Yiddish (ייִדיש yidish or אידיש idish, literally: "Jewish") is a non-territorial Germanic language, spoken throughout the world and written with the Hebrew alphabet. The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. The Hebrew alphabet (אָלֶף-בֵּית עִבְרִי alephbet ’ivri) consists of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew language. It originated in the Ashkenazi culture that developed from about the 10th century in the Rhineland, and then spread to central and eastern Europe, and eventually to other continents. Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim ( Hebrew: אַשְׁכֲּנָזִים, ˌaʃkəˈnazim sing The Rhineland ( Rheinland in German) is the general name for the land on both sides of the river Rhine in the west of Germany. Central Europe is the Region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and Eastern Europe is a general term that refers to the Geopolitical region encompassing the easternmost part of the European continent. In the earliest surviving references to it, the language is called לשון ־ אַשכּנז (loshn-ashkenaz = "language of Ashkenaz") and טײַטש (taytsh, a variant of tiutsch, the contemporary name for the language otherwise spoken in the region of origin, now called Middle High German; compare the modern New High German or Deutsch). Middle High German (MHG German Mittelhochdeutsch) is the term used for the period in the history of the German language between 1050 and 1350 New High German (NHG is the term used for the most recent period in the history of the German language. In common usage, the language is called מאַמע־לשון (mame-loshn, literally "mother tongue"), distinguishing it from biblical Hebrew and Aramaic which are collectively termed לשון־קודש (loshn-koydesh, "holy tongue"). Aramaic is a Semitic language with The term Yiddish did not become the most frequently used designation in the literature of the language until the 18th century. The 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar, in accordance with the Anno Domini / Common Era numbering system For a significant portion of its history it was the primary spoken language of the Ashkenazi Jews and once spanned a broad dialect continuum from "Western Yiddish" to three major groups within "Eastern Yiddish". Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim ( Hebrew: אַשְׁכֲּנָזִים, ˌaʃkəˈnazim sing A dialect continuum is a range of Dialects spoken across a large geographical area differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close and gradually decreasing Yiddish dialects are subsets of the major regional branches of the Yiddish language Western Yiddish and Eastern Yiddish Yiddish dialects are subsets of the major regional branches of the Yiddish language Western Yiddish and Eastern Yiddish Eastern and Western Yiddish are most markedly distinguished by the extensive inclusion of words of Slavic origin in the Eastern dialects. The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) a group of closely related Languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος dialektos) is a variety of a Language that is characteristic of a particular group of While Western Yiddish has few remaining speakers, Eastern dialects remain in wide use. Yiddish dialects are subsets of the major regional branches of the Yiddish language Western Yiddish and Eastern Yiddish Yiddish is written and spoken as a living language in many Orthodox Jewish communities around the world. Orthodox Judaism is the formulation of Judaism that adheres to a relatively strict interpretation and application of the laws and ethics first canonized It is most notably used as a first language in most Hasidic communities, where it is the first language learned in childhood and used in home, schooling and many social settings. Hasidic Judaism (also Chasidic, etc from the Hebrew: he '''''חסידות''''', Chassidus, meaning "piety" from the Hebrew

The general history and status of the Yiddish language are discussed below, with further detail provided in a series of separate articles on:

• Yiddish dialects—as spoken in different regions of Europe
• Yiddish morphology—the structural detail of the language
• Yiddish orthography—the written representation of the language
• Yiddish phonology—the elements of the spoken language

Yiddish is also used in the adjectival sense to designate attributes of Ashkenazic culture (for example, Yiddish cooking and Yiddish music). Yiddish dialects are subsets of the major regional branches of the Yiddish language Western Yiddish and Eastern Yiddish The morphology of the Yiddish language bears many similarities to that of German, with some influence from Slavic languages. The Yiddish language is written using Hebrew script as the basis of a full vocalic Alphabet. There is significant phonological variation among the various Dialects of the Yiddish language. Jewish cuisine is a collection of international Cookery traditions linked by Jewish Dietary laws ( Kashrus) and Jewish holiday traditions See also Secular Jewish music Klezmer (from Yiddish כּלי־זמיר kley - instrument and zemer - song etymologically from

History

The Ashkenazic culture that took root in 10th-century Central Europe derived its name from Ashkenaz (Genesis 10:3), the medieval Hebrew name for the territory centered on what is now designated as Germany. Central Europe is the Region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and Ashkenaz is Gomer 's first son brother of Riphath, and Togarmah (Gen Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe.

Its geographic extent did not coincide with the German Christian principalities, and Ashkenaz included Northern France. A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. It also bordered on the area inhabited by the Sephardim, or Spanish Jews, which ranged into southern France. Sephardi Jews ( Hebrew: ספרדי, Standard Səfardi Tiberian Səp̄arədî; plural Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Later, the Ashkenazic culture would spread into Eastern Europe as well. Eastern Europe is a general term that refers to the Geopolitical region encompassing the easternmost part of the European continent.

Nothing is known about the vernacular of the earliest Jews in Germany, but several theories have been put forward. Vernacular refers to the Native language of a country or a locality It is generally accepted that it was likely to have contained elements from other languages of the Near East and Europe absorbed through dispersion.

Since many settlers came via France and Italy, it is also likely that the Romance-based Jewish languages of those regions were represented. Traces remain in the contemporary Yiddish vocabulary, for example, בענטשן (bentshn, to bless), from the Latin benedicere, and the personal name Anshl, cognate to Angel, Angelo. Western Yiddish includes additional words of Latin derivation (but still very few), for example orn (to pray), cf. Latin 'orare'.

Liuboml, near Kovel, Volhynia, around 1900. This page deals with a city in Ukraine For the film named after this city see Luboml (film. Kovel (Ковель translit Kovel’, Polish: Kowel is a City located in the Volyn Oblast ( province) in north-western Year 1900 ( MCM) was an exceptional Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar A bilingual German/Yiddish sign reads "Volks-Küche/Folks-kikh" (People's Kitchen).

