Functioning Within a Diasporic Third Space: The Case of Early Modern Yiddish

Author(s): Shlomo Berger

Source: Jewish Studies Quarterly , 2008, Vol. 15, No. 1, Yiddish: A Diasporic Path to
Modernity (2008), pp. 68-86
Published by: Mohr Siebeck GmbH & Co. KG

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/40753452

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 Functioning Within a Diasporic Third Space:
The Case of Early Modern Yiddish
Shlomo Berger

Yiddish plays a particularly important and intriguing role in Ashkenazi

history. It is a language that originated on German soil and subse-
quently became a powerful Jewish language that had the potential to
foster cohesion among the various Ashkenazi communities and thus
also supported the formation of an Ashkenazi diaspora. While Yiddish
is assumed to have emerged by the end of the first millennium, and
Yiddish writings were penned in manuscripts from the thirteenth cen-
tury on, the following arguments focus on the period after the invention
of print, when books became a vital cultural medium. Their growing
distribution became a crucial factor in standardizing Yiddish and its
usage, and made it a central communication instrument within Ashke-
nazi society and culture. Despite a certain reluctance to accept Yiddish
as a legitimate vehicle of Jewish culture on the side of the rabbinical
elite, Yiddish books (like books in non- Jewish languages) became an
instrument of change, a modernizing force. l
How should we then understand the Ashkenazi diaspora in the early
modern period?2 How did Yiddish play a role in formation of this dia-

1 On book history, see Eisenstein, E. L., The Printing Revolution in Early Modern
Europe (Cambridge 1983); Carvallo, G. and R. Chartier (eds.), A History of Reading in
the West (Cambridge 1999); Chartier, R., The Order of Books (Stanford 1992); idem,
Entre Poder y Placer: Cultura Escrita y Literatura en la Edad Moderna (Madrid 2000),
esp. 107-128; Gries, Z., The Jewish Book as a Cultural Agent 1700-1900 (Tel-Aviv 2002:
in Hebrew) = The Book in the Jewish World 1700-1900 (Oxford 2007).
2 A general survey on Ashkenazi Jewry in the early modern period is to be found in
Israel, J., European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism (Oxford 1985), but his treatment
of Ashkenazi culture is unsatisfactory; a thorough study of Ashkenazi literature
(mainly Hebrew) of the period is found in J. Elbaum, Openness and Insularity: Late
Sixteenth Century Jewish Literature in Poland and Ashkenaz (Jerusalem 1990: in He-
brew); see also L. Kochan, The Making of Western Jewry 1600-1819 (Basingstoke-New
York 2004), and G. D. Hundert, Jews in Poland-Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century: a
Genealogy of Modernity (Berkeley 2004). On the definition of the Jewish early modern
period, see Ruderman, D., 'Why Periodization Matters: On Early Modern Jewish Cul-
ture and the Haskalah', Jahrbuch des Simon-Dubnow Institut 6 (2007) forthcoming.

Jewish Studies Quarterly, Volume 15 (2008) pp. 68-86

© Mohr Siebeck - ISSN 0944-5706

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(2008) The Case of Early Modern Yiddish 69

spora? Within Jewish discourse, diaspora is sometimes exp

strictly historical fashion while at other times it is interpret
an ideological-political framework. Arnold Eisen3 forcefu
that the period between the first and second period of disper
Second Temple period - is merely a hiatus in a continuous hist
of diasporic Jewish existence and that the story of the rabbini
in fact the story of the return of Jews to exile. According to
rabbis' strategy was to construct a Jewish sacred space purifi
adherence to Torah, a metaphorical space whose inhabitan
forget the Land (with an upper case L, referring to Eretz Isra
Land of Israel). They located it at the center of their contemp
ritualistic activity while their respective lands or dwelling place
locations of exile. In fact, exile is the world itself. The rabbis
historical reality as a basis for a metaphysical state of mind.
as it exists is the arena in which action is taken to build and pr
world to come, the messianic world in the Land. It is the Jew
travel across the vast geographical (and temporal) space of a w
of sin, trying to purify themselves and prepare for the messia
to Zion.
Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin elevate the historical Jewish diaspora
within their system of thought into an all-encompassing (and a-histor-
ical) mode of Jewish life that reveals the virtues and limitations of Juda-
ism: 'Jewish resistance to assimilation and annihilation within the con-
ditions of Diaspora . . . generated such practices as communal charity in
the areas of education feeding, providing for the sick, and the caring for
Jewish prisoners, to the virtual exclusion of others. While this meant at
least that those others were not subjected to attempts to judaize them -
that is they were tolerated, and not only by default of lack of Jewish
power - it also meant that Jewish resources were not devoted to the
welfare of humanity at large but only to one family.'4 This analysis is
based on political and ideological rather than historical considerations.
The genius of Judaism culminates in the effort of Jews and their com-
munities to look after their own. The modern state of Israel is the genius
turned into a demon. The particularistic approach to safeguard Jews is
now imbued with universal meaning, and, according to the Boyarins, the

3 Eisen, A., Galut: Modern Jewish Reflections on Homelessness and Homecoming

(Indiana 1986) 35-56 ('Homeless At Home and Abroad').
4 Boyarin, D. and J. Boyarin, 'Diaspora: Generation and the Ground of Jewish
Identity', Critical Inquiry 19 (1993) 693-725, here 712.
5 This is also the title of Boyarin D. and J. Boyarin's book Powers of Diaspora: Two
Essays on the Relevance of Jewish Culture (Minneapolis 2002).

