Europe – Lithuania, which was once home to more than 200,000 Jews. But now schools and universities are trying to spread Yiddish again.
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“Yiddish is a key to the rich culture of eastern European Jews, the heritage of European culture,” said Roza Bieliauskiene, a former engineer who teaches at Lithuania’s only Jewish school “I feel a very rich person by knowing this language.”
The school has 260 pupils, between the ages of seven and eight. Children take only one hour of Yiddish a week, starting at age 15, in a small step towards reviving the language.
At the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, founded in 2001 and the only one of its kind in eastern Europe, Professor Dovid Katz is keeping the flame alive with more than talk of matzo balls, gefilte fish and schmaltz (which is Yiddish for chicken fat).
Estimates vary widely of how many people speak Yiddish worldwide today, ranging between about two to four million. It is mainly the language of everyday use among Orthodox Jews. Otherwise, it is mainly spoken by older people. [reuters]
I heard that In America they will get rid of Spanish as the number one option on your key pad and switch it to Yiddish.
Bravo!!
Anon 5:44 PM
Actually, in Chicago and Miami Beach there are yiddish speaking cheders. In Chicago, it is called the Veitziner cheder and I forget the name of the one in Miami Beach. Also, there are large commmunities in Monsey, Belgium Australia, Israel, England,
Switzerland, other places in Europe, North America and South America that I personally know of that speak yiddish as their language. And, I am sure that there are many more that I don’t either know of.
Mainly the language of the orthodox, where in Williamsburg & BP?, surely not in Miami Beach, Chicago, LosAngeles, the Midwest, New York state. If spoken it is usually the elderly, hear English and Hebrew in my travels to Jewish enclaves.
The Yiddish language is a dialect of Middle German.
The “language” that unifies and preserves the Jewish people is Torah and Mitzvah observance.
Now if they spelled Yiddish with an Alef they may also learn to spell!
to all that read vos iz neias
this program it totally secular, they are teaching yiddish without yiddishkeit or kosher food, i spoke with reliable sources who live in lithuiania
thank you