The first language of European Jews may have been Aramaic (Katz 2004), the vernacular of the Jews in Roman era Palestine, and ancient and early medieval Mesopotamia. Aramaic is a Semitic language with Palestine is a name which has been widely used since Roman times to refer to the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Mesopotamia (from the Greek meaning "land between the rivers" is an area geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers largely corresponding The widespread use of Aramaic among the large non-Jewish Syrian trading population of the Roman provinces, including those in Europe, would have reinforced the use of Aramaic among Jews engaged in trade.

In Roman times, many of the Jews living in Rome and southern Italy appear to have been Greek-speakers, and this is reflected in some Ashkenazi personal names (e. g. Kalonymus). Much work needs to be done though, to fully analyze the contributions of those languages to Yiddish.

Members of the young Ashkenazi community would have encountered the myriad dialects from which standard German was destined to emerge many centuries later. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. They would soon have been speaking their own versions of these German dialects, mixed with linguistic elements that they themselves brought into the region. These dialects would have adapted to the needs of the burgeoning Ashkenazi culture and may, as characterizes many such developments, have included the deliberate cultivation of linguistic differences to assert cultural autonomy. The term minority rights embodies two separate concepts first normal individual Rights as applied to members of racial Ethnic, class religious linguistic or

The Ashkenazi community also had its own geography, with a pattern of relationships among settlements that was somewhat independent of its non-Jewish neighbors. This led to the consolidation of Yiddish dialects, the borders of which did not coincide with the borders of German dialects.

Written evidence

The oldest surviving literary document in Yiddish is a blessing in a Hebrew prayer book from 1272 (described extensively in Frakes 2004 and Baumgarten/Frakes 2005):

This brief rhyme is decoratively embedded in a purely Hebrew text (a reproduction of which is in Katz 2004). Nonetheless, it indicates that the Yiddish of that day was a more or less regular Middle High German into which Hebrew words — makhazor (prayer book for the High Holy Days) and beis hakneses (synagogue) — had been included. The mahzor (alternately machzor, plural mahzorim, Hebrew מחזור maxˈzor and) is the prayer book used by Jews This article refers to the Jewish holidays For other uses see here. A synagogue (from Greek: grc συναγωγή transliterated synagogē, "assembly" he בית כנסת beit knesset, "house of The pointing appears as though it might have been added by a second scribe, in which case it may need to be dated separately. In Hebrew Orthography, niqqud or nikkud ( is the system of Diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations

Over the course of the 14th and 15th centuries, songs and poems in Yiddish, and also macaronic pieces in Hebrew and German, began to appear. Macaronic refers to text spoken or written using a mixture of Languages sometimes including Bilingual puns particularly when the languages are used in the same context These were collected in the late 15th century by Menahem ben Naphtali Oldendorf. During the same period, a tradition seems to have emerged of the Jewish community adapting its own versions of German secular literature. The earliest Yiddish epic poem of this sort is the Dukus Horant which survives in the famous Cambridge Codex T. Dukus Horant is a 14th-century Narrative poem in Judeo-German (Proto- Yiddish) -S. 10. K. 22. This 14th-century manuscript was discovered in the geniza of a Cairo synagogue in 1896, and also contains a collection of narrative poems on themes from the Hebrew Bible and the Haggadah. The term Hebrew Bible is a generic reference to those books of the Bible originally written in Biblical Hebrew (and the related Biblical Aramaic The Haggadah (הגדה is a Jewish religious text that sets out the order of the Passover Seder.

Apart from the obvious use of Hebrew words for specifically Jewish artifacts, it is very difficult to determine how much 15th-century written Yiddish differed from the German of that period. This is highly dependent on the phonetic properties that the alphabet is assumed to have had, particularly the vowels. There is a rough consensus that by this period, Yiddish would have sounded distinctive to the average German ear even when restricted to the Germanic component of its vocabulary.

Printing

The advent of the printing press resulted in an increase in the amount of material produced and surviving from the 16th century and onwards. A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a medium (such as paper or cloth thereby transferring an image One particularly popular work was Elia Levita's Bovo-Bukh, composed 1507–1508 and printed in at least forty editions beginning in 1541. Elia Levita ( 13 February 1469 &ndash 28 January 1549) ( Hebrew: אליהו בן אשר בחור) also known as Elijah The Bovo-Bukh ("Bovo book" also known as Baba Buch, etc Levita, the earliest named Yiddish author, may also have written Pariz un Viene (Paris and Vienna). Another Yiddish retelling of a chivalric romance, Vidvilt (often referred to as "Widuwilt" by Germanizing scholars), presumably also dates from the 15th century, although the manuscripts are from the 16th. It is also known as Kinig Artus Hof, an adaptation of the Middle High German romance Wigalois by Wirnt von Gravenberg. Another significant writer is Avroham ben Schemuel Pikartei who published a paraphrase on the Book of Job in 1557. The Book of Job ( איוב) is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible.