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 70 Shlomo Berger JSQ 15

political power of the state interf

tinians) rather than remaining pr
delineated the powers of diaspora
pose 'Diaspora as a theoretical an
self-determination', a model that
eralized from those situations in
relatively free from persecution a
and they advocate 'a theory and p
neously respect irreducibility and
ences, address the harmfulness, n
lution of uniqueness, and encoura
ent life-styles and traditions.'6 Qu
rabbis' role in finding a new at
ritual and memory while detachin
70 CE, both add that the rabbis w
of land but also of Land, since
threatened the possibility of cont
ference.'8 The rabbis preferred e
which would lead to the dilution o
to fascism.
Current theories of diaspora enable us to locate these considerations
within a broader framework.9 Aiming to situate the Jewish experience
within a general theory of diaspora, W. Safran pointed out a series of
characteristics of diasporic experience: 1) People are dispersed from a
specific original 'center' to two or more peripheral or foreign regions. 2)
They retain a collective memory, vision or myth about an original home-
land: physical location, history, achievements, and sufferings. 3) They
have a complex relationship with the dominant element in the society
of the host country; they feel that they cannot become fully integrated
into this society and feel partly alienated and insulated. 4) The ancestral
homeland is the true place to which they or their descendants should or
will return. 5) They continue to relate personally or vicariously to the

6 Boyarín, D. and Boyarín, J., 'Diaspora', 711.

7 Davis, W. D., The Territorial Dimension of Judaism (Minneapolis 1991) 76.
8 Boyarin, D. and Boyarin, J., 'Diaspora', 719.
9 This approach is also suggested by Vijay Mishra, Literature of the Indian Dia-
spora: Theorizing the Diasporic Imaginary (London 2007) 6-7, where among other
arguments he writes: "But what we must now do [referring to the Jewish paradigmatic
case] is take away from that model its essentialist, regressive and defiantly millenarian
semantics and reread it through alternative models much more attuned to spatio-tem-
poral issues and to a diaspora's owned silenced discourses of disruption and disconti-
nuity."

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(2008) The Case of Early Modem Yiddish 71

homeland in one form or another; their ethno-communal c

is based on this relationship and they are committed to the
or restoration of their ancestral homeland. 6) They wish to
distinct community, as a minority, keeping their homeland
tact, but they also wish to absorb into the host country str
thus turn their community into a center of cultural creati
communal institutions are nurturing and reflect contacts wi
land in the cultural, religious, economic, or political arenas
Safran further presents a historical pattern that may
course of Ashkenazi history. He divides Jewish diaspori
into three periods/stages, which I shall define as exile, D
diaspora: 1) exile denoting the age of dispersion and manife
ing discrimination, legal disability and painful adjustment
countries whose hospitality was unreliable and ephemeral. 2
or building an expatriate community which considered its pr
transitory; at the same time it developed a set of instit
patterns, and ethno-national or religious symbols, or both,
together, including language, religion, social norms and val
ticular narratives about their homeland. 3) Diaspora, denoti
dual adjustment to their new environment and becoming ce
tural creativity, while it nonetheless continued to cultivate
return to the homeland.11 One of the symbols of adjustment
opment of Yiddish, as well as other Jewish languages, as
cultural force within the Ashkenazi community.12
Stuart Hall describes cultural identity as 'positioning'13 an
tion'. Identity is always a question of a politics of position
and manifests itself in constantly different forms: 'never
ways in process, and always constituted within, not outside

10 Safran, W, 'The Jewish Diaspora in a Comparative and Theoretica

Israel Studies 10 (2005) 36-60; see also idem, 'Diasporas in Modern Soci
Homeland and Return', Diaspora 1 (1991) 83-99, where he firstly forw
and paradigm; see also Cohen, R., Global Diasporas: An Introduction ("
29, and table 1.1 (p. 26). Cohen reacted to Safran's 1991 article; Safran
his 2005 article do not fully respond to Cohen's suggestions.
11 Safran, 36.
12 Ibid., 41: 'The Jewish diaspora is the only one to have developed se
languages in which, incidentally, elements of the homeland language
embedded...'
13 Hall, S., Cultural Identity and Diaspora' in Rutherford, J. (ed.), Identity, Com-
munity, Difference (London 1990) 222-237, here 226. In a similar vein, David Halperin
explains that being queer means 'an identity without an essence. Queer, then, demar-
cates not a positivity but a positionality vis-à-vis the normative ...' (Halperin, D., Saint
Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography (Oxford 1995) 62.)

