20110517 - presenting the yiddish past in contemporary europe

Jewishness in Contemporary Culture: American and European Perspectives

Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities, 17-18 May 2011

Gerben ZaagsmaDepartment of Hebrew and Jewish Studies

University College London

Presenting the Yiddish pastin contemporary Europe

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Introduction

public history in Europe: Memoria e Ricerca

“Public history beyond the state: Presenting the Yiddish past in contemporary Europe”

Yiddish = stateless: who takes responsibility for saving/promoting/ presenting the Yiddish past when it does not exclusively belong to one country?

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Questions

how are Yiddish, its culture and its speakers, inscribed in representations of Jewish history in Europe?

how is Europe’s ‘Yiddish past’ presented in institutional and non-institutional settings?

who is involved?

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Structure

Yiddish ‘revival’?

Yiddish in pre- and post-war Europe

Yiddish and the Jewish heritage boom?

presenting the ‘Yiddish past’: Western vs. Central/Eastern Europe

the role of Europe

concluding remarks

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Yiddish revival?

Oxford English Dictionary

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Yiddish revival?

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Yiddish revival?

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Yiddish revival?

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Yiddish revival?

mistakes or equates an interest in cultural phenomena with an interest in the language itself: “Yiddish without Yiddish” (Helen Beer)

tendency „to reduce the Yiddish heritage merely to its musical aspect and to some scraps of folklore” (Yitshok Niborsky)

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Europe’s ‘Yiddish past’

qualify the engagement with Yiddish, its culture and speakers, in contemporary Europe

what is there beyond music?

Yiddish ‘history’ in public settings such as museums, websites, walking tours, etc.

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Yiddish in pre-war Europe

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Yiddish in pre-war Europe

Western Europe: language of migrants

‣ Western Yiddish: demise during Haskalah and emancipation

‣ post-1880 migration: Eastern Yiddish returns

‣ different migratory trajectories and differences in acculturation: varying numbers of speakers and linguistic attachments on eve of WWII: Britain versus France

Central and Eastern Europe: main Jewish language

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Yiddish in post-war Europe

75% of world’s Yiddish speakers perished during Holocaust

Western Europe: 2nd/3rd generations abandon language

Central and Eastern Europe: repression alongside modest “continuation”

so: pockets of Yiddish activity

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Yiddish & the (Jewish) heritage boom

growing preoccupation with heritage in Europe since early 1980s

creation of a “Jewish space” in the 1990s (Diana Pinto) and following decades: beyond the Holocaust

post-1989 Central and Eastern Europe: revaluation of region’s Jewish histories

more than Jewish context:

‣ reappraisal of histories of minority groups in the post-colonial era

‣ migration as a political and cultural theme in Europe

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Western Europe: Jewish migrants & Yiddish culture

Jewish museums:

‣ reflect a community’s self-understanding

‣ narratives that emphasised succesful emancipation & upward social mobility

‣ ommision of Jewish migrants> reproduced conflicts & tensions between established Jewish communities/elites and migrants

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Western Europe: Jewish migrants and Yiddish culture

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Western Europe: Jewish migrants and Yiddish culture

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Western Europe: Jewish migrants and Yiddish culture

community initiatives:

private institutions, walking tours, internet blogs or websites, etc.

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Western Europe: Jewish migrants and Yiddish culture

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Western Europe: Jewish migrants and Yiddish culture

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Western Europe: Jewish migrants and Yiddish culture

migration institutions in Europe:

part of a global phenomenon: International Network of Migration Institutions (UNESCO and IOM) 2006

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Western Europe: Jewish migrants and Yiddish culture

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Western Europe: Jewish migrants and Yiddish culture

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Eastern Europe: Jewish history as Yiddish history?

Jewish history to a large extent Yiddish history

killing fields of the Holocaust

ancestral lands of many American/Israeli Jews

Jewish history related activity driven by tourism and funded from abroad

example: Poland

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Eastern Europe: Jewish history as Yiddish history?

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Eastern Europe: Jewish history as Yiddish history?

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Eastern Europe: Jewish history as Yiddish history?

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Eastern Europe: Jewish history as Yiddish history?

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Eastern Europe: Jewish history as Yiddish history?

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Europe and Yiddish

Dovid Katz: Yiddish as a quintessentially European language...

“European more than anything else quite simply because it has thrived across the time and space of medieval and modern Europe”

European role in preserving Yiddish heritage

Council of Europe:

‣ 1987: ‘Resolution on the Jewish contribution to European culture’

‣ 1995: conference on Yiddish Culture in Vilnius

‣ 1996: recommendation on Yiddish culture

‣ 1998: European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages

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Europe and Yiddish

1996 recommendation on Yiddish culture: the assembly regrets ...

“that at present the main centres for Yiddish culture are outside Europe: in Israel and the United States of America. For historical and cultural reasons, Europe should take steps to encourage and develop within Europe centres for Yiddish culture, research and language”

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Europe and Yiddish

1998: European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages

‣ Finland (1994)

‣ The Netherlands (1996)

‣ Sweden (2000)

‣ Romania (2007)

‣ Poland (2009)

‣ Bosnia and Herzegovina (2010)

example charter effects: Sweden

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Europe and Yiddish

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Europe and Yiddish

preserving and presenting Yiddish online: the Internet

funding for large scale digitisations projects

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Europe and Yiddish

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Europe and Yiddish

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Concluding remarks

increase in interest/attention for Europe’s ‘Yiddish past’

impulses, actors and platforms vary:

Western Europe:

‣ migration as a theme: Jewish migrants and Yiddish culture included in revised narratives in Jewish museums and migration institutions

‣ state indirectly involved as a funder

‣ beyond Jewish institutions: non-Jewish actors & venues (Cité in Paris)

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Concluding remarks

increase in interest/attention for Europe’s ‘Yiddish past’

impulses, actors and platforms vary:

Central/Eastern Europe:

‣ demand for heritage from abroad

‣ non-state & non-local Jewish actors

‣ new bottom-up initiatives

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Concluding remarks

Europe as an actor: role in preserving and promoting Yiddish culture

importance of the Internet which reaffirms status of Yiddish as a transnational language & culture

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Concluding remarks

to be continued...

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