Women in the Ashkenazi community were traditionally not literate in Hebrew, but did read and write Yiddish. A body of literature therefore developed for which women were a primary audience. This included secular works such as the Bovo-Bukh and religious writing specifically for women, such as the Tseno Ureno and the Tkhines. The Tseno Ureno (צאנה וראינה sometimes called the Women's Bible, was a 1616 Yiddish -language prose work whose structure Tkhines ( Yiddish for 'prayers' 'supplications' pronounced 'tkhiners' - the i is pronounced as in 'fit' and the kh like the ch in Scottish 'loCH' One of the best known early woman authors was Glückel of Hameln, whose memoirs are still in print. Glückel of Hameln (also spelled Gluckel or Glikl of Hamelin; also known as Glikl bas Judah Leib (1646 Hamburg – September 19, 1724

A page from the Shemot Devarim, a Yiddish-Hebrew-Latin-German dictionary and thesaurus, published by Elia Levita in 1542

The segmentation of the Yiddish readership, between women who read mame-loshn but not loshn-koydesh, and men who read both, was significant enough that distinctive typefaces were used for each. In Typography, a typeface is a set of one or more Fonts designed with stylistic unity each comprising a coordinated set of Glyphs A typeface usually comprises The name commonly given to the semicursive form used exclusively for Yiddish was ווײַבערטײַטש (vaybertaytsh = "women's taytsh"; shown in the heading and fourth column in the adjacent illustration), with square Hebrew letters (shown in the third column) being reserved for text in that language and Aramaic. This distinction was retained in general typographic practice through to the early 19th century, with Yiddish books being set in vaybertaytsh (also termed מאַשייט Masheyt). The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar

An additional distinctive semicursive typeface was, and still is, used for rabbinical commentary on religious texts when Hebrew and Yiddish both appear on the same page. This is commonly termed Rashi script from the name of the most renowned early author whose commentary is usually printed using this script. Rashi script ( Hebrew: כתב רש"י is a semi- cursive Typeface for the Hebrew alphabet, in which Rashi's commentaries are printed (Rashi is also the typeface normally used when the Sefardi counterpart to Yiddish, Ladino, is printed in Hebrew script. )

Secularization

The Western Yiddish dialect began to decline in the 18th century, as The Enlightenment and the Haskalah led to the German view that Yiddish was a corrupt dialect. The 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar, in accordance with the Anno Domini / Common Era numbering system The Age of Enlightenment or The Enlightenment is a term used to describe a phase in Western philosophy and cultural life centered upon the eighteenth century Haskalah ( Hebrew: השכלה "enlightenment" "education" from sekhel " Intellect " "mind") the Jewish Enlightenment Owing to both assimilation to German and the incipient creation of Modern Hebrew, Western Yiddish only survived as a language of "intimate family circles or of closely knit trade groups" (Liptzin 1972). Farther east, where Jews were denied such emancipation, Yiddish was the cohesive force in a secular culture based on, and termed, ייִדישקייט (yidishkeyt = "Jewishness"). Secularity ( adjective form secular) is the state of being separate from Religion. Yiddishkeit ( Yiddish: ייִדישקייט — yidishkeyt in standard transcription literally means "Jewishness" i

The period of the late 19th and early 20th century is widely considered the Golden Age of secular Yiddish literature. The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar The twentieth century of the Common Era began on This coincides with the development of Modern Hebrew as a spoken and literary language, from which some words were also absorbed into Yiddish. The three authors generally regarded as the founders of the modern Yiddish literary genre were born in the 19th century, but their work and significance continued to grow into the 20th. The first was Sholem Yankev Abramovitch, writing as Mendele Mocher Sforim. Mendele Mocher Sforim (also Sfarim, מענדעלע מוכר ספֿרים) ( December 21, 1835 ( O The second was Sholem Rabinovitsh, widely known as Sholem Aleichem, whose stories about טבֿיה דער מילכיקער (tevye der milkhiker = Tevye the Dairyman) inspired the Broadway musical and film Fiddler on the Roof. Sholem Aleichem (שלום־עליכם Шолом-Алейхем &ndash May 13, 1916) was the Pen name of Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich the popular Tevye the dairyman ( Yiddish טבֿיה דער מילכיקער Tevye der milkhiker) is the protagonist of several of Sholem Aleichem 's stories Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set The third was Isaac Leib Peretz. Isaac Leib Peretz (born May 18th 1852 in Zamość, died 3 April 1915 in Warsaw also known as Yitskhok Leybush Peretz יצחק־לייבוש פרץ and

The 20th century

In the early 20th century, Yiddish was emerging as a major Eastern European language. Its rich literature was more widely published than ever, Yiddish theater and Yiddish film were booming, and it even achieved status as one of the official languages of the Belorussian and the short-lived Galician SSR. Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Eastern European Ashkenazi Jewish community The National Center for Jewish Film is a non-profit motion picture archive distributor and resource center The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (abbreviated as Byelorussian SSR or BSSR) (Беларуская Савецкая Сацыялістычная Рэспубліка Galician Soviet Socialist Republic (Galician SSR existed from July 8, 1920 to September 21, 1920 during the Polish-Soviet War Educational autonomy for Jews in several countries (notably Poland) after World War I led to an increase in formal Yiddish-language education, more uniform orthography, and to the 1925 founding of the Yiddish Scientific Institute, later YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Year 1925 ( MCMXXV) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. YIVO, ( Yiddish: yi ייִוואָ established in 1925 in Vilna Poland (now Vilnius Lithuania as the Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut ( Yiddish Yiddish emerged as the national language of a large Jewish community in Eastern Europe that rejected Zionism and sought to obtain Jewish cultural autonomy in Europe. History of Zionism|Timeline of Zionism|World Zionist Organization|Zionist political violence Zionism is an international political movement that originally supported the It also contended with Modern Hebrew as a literary language among Zionists.

On the eve of World War II, there were between 11 and 13 million Yiddish speakers (Jacobs 2005). World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including The Holocaust, however, led to a dramatic, sudden decline in the use of Yiddish, as the extensive Jewish communities, both secular and religious, that used Yiddish in their day-to-day life were largely destroyed. The Holocaust (from the Greek el ''ὁλόκαυστον'' (el-Latn holókauston holos, "completely" and kaustos, "burnt" also known as Although millions of Yiddish speakers survived the war (including nearly all Yiddish speakers in the Americas), further assimilation in countries such as the United States and the Soviet Union, along with the strictly monolingual stance of the Zionist movement, led to a decline in the use of Eastern Yiddish similar to the earlier decline in Western Yiddish. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 History of Zionism|Timeline of Zionism|World Zionist Organization|Zionist political violence Zionism is an international political movement that originally supported the However, the number of speakers within the widely dispersed Orthodox (mainly Hasidic) communities has recently increased. Although used in various countries, Yiddish has attained official recognition as a minority language only in Moldova, The Netherlands and Sweden. Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation.