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 72 Shlomo Berger JSQ 15

tion'.14 At the same time diasp

aspects: 'one true self, hiding ins
or artificially imposed "selves" w
ancestry hold in common ... [it is
of references ... beneath the shif
actual history ...'15 This shared h
rediscovery of a past concealed b
tion of an identity through the r
an act of imaginary rediscovery t
the experience of dispersal and f
tity can also be denoted as a mixt
create a conflicting identity of 'w
become', it emphasizes continuity
and discontinuity that migration
within the narrative of their pas
condition and forge a future an
themselves and their narrative, th
tion of power and powerlessness.
notions of Eretz Israel, exile and
notions, but rather constantly tr
needs. Eretz Israel becomes an o
diasporic space, and diaspora itsel
duals and communities that devel
location(s) and the homeland.17
In Homi Bhabha's terms this fluid situation can be further defined as
the 'Third Space' in the age of diasporas.18 The Jewish- Ashkenazi Third
Space is an ever-changing situation that is bound up with local condi-
tions, permanently shifting the balance between homeland and exile,
creating different and even conflicting interpretations and practices
that influence the momentary Jewish culture. Clifford formulates it as

14 Ibid., 222.
15 Ibid., 223.
16 Ibid., 224-226.
1 ' See, for instance, two seventeenth century Yiddish accounts of pilgrimages (Geli-
lot Eretz Israel and Darkhei Tsiori) that include a description of Eretz Israel that is
clearly based on diasporic fears and concerns; a visit to the Holy Land encompasses
a tour of righteous rabbis' tombs, and Jerusalem is a locus of religious importance and
not primarily of Jewish residence; the traveller is advised to include in his suitcases
Ashkenazi prayer books and other Ashkenazi ethical literature, including Yiddish
books 'for women'; the traveller ultimately returns to his diasporic location, which is
his actual and metaphorical point of departure.
18 Bhabha, H., 'The Third Space: Interview with Homi Bhabha' in Rutherford, J.
(ed.), Identity, Community, Difference (London 1990) 207-221.

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(2008) The Case of Early Modern Yiddish 73

follows: 'Diaspora cultures thus mediate, in a lived tension,

ences of separation and entanglement, of living here and re
desiring another place.'19 They create a diasporic discourse t
the sense of being part of an ongoing transnational networ
cludes the homeland, not as something simply left behind, b
of attachment in a contrapuntal modernity.'20

The Location of Yiddish

The desirability of keeping religious belief and ritual intact w

one of the central aspects of early modern Ashkenazi histor
writing and reading Yiddish was another one. Language
quently also literature) plays a key role in efforts to vo
awareness and anxieties. If diasporic situations are conn
question of (dual) power structures - homeland and host
and new, majority and minority segments of society, generat
entiation and competition, colonial sites - it is language that
accentuates modes of communication between the one and t
and it also enunciates and articulates diasporist concerns reg
turéis).
The language of diaspora is usually the language of the majority in
the host country. Migrants accept it as part of the act of transformation,
but introduce elements (vocabulary, syntax, phonology) into the lan-
guage that enable them to express their own interests in their new
home.21 In specific cases they also subvert the language and create a
new layer, a modified register, a new semantics that pronounces their
own set of concerns and anxieties.22 It serves the immigrant's internal
opportunities of conversation - a minority discourse - and a strategy of
dealing with the majority, surrounding society. Being a celebrated form
of using a host country's language, minority literature is understood as
one that is written in the majority's language, it is naturally and neces-
sarily political, and it represents a collective to which the author belongs
and which he may reject. According to Deleuze and Guattari, a minority
literature is not written in the minority but in the majority language; it is

19 Clifford, J., 'Diasporas', Cultural Anthropology 9:3 (1994) 302-338, here 311.
20 Ibid.
21 Fanon, F., Black Skins, White Masks (Eng. Trans. New York 1967) ch.l; Safran,
The Jewish Diaspora ...', 41: The Jewish diaspora is the only one to have developed
several diaspora languages in which, incidentally, elements of the homeland language
continue to be embedded
22 Ibid.

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 74 Shlomo Berger JSQ 15

an act of language deterritorializatio

torialization of sense and meaning.23
Yiddish does not fit into the Deleuze and Guatati matrix. Its litera-
ture cannot be termed 'minority literature' according to their criteria:
the use of Yiddish limited the ability of Ashkenazim to converse with
the surrounding society on a meaningful level. Nevertheless, the situa-
tion was far more complicated and volatile. Indeed, Jewish boys and
girls only learned the Hebrew alphabet, with which Yiddish is written.24
Moreover, Latin as well as other European vernaculars were coined in
Yiddish as galches, the language of the Church and its priests and, thus,
dangerous for the Jewish soul.25 This is a marked deviation from what
might be expected of migrants in diasporic situations. Yet spoken Yid-
dish was a dialect that could be understood in a German environment,
and was actually understood to some extent by German-speaking peo-
ple.26 Even when Yiddish-speaking people migrated to Eastern Europe
and found themselves in a Slavic environment rather than German, it is
possible to detect situations that may have supported further contact
with the German 'mother tongue'. Firstly, Yiddish books were produced
in the Western Yiddish literary style throughout the Ashkenazi diaspora
until the 1780s. Authors and publishers remained loyal to this style,
which depended more on German than does modern Yiddish.27 Poten-
tial contacts with a Latin written text were therefore easier to substanti-
ate. Secondly, the question of adopting a pronounced German style in
Yiddish was always (in pre-modern and modern times) a contested issue
among authors and readers of Yiddish. The debates about daytchmerish

