competed in the Eurovision with a reworded version of the song that was retitled “Hurricane.”
Golan finished in fifth place in the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest. She made it to the top five after being booed on stage by anti-Israel protesters, experiencing death threats, and having one of the competition’s jury members refuse to give her points because of his personal opposition to Israel. Golan later revealed that she was forced to wear a disguise outside her hotel during the song competition in Malmo, Sweden, because of the threats she faced by those who opposed Israel’s involvement in the contest.
Shortly after the conclusion of the competition, Golan performed “October Rain” at a rally in Tel Aviv in support of the hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7.
The post Israeli Singer Eden Golan to Perform at UN ‘October Rain’ Song About Hamas Attack Rejected by Eurovision first appeared on Algemeiner.com.