Reports of the number of current Yiddish speakers vary significantly. Ethnologue estimates that in 2005 there were three million speakers of Eastern Yiddish,^[1] of which over one-third lived in the United States. Ethnologue Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics a Christian Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. In contrast, the Modern Language Association reports fewer than 200,000 in the United States. The Modern Language Association of America (usually referred to as simply Modern Language Association or MLA) is the principal Professional association ^[2] Western Yiddish, which had "several tens of thousands of speakers" on the eve of the Holocaust, is reported by Ethnologue to have had an "ethnic population" of slightly below 50,000 in 2000. The Holocaust (from the Greek el ''ὁλόκαυστον'' (el-Latn holókauston holos, "completely" and kaustos, "burnt" also known as 2000 ( MM) was a Leap year that started on Saturday of the Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. ^[3] Intermediate estimates are also given, for example, of a worldwide Yiddish-speaking population of about two million in 1996 in a report by the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe (Conseil de l'Europe is the oldest International organisation working towards European integration, being founded in 1949 ^[4] Further demographic information about the recent status of what is treated as an Eastern-Western dialect continuum is provided in the YIVO Language and Cultural Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (LCAAJ). Demographics or demographic data refers to selected population characteristics as used in government Marketing or opinion research or the Demographic profiles A dialect continuum is a range of Dialects spoken across a large geographical area differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close and gradually decreasing Quotation marks or inverted commas (informally referred to as quotes and speech marks) are Punctuation marks used in pairs to set off speech Numbers of native speakers from the latest available national censuses and other estimates are as follows:

• Israel: 215,000, or 6% of the total Jewish population, as estimated by Ethnologue (1986)
• Argentina: 200,000 (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Argentina/Languages)
• USA: 178,945, or 2. 8% of the total Jewish population (2000)
• Former Soviet Union:

• Russia: 29,998, or 13% of the total Jewish population (2002)
• Moldova: 17,000, or 26% of the total Jewish population (1989)
• Ukraine: 3,213, or 3. 1% of the total Jewish population (2001)
• Belarus: 1,979, or 7. 1% of the total Jewish population (1999)

• Canada: 19,295, or 5. 5% of the total Jewish population (2001)
• Romania: 951, or 16. 4% of the total Jewish population
• Latvia: 825, or 7. 9% of the total Jewish population
• Lithuania: 570, or 14. 2% of the total Jewish population
• Estonia: 124, or 5. 8% of the total Jewish population

There has been frequent debate about the extent of the linguistic independence of Yiddish from the languages that it absorbed. Some commentary dismisses Yiddish as mere jargon, although that precise term, in Yiddish, is also used as a colloquial designation for the language (without a pejorative connotation). For Wikipedia jargon see WikipediaGlossary. For hacker slang see Jargon File. There has been periodic assertion that Yiddish is a German dialect and, even when recognized as an autonomous language, it has sometimes been referred to as Judeo-German. A widely-cited summary of attitudes in the 1930s was published by Max Weinreich, quoting a remark by an auditor of one of his lectures: אַ שפּראַך איז אַ דיאַלעקט מיט אַן אַרמיי און פֿלאָט (a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot — "A language is a dialect with an army and navy", facsimile excerpt at [2], discussed in detail in a separate article). The 1930s were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression. Max Weinreich (1893/94 Kuldiga, Latvia - 1969 New York City, USA) was a linguist, specializing in Yiddish, and the " A language is a dialect with an Army and Navy " is one of the most frequently used Aphorisms in the discussion of the distinction between More recently, Prof. Paul Wexler, of Tel Aviv University in Israel, has proposed that Eastern Yiddish should be classified as a Slavic language, formed by the relexification of Judeo-Slavic dialects by Judeo-German. Relexification is a term in Linguistics used to describe the mechanism of Language change by which one Language replaces much or all of its Lexicon

Yiddish changed significantly during the 20th century. Michael Wex writes, "As increasing numbers of Yiddish speakers moved from the Slavic-speaking East to Western Europe and the Americas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they were so quick to jettison Slavic vocabulary that the most prominent Yiddish writers of the time — the founders of modern Yiddish literature, who were still living in Slavic-speaking countries — revised the printed editions of their oeuvres to eliminate obsolete and 'unnecessary' Slavisms. "^[5] The vocabulary used in Israel absorbed many Modern Hebrew words, and there was a similar increase in the English component of Yiddish in the United States and, to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom. This has resulted in some difficulties in communication between Yiddish speakers from Israel and those from other countries.

Israel

The national language of Israel is Modern Hebrew. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. The rejection of Yiddish as an alternative reflected the conflict between religious and secular forces. Many in the larger, secular group wanted a new national language to foster a cohesive identity, while traditionally religious Jews desired that Hebrew be respected as a holy language reserved for prayer and religious study. In the early twentieth century, Zionist immigrants in Palestine tried to eradicate the use of Yiddish amongst their own population, and make its use socially unacceptable. History of Zionism|Timeline of Zionism|World Zionist Organization|Zionist political violence Zionism is an international political movement that originally supported the Palestine is a name which has been widely used since Roman times to refer to the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.