23 Deleuze, G. and F. Guatari, Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature (Minneapolis

1986: original French 1975), especially 16-27.
24 On education in Ashkenazi society, see: Turniansky, Ch., Language, Education
and Knowledge Among East-European Jews (Tel-Aviv 1994: in Hebrew).
25 Galches derives from the Hebrew root galach, meaning 'to shave' and, thus, re-
ferring to the head shaven priests (in Yiddish galech - galochim), their language, Latin,
is galches.
^° Usually termed Judische Mundart, it was understood and learned by gentiles (tor
instance, Schudt J. J., Jüdische Merkwürdigkeiten, Frankfurt 1715-1718) but ideologi-
cally rejected by them and also by the eighteenth century by enlightened Jews. See,
Shmeruk, Ch., Yiddish Literature: Aspects of its History (Tel-Aviv 1978) 147-175 (in
Hebrew). See also Schatz, A., Sprache in der Zerstreuung: Zur Säkularisierung des
Hebräischen im 18. Jahrhundert (Göttingen 2008).
27 Historically Western Yiddish developed in the period of 'Middle Yiddish' (circa
1500-1750): see Weinreich, M., History of the Yiddish Language (Eng. Trans. Chicago
1980) 719-733. A spoken dialect of Western Yiddish existed in modern France, The
Netherlands and Germany; see also Weinreich, M., 'Headlines of Western Yiddish',
Yidishe Shprakh 8 (1953) 35-69 (in Yiddish) = Mark, J. (ed.), Yuda A. Yoffe Book
(New York 1958) 158-194 (in Yiddish); see also Starck, A. (ed.), Westjiddisch: Mün-
dlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit (Aarau/ Frankfurt/ Salzburg 1994).

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(2008) The Case of Early Modern Yiddish 75

testify to the impossibility of completely separating Yiddis

man; indeed, Yiddish remained basically a Germanic languag
while spoken Yiddish may suggest close ties to the Germ
and written Yiddish may point to a larger degree of detach
it, both maintained an area of contact with the language of
Consequently, Yiddish presents a deviating diasporic experi
did not signal a break with the surrounding society but rat
careful, hesitant and channelled approach to it. Local cultur
occupations found their way into Yiddish and played a role i
in the region.

A Language of the Present

This practical approach rested on deep-rooted premises, on the sup-

posed status and roles of Yiddish. Until the late nineteenth century,
Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazim and Yiddish-writing intellectuals did
not develop any vision of Judaism that was directly or necessarily tied
to Yiddish. First and foremost it must be remembered that Yiddish was
not a marker of Jewish identity, or Jewish diasporic identity (at least as it
developed in the late nineteenth century). Hebrew remained the sacred
language and also the basis of Ashkenazi identity. It was associated with
the Hebrew Bible and prayer book.29 Without mastering the language,
the Hebrew prayer book itself could and in fact occasionally did turn
into an object of holiness, a materialized text, inaccessible to illiterates
yet nevertheless venerated by them.30 The ideal of Ashkenazi parents
was and remained to have their children know and understand Hebrew.
This reverence for Hebrew was accompanied by an apparent neglect of
Yiddish. Ashkenazim conversed in this language, read it and hoped to
be able to purchase Yiddish books. They developed preferences for gen-
res and individual publications, and a bestseller list of Yiddish books
can be (partially) compiled. Still, the Yiddish speaking public did not
conceive this vernacular's literary corpus as having canonical status
within Jewish culture. They celebrated Yiddish literature as a necessary,

28 Katz, D., Amended Amendments: Issues in Yiddish Stylistics (Oxford 1993) 166-
185 (in Yiddish); Weinreich, M., 'Daytchmerish is Bad', Yidishe Shprakh 34 (1975) 23-
33 (in Yiddish).
29 Myhill, J., Language in Jewish Society (Clevedon 2004) 1-57.
30 See on these aspects of 'textual communities' Stock, B., Listening for the Text: On
the Uses of the Past (Baltimore 1990) esp. 19-23.

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 76 Shlomo Berger JSQ 15

diasporic manifestation that dese

sented their own Ashkenazi brand of Judaism.
However, as a diasporic literature, the success of Yiddish was mea-
sured on the basis of its level-headedness and expediency. Therefore,
nobody 'learned' the language: it was a mother tongue (mame loshri).
Nobody bothered to prepare a Yiddish grammar for children and
adults; indeed, there are numerous Hebrew grammars composed in Yid-
dish for the benefit of the Ashkenazi Yiddish reading public but no
Yiddish grammars.31 Scholars did not study its grammar;32 only Chris-
tian intellectuals paid attention to linguistic questions.33 These were of
course attempting to understand the 'foreigner' who lived in their midst.
On the basis of this practical Ashkenazi attitude, Yiddish was able to
function as a mediator between the internal Jewish world and the sur-
rounding society. It did not have any religious tasks, it was not canoni-
cal, and its users did not formalize the language as a sanctified Jewish
instrument. Living in diaspora meant the fulfilment of one and foremost
goal: solving problems here and now, creating an environment in which
Ashkenazi families could live and support themselves. Yiddish func-
tioned as a 'language of the present'; it served the existing circumstances.
Yiddish speakers and authors did not strive to conquer, absorb and
redesign the past for their own Ashkenazi purpose, and ideologically
they refrained from conceiving and planning a future where Yiddish
would assume a meaningful role. The past and the future belonged to
Hebrew, the holy tongue, agreed upon as the vehicle of Judaism. With
the passing of generations, this attitude turned into tradition. It became
a way of life. It grew and turned into a culture: a culture of practice. The
Ashkenazi 'third space' became a perpetuated culture concerned with
contemporary issues, helping European Jews live their Jewish lives with-
in a foreign yet familiar location. Yiddish created a domestic space.