This conflict also reflected the opposing views among secular Jews worldwide, one side seeing Hebrew (and Zionism) and the other Yiddish (and Internationalism) as the means of defining emerging Jewish nationalism. History of Zionism|Timeline of Zionism|World Zionist Organization|Zionist political violence Zionism is an international political movement that originally supported the For the Marxist concept of internationalism see Proletarian internationalism. Finally, the large post-1948 influx of Sephardic (including Mizrachi) Jewish refugees (to whom Yiddish was entirely foreign, but who already were familiar with Hebrew) effectively made Hebrew the only practical option for a state language. Sephardi Jews ( Hebrew: ספרדי, Standard Səfardi Tiberian Səp̄arədî; plural Mizrahi Jews or Mizrahim, ( also referred to as Edot HaMizrach (Communities of the East are Jews descended Still, state authorities in the young Israel of the 1950s went to the extent of using censorship laws inherited from British rule in order to prohibit or extremely limit Yiddish theater in Israel. ^[6]

In religious circles, it is the Ashkenazi Haredi Jews, particularly the Hasidic Jews and the mitnagdim of the Lithuanian yeshiva world, who continue to teach, speak and use Yiddish, making it a language used regularly by hundreds of thousands of Haredi Jews today. Haredi or Chareidi Judaism is the most theologically conservative form of Orthodox Judaism. Hasidic Judaism (also Chasidic, etc from the Hebrew: he '''''חסידות''''', Chassidus, meaning "piety" from the Hebrew Misnagdim or mitnagdim is a Hebrew word ( מתנגדים) meaning "opponents" Yeshiva or yeshivah (jəʃi'və ( Hebrew: ישיבה "sitting (n The largest of these centers are in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem. Bnei Brak (or Bene Beraq) (בְּנֵי בְּרַק Bəne Bəraq) is a city located on Israel 's central Mediterranean coastal plain Jerusalem (יְרוּשָׁלַיִם, he-Latn Yerushaláyim; Arabic: ar القُدس, ar-Latn al-Quds) is the

There is a growing revival of interest in Yiddish culture among secular Israelis, with Yiddish theater now flourishing (usually with simultaneous translation to Hebrew and Russian) and young people are taking university courses in Yiddish, some achieving considerable fluency (albeit with an accent that would seem very strange to native speakers). Yiddishkeit ( Yiddish: ייִדישקייט — yidishkeyt in standard transcription literally means "Jewishness" i Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Eastern European Ashkenazi Jewish community ^[7]

Former Soviet Union

In the Soviet Union during the 1920s, Yiddish was promoted as the language of the Jewish proletariat. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 The 1920s is sometimes referred to as the " Jazz Age " or the " Roaring Twenties " when speaking about the United States and Canada The proletariat (from Latin la ''proles'' "offspring" is a term used to identify a lower Social class; a member of such a class is proletarian It was one of the official languages of the Byelorussian SSR, as well as several agricultural districts of the Ukrainian SSR. The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (abbreviated as Byelorussian SSR or BSSR) (Беларуская Савецкая Сацыялістычная Рэспубліка The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or the Ukrainian SSR was one of the 15 constituent republics that made up the Former Soviet Union from its A public educational system entirely based on the Yiddish language was established and comprised kindergartens, schools, and higher educational institutions (technical schools, rabfaks and other university departments). Rabfak ( Russian language: Рабфак was the Workers' Faculty in the Soviet Union. At the same time, Hebrew was considered a bourgeois language and its use was generally discouraged. The vast majority of the Yiddish-language cultural institutions were closed in the late 1930s along with cultural institutions of other ethnic minorities lacking administrative entities of their own. After the Second World War, growing anti-Semitic tendencies in Soviet politics drove Yiddish from most spheres; the last Yiddish-language schools, theaters and publications were closed by the end of 1940s. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Antisemitism (alternatively spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism; also rarely known as judeophobia) is the Prejudice against or hostility Yet it continued to be widely used as a spoken medium for decades in the areas with compact Jewish population (primarily in Moldova, Ukraine, and to a lesser extent Belarus).

In the former Soviet states, presently active Yiddish authors include Yoysef Burg (Chernivtsi, b. Chernivtsi (Чернівці See #Name section) is the administrative center of Chernivtsi Oblast ( province) in western Ukraine 1912), Zisye Veytsman (Samara, b. Samara (Сама́ра ( Kuybyshev (ru Ку́йбышев from 1935 to 1990 is one of the largest cities in Russia. 1946), and Aleksander Beyderman (b. 1949, Odessa, see German-language Wikipedia article). ODESSA which stands for the German phrase O rganisation d er e hemaligen SS - A ngehörigen which in turn translates Publication of an earlier Yiddish periodical (דער פֿרײַנד), was resumed in 2004 with דער נײַער פֿרײַנד (der nayer fraynd; lit. "The New Friend", St. Petersburg). Saint Petersburg ( tr: Sankt-Peterburg,) is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River

Jewish Autonomous Oblast of Russia

The Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Russian Federation, where Yiddish is an official language.

Birobidzhan's train terminal square

Main articles: Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Birobidzhan, and Jews and Judaism in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast‎

The Jewish Autonomous Oblast was formed in 1934 in the Russian Far East, with its capital city in Birobidzhan and Yiddish as its official language. Jewish Autonomous Oblast (Евре́йская автоно́мная о́бласть Yevreyskaya avtonomnaya oblast) is a federal subject of Russia Birobidzhan (Биробиджа́н) is a town and the administrative center of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Russia. Jewish Autonomous Oblast#Jewish settlement and development in the region The Jewish history of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAO began with the early Russian Far East (Да́льний Восто́к Росси́и ˈdalʲnʲɪj vʌˈstok rʌˈsʲiɪ is a term that refers to the Russian part of the Far East, i The intention was for the Soviet Jewish population to settle there. Jewish cultural life was revived in Birobidzhan much earlier than elsewhere in the Soviet Union. Yiddish theaters began opening in the 1970s. The newspaper דער ביראָבידזשאנער שטערן (der birobidzhaner shtern; lit: "The Birobidzhan Star") includes a Yiddish section. The Birobidzhaner Shtern (ביראָבידזשאנער שטערן;Биробиджанер Штерн is a newspaper published in both Yiddish and Russian in the Jewish The First Birobidzhan International Summer Program for Yiddish Language and Culture was launched in 2007. [3].