31 Zwiep, I.E., 'Adding the Reader's Voice: Early Modern Ashkenazi Grammars of
Hebrew', Science in Context 20 (2007) 1-33.
32 An early exception is Sefer M idos (1581), which is no scholarly work but a man-
ual written for the lady on how to read Yiddish and explaining its orthographic rules
and basics of its linguistic system. In 1710 Faybush of Metz published in Amsterdam a
Yiddish Pamphlet (Mesakh ha-Petach), which advocated the study of Yiddish gram-
mar. Faybush claimed that such a study was necessary, because only when one masters
the grammar of his own mother tongue, can he study Hebrew at a high level. See my,
Yiddish and Jewish Modernization of the 18th century (Bar-Ilan University 2006: in
Hebrew). This is, however, a unique case.
33 Frakes, J., The Cultural Study of Yiddish in Early Modern Europe (New- York
2007) and esp. 11-81.

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(2008) The Case of Early Modern Yiddish 11

A Flexible Language

As an instrumental mediator between worlds, Yiddish proved f

developed a linguistic mechanism that could effectively adapt
ent situations. For Clifford, this is an essential quality of Yid
diasporic limitations: being able to constantly shift borders an
quently serve conflicting feelings of insulation and corporatio
Ashkenazim and gentiles.34 Clifford bases his arguments on M
reich,35 who claimed that 'Jews aimed at - not isolation from t
tians - but insulation from Christianity', and further explains
kenazi culture is an amalgam of 'mid-course formations as tho
wherever cultures meet along frontiers, in border zones or in
with mixed populations'. Here we may refer to Vijay Mishra's
'diasporas of exclusiveness' and 'diasporas of the border',36
note a parallel and simultaneous effort to outline feelings of
and difference within a specific territory. Subsequently Wein
cludes that, 'the most striking result of this encounter of cult
Yiddish language'; the language is not a '"gentile plus" lang
man language with Jewish additives', it is a fusion language th
other languages and turned these ingredients into segments o
pendent language.37 Thus, Yiddish is Ashkenazi jidishkeyt, or
ness. Weinreich, and others, insist on one special quality o
being a differentiation language (lehavdil loshn),3S and accord
ing particular attention to the language's mechanism of signif
differences between Jews and non-Jews. Nevertheless, in his
the Yiddish Language Weinreich correctly notes that 'Since the
secular sector the function of the differentiation language be
more variable, more dependent on the situation and the lingu
text. All in all, among very large segments of the community
category of differentiation language is now no longer in vogu
for special purposes of stylization';39 lehavdil loshn is thus a

34 Clifford, 326-327.
35 Weinreich, M., 'The Reality of Jewishness Versus the Ghetto Myth
linguistic Roots of Yiddish' in To Honor Roman Jacobson: Essays on the Oc
70th Birthday (The Hague 1967) vol. 3, 2199-2211.
36 Quoted from Hall, 308. Alas, I could find no copy of Mishra's artic
Mishra, Literature of the Indian Diaspora, 15, distinguishing between dias
nity, a Gesellschaft, and a nation-state, Gemeinschaft; and see also H.
Location of Culture (London 1994) esp. 1-9.
37 On fusion language see: Weinreich, M., History, passim and esp. 608-6
38 Weinreich, History, 193-195; Neuberg, S., Pragmatische Aspekte de
Sprachgeschichte am Beispiel der 'Zenerene' (Hamburg 1999) 117-122.
39 Weinreich, History, 195.

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 78 Shlomo Berger JSQ 15

principle and daytchmerish is a ma

developed in the early modern peri
Weinreich shows elsewhere, that a
troduce Yiddish liturgy into the sy
were not able to force the accept
liturgy.41 When in the first decade
Jew Aharon ben Shmuel tried to
presented it as a formative edition
rabbis and all copies were confisc
years later in Aharon's own sout
Thus, in a period when no alternati
(and accepted) Yiddish could not b
Judaism. Secularism was still unkn
phasizes that we encounter a specifi
The lands of Ashkenaz are the di
dish is, so to speak, the embodimen
ium of a nation tamed in exile.43 La
tieth century, when secular Jews b
substitute for religious and trad
(and culture) acquired a role and sta
of a belief in a revealed god, Yiddis
Indeed, during the early modern
corpus were becoming the practica
discourse and provided the specific
speakers and authors developed and
could be flexibly employed. Shift
tremes, the specific use of original
could give a text a certain flavor r
or modes of presentation.44 Writte
to provide readers with legible tex

40 See above, n. 28.

41 See also below, n. 60.
*z Zinberg, 1., lhe Battle tor Yiddish , tuologishe shnjtn l (1VZ8) lUU-iUJ; among
other things, Ahron ben Shmuel aimed at providing Yiddish a measure of holiness, a
move that was totally rejected by his contemporaries. In modern times, this quest for a
holy status of Yiddish is general, and it encompasses orthodox and secular groups: see
Fishman, J., "The Holiness of Yiddish: Who Says Yiddish Is Holy and Why?", Lan-
guage Policy 1 (2002) 123-141.
*•» Davis, J., lhe Reception ot the òhulhan Arukn and the Formation ot Ashkenazic
Jewish Identity', AJS 26 (2002) 251-276.
44 Take, for example the difference implied when respectively using the nouns sejer
and bukh: the one a religious- Jewish book, the other - a book of more a secular nature.

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(2008) The Case of Early Modem Yiddish 79

easily carry the messages it conveyed.45 Thus, while up to dat

commonly defined as a vehicle of simplified versions of Hebre
scholarship, of a 'folkshprakh' producing accessible narrative
abled the masses to express their feeling in their own simple
also absorb knowledge in a basic form,46 a closer look at vari
including the supreme Yiddish bestseller to date, reveals a
different story.47
The Tsene-Rene is not a translation of the Torah into Yiddi
rather a full-fledged commentary - an ethical book (muser s
that aims to expose its reader to a particular interpretatio
and to form an integral part of Ashkenazi life.49 While it is
the book tends to relate matters in a story-like fashion, the a
piler of the text had a clear design of the plot he wished to
knew the sources he worked with well and therefore wove a so
tale targeted at a specific Ashkenazi reading public. As the te
the basic principles guiding Jacob ben Isaac of Yanovo were t
nected with Ashkenazi Jewish life and experience, his diaspo
space' existence. He presents matters in a simple way, in ever
guage, for everyday consumption, but he also erects a wall b

45 In an edition of Sefer Lev Tov, published in Amsterdam in 1 706, th

Hayyim Druker insists that he edited the text's language because former
clude a style of Yiddish that people do not speak fla T"^* "pw1? TV
înyra pn< m pn n tnnsra).
46 Contemporary linguists of Yiddish indeed tend to go on and differentiate be-
tween Early Modern Yiddish, dubbing it a Folkshprakh, while the modern, Eastern
European Yiddish is a Kulturshprakh. The history of Yiddish is then understood as
passing through a process of progressive development: see M. Schaechter, The Standar-
dization of Yiddish Orthography (New York 1999), where his article on the historical
development of Yiddish orthography is added and which (only) Yiddish title is as
follows: ynKüOTi nsn nya1»« p^anya1»« ix nipDizmü^i? ix iKiDWOp'rxs "pa
r^O^N ittPT* DyaiD, while the English title is neutral: The History of Standardized
Yiddish Spelling.u
47 Ch. Turniansky (see her article in this volume) emphasizes the efforts to provide
the Ashkenazi Yiddish speaking masses with information and literature in simple
forms. However, I believe that the process of simplification does not mean only render-
ing of difficult Hebrew texts in an elementary and uncomplicated manner as well as in
an accessible Yiddish style, but also that authors produced fairly highly sophisticated
Yiddish texts that answered the needs of the Ashkenazi individual and community, and
which represented Ashkenazi culture in general.
48 On ethical books: J. Dan, Hebrew Ethical and Homiletical Literature (Jerusalem
1976: in Hebrew); Y Tishbi and J. Dan (eds.), Anthology of Ethical Literature (Jerusa-
lem 1970: in Hebrew) introduction.; N. Rubin, Sefer Lev Tov by Isaac ben Eliakum of
Posen, Prague 1620: A Central Ethical Book in Yiddish (Ph. D. thesis Hebrew Univer-
sity of Jerusalen 2007: in Hebrew).
49 I would like to thank Chava Turniansky and Jacob Elbaum for communicating
primary results of their ongoing research of the Tsene-Rene.

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80 Shlomo Berger JSQ 15

Ashkenazi world and the surroundi

a grey area between practical dema
to Ashkenazi readers designed to kee
people and supply them with prope
and respectful Jewish life. The Tse
Hebrew Bible; by employing Yiddis
stantial measure of freedom to int
Weltanschauung.
Operating on the borders was the
And, he was responsible for keepin
the boundaries of Ashkenazi society
ment of its course, as the diasporic
tuals usually opted for evolutiona
growing tensions between the rabb
the authority of Jewish law was not
codes did not amount to an overall
that ties Yiddish with newness and
twentieth-century Yiddishists (sc
tuals) is misleading.50 The lion's sh
pus is devoted to religious issues: p
literature, custom books and suchli
phy such as that of the late sevente
of tales from the Decameron and
modern, yet not entirely represen
book for women, Brantshpigl, alon
phasizes an ongoing Yiddish disco
cultures within Ashkenazi society
for enriching the literary corpus an
ish material to Ashkenazi culture,
dish writers to change existing orde

50 The shpilman theory: Erik, M., History

to the Enlightenment Period (Warsaw 192
Cambridge Manuscript Support the Spie
Yiddish) = idem in Studies in Yiddish Lit
= idem in Prokim fun der Yidishe literatu
120.
51 On Glikl see now Turniasky's edition
on Arthurian stories, see Zfatman, S., Yid
Shivchei haBesht (¡504-1815): an Analyti
on the Decameron, see Aptroot, M., 'I
fence ...': A Yiddish Adaptation of Bocca
Perspectives on Jewish Culture 3 (2003) 15

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(2008) The Case of Early Modern Yiddish 81