Moldova

Yiddish, along with Hebrew, is an officially recognized minority language in Moldova for the purposes of the Jewish community. Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania In the capital city of Chişinău, there is a Yiddish language radio program ייִדיש לעבן (yidish lebn; lit. Chişinău (kiʃi'nəw (also known as Kishinev, Кишинёв Kishinyov) is the capital and largest city of Moldova. "Jewish Life"), a television program אויף דער ייִדישער גאַס (oyf der yidisher gas; lit. "On the Jewish Street") and the newspaperאונדזער קול (undzer kol; lit. "Our Voice"). ^[8] There are 17,000 Yiddish speakers in Moldova.

Sweden

Banner from the first issue of the Jidische Folkschtime (Yiddish People's Voice), published in Stockholm, 12 January 1917

In June 1999, the Swedish Parliament enacted legislation giving Yiddish legal status^[9] as one of the country's official minority languages (entering into effect in April 2000). Events 475 - Basiliscus becomes Byzantine Emperor, with a coronation ceremony in the Hebdomon palace in Constantinople Year 1917 ( MCMXVII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year In 1999 the Minority Language Committee of Sweden formally declared five minority languages of Sweden: Finnish, Sami language, Romani The rights thereby conferred are not detailed, but additional legislation was enacted in June 2006 establishing a new governmental agency, The Swedish National Language Council, the mandate of which instructs it to, "collect, preserve, scientifically research, and spread material about the national minority languages", naming them all explicitly, including Yiddish. When announcing this action, the government made an additional statement about "simultaneously commencing completely new initiatives for . . . Yiddish [and the other minority languages]".

The Swedish government publishes documents in Yiddish, of which the most recent details the national action plan for human rights. ^[10] An earlier one provides general information about national minority language policies. ^[11]

On 6 September 2007, it became possible to register Internet domains with Yiddish names in the national top-level domain .SE. Events 3114 BC - According to the Proleptic Julian calendar the current era in the Maya Long Count Calendar started Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ^[12]

United States

Yiddish distribution in the United States.      More than 100,000 speakers      More than 10,000 speakers      More than 5,000 speakers      More than 1,000 speakers      Fewer than 1,000 speakers

In the United States, the Yiddish language bonded Jews from many countries. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the פֿאָרווערטס (forverts - Yiddish Forward) was one of seven Yiddish daily newspapers in New York City, and other Yiddish newspapers served as a forum for Jews of all European backgrounds. The Forward (פֿאָרווערטס Forverts) is a Jewish-American weekly Newspaper published in New York City. The City of New York The Yiddish Forward still appears weekly and is available in an online edition. ^[13] It remains in wide distribution, together with דער אַלגעמיינער זשורנאַל (der algemeyner zhurnal - Algemeiner Journal; algemeyner = general) which is also published weekly and appears online. ^[14] The widest-circulation Yiddish newspapers are probably the two prominent Satmar weekly issues דער בּלאַט (Der Blatt; blat = newspaper) and דער איד (Der Yid). Satmar (or Satmar Hasidism or Satmarer Hasidism) (חסידות סאטמאר is a Hasidic movement of mostly Hungarian Grand Rebbe Yoel Teitelbaum Der Blatt ( דער בּלאַט) is a weekly Yiddish newspaper published in New York by Satmar Hasidim. Der Yid ( דער איד) is a New York based Yiddish language weekly newspaper Several additional newspapers and magazines are in regular production, such as the monthly publications דער שטערן (Der Shtern; shtern = star) and דער בליק (Der Blick; blik = view). (The romanized titles cited in this paragraph are in the form given on the masthead of each publication and may be at some variance both with the literal Yiddish title and the transliteration rules otherwise applied in this article. The Yiddish language is written using Hebrew script as the basis of a full vocalic Alphabet. ) One large center of Yiddish linguistics in Kiryas Joel, New York. Kiryas Joel (also known as Kiryas Yo'el or KJ) ( Hebrew: קרית יואל " Town of Joel " is a Village

Interest in klezmer music provided another bonding mechanism. See also Secular Jewish music Klezmer (from Yiddish כּלי־זמיר kley - instrument and zemer - song etymologically from Thriving Yiddish theater in New York City and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere kept the language vital. The City of New York Many "Yiddishisms," like "Italianisms" and "Spanishisms," continued to enter spoken New York City English, often used by Jews and non-Jews alike unaware of the linguistic origin of the phrases (described extensively by Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish). The New York dialect of the English language is spoken by most European Americans and some non-European Americans who were raised in New York City and Leo Calvin Rosten ( April 11, 1908 - February 19, 1997) was born in Lodz, Russian Empire (now Poland and died in New York City The Joys of Yiddish is a book containing the Lexicon of common words and phrases in the Yiddish language primarily focusing on those words that had become However, native Yiddish speakers tended not to pass the language on to their children, who assimilated and spoke English.