Between Metaphorical and Practical Concerns

Moving on the borderline also meant a movement between p

metaphorical strata of cultural practices. Everyday life and i
inter- (and intra-)communal problems were also tackled and
part of the adaptation of solutions in a metaphorical real
sforim included texts that clarified matters of Jewish law, a
specific daily problems, but also offered readers an ameliorati
occasionally miserable conditions with spiritual guidance
cended the mundane.53 Brantshpigl, for instance, specifically
women and suggested advice on ways to deal with the hom
(husband and children), discussing specific moments in life a
ing the particular demands of Jewish existence.54 Yet the tex
is imbued with spiritual guidance, presenting advice in an ab
The ability to follow the advice is coupled with the readiness
nalize and place this within a general metaphorical framewor
structed the reader's typical Ashkenazi environment as diasp
terpretation of Jewish Law, tradition and customs which wa
edged and practiced within each and every community Th
advice is another element of the diasporic 'third place'; it ref
Ashkenazi community (or indeed communities throughout
nent) and its efforts to sustain a viable Judaism, a viable tra
life in a certain location, while location and temporal experie
wholly dictate daily life, but rather a vision of daily life.
The author of Brantshpigl was able to unite the practic
metaphorical because he was writing in Yiddish. A diaspor
in nature, Yiddish was able to fulfil this task because it d
own particular value. In fact, diasporic conditions forced Yid
ers and writers to employ it in a specific way. As we have se
had to answer problems of the here and now. Also when deal
abstract ideas, reflecting on religious matters and explaining
niceties, it was bound to the time and place of the text and se
the author knew. Yiddish is therefore defined here as a 'horizontal lan-
guage'. While Hebrew texts are engaged in connecting this world and the

52 On modes of communication in the Jewish diaspora of the pre-modern world, see

S. Menache, 'Communication in the Jewish Diaspora: A Survey' in idem (ed.), Com-
munication in the Jewish Diaspora: The Pre-Modern World (Brill-Leiden 1996) 1-56.
53 On Muser sforim, see above.
54 The first edition of Brantshpigl was published in Basel 1602; see Erik, M., 'The
Brantshpigl: an Encyclopedia of the Jewish Woman in the seventeenth Century',
Tsaytshrift (Minsk) 1 (1926) 173-177 (in Yiddish); Dachlika, S., 'Brantspiegel: Ethik
in alten Aschkenas', Jüdischer Almanach 3 (1995) 60-68.

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 82 Shlomo Berger JSQ 15

one to come, between past and futu

venly, and presenting the divine an
cally occupied with conquering mate
to serve the wide Ashkenazi diaspor
munities into one entity that will b
foreign soil. While the Hebrew tex
central position within the 'synago
Yiddish texts and books conquered
space. According to Eliade's conce
Hebrew belonged to the axis of Jew
and the divine, while Yiddish encir
grounding. Ironically, Yiddish b
around ten percent of books produ
of horizontal influence, however, t
than that of Hebrew books. Althou
ence of Hebrew texts and books was limited.

The Language of Ashkenaz5*

The spatial conquest of Yiddish books created a distinct Ashkenazi uni-

verse. Rabbinic writings were published in Hebrew, but verbal commu-
nication was channelled in Yiddish; sermons were delivered in Yiddish
and published in Hebrew; rabbinic advice was communicated in Yiddish
but responsa were penned in Hebrew. Indeed, such practices testify to
the existence of a functionalism that transcended a series of domains
and blurred well-defined divisions in the bilingual situation usually as-
cribed to Ashkenazi society.59 There is no one pair of opposites to de-
marcate the linguistic fields: male-female, spoken-written, religious-secu-
lar, literary-daily, public-private, formal-informal, high-low. Each of
these opposites testifies to a certain reality. None of them tells the story
of Yiddish as a whole and none is completely accurate. To a certain

55 Thus vindicating Eisen's arguments on the position of "the world" as the arena of
Jewish life in exile: see above.
56 Eliade, M., The Sacred and the Profane (San Diego 1975) 20-67.
57 No statistics is yet available. From a basic survey of bibliographies of Hebrew
prints it becomes clear that Yiddish prints consist only a small portion of the overall
production and a rough calculation suggest it is approximately 10%.
58 Loshn Ashkenaz (or the language of Ashkenaz) is the traditional appellation of
the language employed by Yiddish authors and most probably by speakers of the
language until the end of the nineteenth century.
59 Turniansky, Language, Education and Knowledge, 81-87.

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(2008) The Case of Early Modem Yiddish 83

extent this is a consequence of the ongoing development of

its conquest of new areas of activity. In a few, vital fields
remained significant: Hebrew was mainly a language of litu
and recitation), a language of religious, rabbinic writing, a
an intellectual elite mainly operating within the traditiona
rabbi could not gain prestige and intellectual standing writin
or in Yiddish only. Nevertheless, the needs of an Ashkenaz
had forgotten, poorly mastered or already did not know an
all compelled rabbis, intellectuals and authors to compose li
the vernacular for the benefit of their flock. Evidently, the
the Ashkenazi diaspora became a fruitful instrument in pr
supporting Jewish culture, halakhah and tradition. Moreov
Yiddish turned into a powerful tool in presenting and ad
Ashkenazi interpretation of Jewish law, tradition and cust
the ancestral faith and its culture were integrated within th
European Ashkenazi territories. The Yiddish language was a
diasporic formation of Ashkenazi Judaism.
Indeed, even in the field of public versus private liturgy,
to present a more ambiguous picture than the one usually a
if they are correct this would amount to an important and
of the Ashkenazi world.60 However, the evidence is far from
Yet with the exception of this particular area all the afo
cases provide sufficient testimony of the tendency to emp
This growing dominance of Yiddish was reinforced by the
of Yiddish texts and books intended as supplements for the
public. Consequently the Ashkenazi community became a ce
own cultural creativity, while Yiddish added its own unique
kenazi culture was defined by its Yiddish component and w
rily diasporic in nature. The Ashkenazi' came into being
autochthonic feelings among Jews wherever they resided wh
ing a Jewish culture based more or less on an imported segm
host country's culture. Being an 'Ashkenazi' supported the
of a growing sense of independence, a desire to define Jud
own Ashkenazi brand, and perhaps also that of others)
their own worldview, which united practical and metaphor
nents. Practicalities served as a basis of a new religious con
Judaism: an ideology of Judaism, an operational mode o
and customs.