In 1978, the Polish-born Yiddish author Isaac Bashevis Singer, a resident of the United States, received the Nobel Prize in literature. Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland Isaac Bashevis Singer (יצחק באַשעװיס זינגער (November 21 1902 (see notes below – July 24 1991 was a Nobel Prize -winning Polish -born The Nobel Prize in Literature (Nobelpriset i litteratur is awarded annually since 1901 to an author from any country who has in the words from the will of Alfred

Most of the Jewish immigrants to the New York metropolitan area during the years of Ellis Island considered Yiddish their native language. Ellis Island, at the mouth of the Hudson River in New York Harbor For example, Isaac Asimov states in his autobiography, In Memory Yet Green, that Yiddish was his first and sole spoken language and remained so for about two years after he emigrated to the United States as a small child. Isaac Asimov (c January 2 1920 &ndash April 6 1992 ˈaɪzək ˈæzɪmʌv originally Исаак Озимов but now transcribed into Russian as, was a Russian In Memory Yet Green is the first volume of Isaac Asimov 's two-volume autobiography By contrast, Asimov's younger siblings, born in the United States, never developed any degree of fluency in Yiddish. Also the famous Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind, designer of the reconstruction of Ground Zero in New York considers Yiddish his mother-tongue. Daniel Libeskind, (born May 12 1946 in Łódź, Poland) is an American Architect, Artist, and Set designer of The term Ground Zero may be used to describe the point on the earth's surface where an explosion occurs New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous

Present speaker population

In the 2000 census, 178,945 people in the United States reported speaking Yiddish at home. Of these speakers, 113,515 lived in New York (63. New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous 43% of American Yiddish speakers), 18,220 in Florida (10. Florida ( is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States, bordering Alabama to the northwest and Georgia to the 18%), 9,145 in New Jersey (5. New Jersey ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. 11%), and 8,950 in California (5. California ( is a US state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. 00%). The remaining states with speaker populations larger than 1,000 are Pennsylvania (5,445), Ohio (1,925), Michigan (1,945), Massachusetts (2,380), Maryland (2,125), Illinois (3,510), Connecticut (1,710), and Arizona (1,055). The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ( often colloquially referred to as PA (its abbreviation by natives and Northeasterners is a state located in the Northeastern Ohio ( is a Midwestern state of the United States. As part of the Great Lakes region, Ohio has long been a cultural and geographical crossroads Michigan ( is a Midwestern state of the United States of America. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts ( is a state located in the New England region of the northeastern United States. The State of Illinois ( roughly ill-i-NOY is a state of the United States of America, the 21st to be admitted to the Union. Connecticut ( is a state located in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The State of Arizona ( is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. The population is largely elderly: 72,885 of the speakers were older than 65, 66,815 were between 18 and 64, and only 39,245 were age 17 or lower. ^[15] In the six years since the 2000 census, the 2006 American Community Survey reflected an estimated 15 percent decline of people speaking Yiddish at home in the U. The American Community Survey (ACS is a project of the US Census Bureau that replaces the long form in the decennial Census. S. to 152,515. ^[16]

United Kingdom

There are well over 30,000 Yiddish speakers in the United Kingdom, and several thousand children now have Yiddish as a first language. The largest group of Yiddish speakers in Britain reside in the Stamford Hill district of North London, but there are sizeable communities in Golders Green, Manchester and Gateshead. Stamford Hill is a place in the north of the London Borough of Hackney, England near the border with Haringey. Golders Green is an area in the London Borough of Barnet in London, England. Gateshead is a town in Tyne and Wear, England. It lies on the southern bank of the River Tyne, opposite Newcastle upon Tyne. ^[17] The Yiddish readership in the UK is mainly reliant upon imported material from the United States and Israel for newspapers, magazines and other periodicals. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. However, the London-based weekly Jewish Tribune, has a small section in Yiddish called אידישע טריבונע Idishe Tribune. The Jewish Tribune is a privately owned Jewish Orthodox weekly newspaper based in Stamford Hill, London.

Religious communities

The major exception to the decline of spoken Yiddish can be found in Haredi communities all over the world. Haredi or Chareidi Judaism is the most theologically conservative form of Orthodox Judaism. In some of the more closely-knit such communities Yiddish is spoken as a home and schooling language, especially in Hasidic, litvish or yeshivish communities such as Brooklyn's Borough Park, Williamsburg and Crown Heights, and in Monsey, Kiryas Joel, and New Square. Hasidic Judaism (also Chasidic, etc from the Hebrew: he '''''חסידות''''', Chassidus, meaning "piety" from the Hebrew Lithuanian Jews (known in Yiddish and Yeshivish as Litvish (adjective or Litvaks (noun are Ashkenazi Jews with roots in the Yeshivish Jews are Orthodox Jews characterized by an ideology way of life mode of dress and manner of speech typically associated with those who have attended a Brooklyn (named after the Dutch town Breukelen) is one of the five boroughs of New York City. Borough Park (usually spelled by its residents Boro Park) is a neighborhood in the southwestern part of the borough of Brooklyn, in New Williamsburg is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordering Greenpoint, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Bushwick Monsey is a hamlet (and Census-designated place) in the Town of Ramapo Rockland County, New York, United States located Kiryas Joel (also known as Kiryas Yo'el or KJ) ( Hebrew: קרית יואל " Town of Joel " is a Village See related article Skver (Hasidic dynasty New Square (Hebrew שיכון סקווירא) is an all-Hasidic village (Over 88% of the population of Kiryas Joel is reported to speak Yiddish at home. ^[18]) ; Also in New Jersey Yiddish is widely spoken mostly in Lakewood but also in smaller yeshivishe towns with yeshivos such as Passaic and more. New Jersey ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. Lakewood Township is a township in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States. Yeshivish Jews are Orthodox Jews characterized by an ideology way of life mode of dress and manner of speech typically associated with those who have attended a Yeshiva or yeshivah (jəʃi'və ( Hebrew: ישיבה "sitting (n . . Yiddish is also widely spoken in the Antwerp Jewish community and in Haredi communities such as the ones in London, Manchester and Montreal. The Jewish community of Antwerp consists of around 22000 Jews London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. Montreal, or Montréal in French ( pronounced in French, in English) is the largest city in the Canadian province of Quebec Among most Ashkenazi Haredim, Hebrew is generally reserved for prayer, while Yiddish is used for religious studies as well as a home and business language. In Israel, however, Haredim commonly speak Modern Hebrew, with the notable exception of many Hasidic communities. Nevertheless, the vast majority of Haredim who use Modern Hebrew also understand Yiddish. Many send their children to schools in which the primary language of instruction is Yiddish. Members of movements such as Satmar Hasidism, who view the commonplace use of Hebrew as a form of Zionism, use Yiddish almost exclusively. Satmar (or Satmar Hasidism or Satmarer Hasidism) (חסידות סאטמאר is a Hasidic movement of mostly Hungarian Grand Rebbe Yoel Teitelbaum History of Zionism|Timeline of Zionism|World Zionist Organization|Zionist political violence Zionism is an international political movement that originally supported the

Hundreds of thousands of young children have been, and are still, taught to translate the texts of the Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy into the Yiddish language. Exodus ( Greek: έξοδος eksodos = "departure" is the second book of the Jewish Torah and of the Christian Old Testament. Leviticus (from Greek Λευιτικός, "relating to the Levites " The Book of Numbers, ( Bamidbar, meaning in the wilderness) is the fourth book of the Torah, the Tanakh, and the Old Testament. Deuteronomy (Greek deuteronomion, Δευτερονόμιον "second law" is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible and of the Old Testament This process is called טײַטשן (taytshn) — "translating" . Most Ashkenazi yeshivas' highest level lectures in Talmud and Halakha are delivered in Yiddish by the rosh yeshivas as well as ethical talks of mussar. Yeshiva or yeshivah (jəʃi'və ( Hebrew: ישיבה "sitting (n Halakha ( הלכה; alternative transliterations include Halocho and Halacha) is the collective body of Jewish Religious law Rosh yeshiva, ( pl. Heb. Roshei yeshiva; Yeshivish Rosh yeshivas) (ראש ישיבה is the title given to the dean of Mussar movement refers to a Jewish ethical, educational and cultural movement (a "Jewish Moralist Movement" that developed in 19th century Orthodox Hasidic rebbes generally use only Yiddish to converse with their followers and to deliver their various Torah talks, classes, and lectures. Rebbe (רבי (pronounced in English which means master teacher or mentor is a Yiddish word derived from the identical Hebrew word Rabbi The linguistic style and vocabulary of Yiddish have influenced the manner in which many Orthodox Jews who attend yeshivas speak English. Orthodox Judaism is the formulation of Judaism that adheres to a relatively strict interpretation and application of the laws and ethics first canonized This usage is distinctive enough that it has been dubbed "Yeshivish". Yeshivish is a form of English spoken mainly by English-speaking Ashkenazi Orthodox Jews who attend or

While Hebrew remains the language of Jewish prayer, the Hasidim have mixed considerable Yiddish into their Hebrew, and are also responsible for a significant secondary religious literature written in Yiddish. See also Jewish services Listed below are some Hebrew prayers and blessings that are part of Judaism that are recited by many Jews For example, the tales about the Baal Shem Tov were written largely in Yiddish. Rabbi Yisroel (Israel ben Eliezer (רבי ישראל בן אליעזר August 27, 1698 (18 Elul &ndash May 22, 1760) often called In addition, some Hassidic prayers, such as the Got fun Avrohom, were composed and are recited in Yiddish. God of Abraham ( Yiddish:גאָט פֿון אַבֿרהם, pronounced Got fun Avrom) is a traditional Hasidic Jewish prayer recited in Yiddish

See also

• List of English words of Yiddish origin
• List of Yiddish language poets
• National Yiddish Book Center
• Yiddish Renaissance
• The Yiddish King Lear
• Yiddish literature
• Yinglish

Notes

References

Further reading

Periodicals

• Der Yiddisher Tam-Tam, pub. Maison de la Culture Yiddish, Paris, since 1994, also available in electronic format.
• Yidishe Heftn, pub. Le Cercle Bernard Lazare, Paris, since 1996, sample cover, subscription info.
• YIVO Bleter, pub. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, NYC, initial series from 1931, new series since 1991.
• Afn Shvel, pub. League for Yiddish, NYC, since 1940; sample article Undzer Perets- Our Peretz

External links

• Yung YiDiSH Center for Yiddish Culture and Books in Israel
• Leyvik House The Israeli Center for Yiddish Culture
• Jewish Language Research Website: Yiddish
• Paul Wexler
• On-line Yiddish dictionary
• Internationale Medienhilfe (IMH) - Federation of Yiddish and German-Jewish media worldwide
• Der Bay - International Anglo-Yiddish Newsletter, calendar of Yiddish-language events, etc.
• Mendele, mainly English-language newsletter about Yiddish
• Maison de la culture yiddish (Paris)
• European Academy for Yiddish language and Klezmer Music
• NYBC's Summer Language Internship
• Shtetl
• The Jewish Book Center of The Workmen's Circle
• Language and Cultural Archive of Ashkenazic Jewry (Columbia University)
• Bibliotheca Iiddica Small encyclopedia on Yiddish. Home page is in Latin, most of the rest is in transliterated Yiddish.
• Yiddish Typewriter - interconverts Yiddish text in Hebrew script with YIVO transliteration
• Judaeo-German - Jewish Encyclopedia
• WWW Virtual Library History - Yiddish sources in historical research
• Yugntruf-Youth for Yiddish
• Jewish Cultural Centre and National Library "Kadimah", Melbourne, Australia

Audio resources

• Di Velt fun Yidish: Audio Stories
• Yiddish Radio Project, "dedicated to rescuing every surviving recording from the golden age of Yiddish radio". The Jewish Encyclopedia was an Encyclopedia originally published between 1901 and 1906 by Funk and Wagnalls. The many RealAudio files all use RealAudio's multimedia capability to provide written English-language translation. RealAudio is a proprietary Audio format developed by RealNetworks.
• The Yiddish Voice
• The Australian radio station SBS offers a program in Yiddish: SBS Yiddish Radio Program
• yiddish audio and video click on the following web page: http://www.youtube.com/albertdiner