60 Fishman, D., To Pray in Yiddish: A Couple of Methodological Remarks and

Some New Sources', Yivo Bieter n. s.l. (1991) 69-92 (in Yiddish).

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84 Shlomo Berger JSQ 15

The local dialects of Yiddish and th

Western Yiddish constituted the lin
Yiddish and complemented each oth
diasporic Ashkenazi culture. The loc
(or employed in private writing
usages, were influenced by vocabula
sponding to local demands and refle
lation. Although it became an inter
marked the boundary between Jews
regarded their language as purist
usage were always paramount. T
speakers to their language was a dir
their diasporic condition. This was
with pragmatically. Being constant
Yiddish was understood as serving
of culture to the present situation
diasporic situation (or even the loca
Although the differences between
over the centuries and became subs
understood by all Ashkenazim wh
migration from one location to ano
heavals in the way local dialects w
Jews began migrating to Amsterda
they adapted to the local Dutch d
widespread phenomenon, both forc
homogenization of the language;
among the dialects were not felt
tendency to unify the various diale
up with local dialects, the 'democra
as a powerful instrument in preser
Yiddish literary style.
Indeed, the belief in the shared fat
development and employment of a w
lect of Yiddish exclusively throug
first glance, this seems to have b
Jew from Amsterdam and Lvov rea
from their own spoken dialect? Af
twentieth century) had ever taug

61 We have virtually no testimonies of sp

62 Kerler, D. B., The Origin of Modern Li

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(2008) The Case of Early Modern Yiddish 85

let alone this unique literary style. Proficiency in Yiddish c

ways: Firstly, through the study of the Hebrew alphabet and
of Torah and prayer book. This enabled readers to identify
representation of spoken Yiddish. Secondly, people felt that
a written medium, was a Jewish language that linked the H
bet with the diasporic speaking experience. It is well known t
ers of Yiddish books were ardent supporters of a unified W
dish literary style. They wanted their books to be sold thro
Ashkenazi diaspora. Nevertheless, their financial consider
have rested on a confident belief that between Lvov and Amsterdam
there was a Yiddish reading public that was able to understand their
Yiddish texts and was willing to purchase their books. The use of local
dialects as a spoken medium did not hamper the development and suc-
cess of books written in Western Yiddish; and indeed the literary style
was able to overcome the barriers of local usage for at least two centu-
ries until the differences between mostly Western and Eastern European
dialects grew too great and ushered in a revolution in written Yiddish
texts.63
The co-existence of spoken dialects with one written dialect further
underlines the role of Yiddish as a diasporic medium. It was the local
vernacular of Polish, Russian, Bohemian, German, French and Dutch
Jews, and it was also the universal diasporic language of Ashkenazim.
Yiddish helped Jews to run their ordinary lives within their own com-
munities, and as an Ashkenazi vernacular it provided an instrument that
enabled them to transcend the local everyday concerns and view their
experiences within a larger Jewish setting. The ability to move from
dialect to literary style and back further demonstrates the flexible nature
of this diasporic cultural environment. The Ashkenazi cultural world
was never a monolith, but rather an ever-changing (fluid) space that
could adapt and modify to changing circumstances, and at the same
time keep up with boundaries that evolved (if at all) in an evolutionary
fashion.

Employing the western Yiddish literary style had other consequences

too. The corpus of Yiddish books includes texts about customs, and
prayer books according to local traditions. Written in western Yiddish,
they evidently served two distinctive reading publics: local readers who
needed the books for daily use, and a wider diasporic Ashkenazi public
that wished to learn about variations in their own culture. Travellers
might use these books, of course, but also intellectuals, while less sophis-

63 Ibid.

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 86 Shlomo Berger JSQ 15

ticated readers might find out abo

world and compare and contrast th
nazi tradition and culture. Thus, th
amalgam of books that bridged the
the Ashkenazi diaspora. While refle
presents the Ashkenazi interpretati
As dialects of Yiddish developed an
acteristics, literary Western Yiddish
tion that began to occur in the A
West, and within each part of the c
nal differences. It was a gradual pro
conditions on the diasporic situatio
ernization. The fossilization of western Yiddish also testifies to another
important development: the establishment of a language and literature
that eventually represented 'the Ashkenazi'. The written style (the text)
is the Ashkenazi cultural manifestation par excellence. It defines the
period of early modern Ashkenazi history; it is the theater of Ashkenazi
culture. The corpus of Western Yiddish texts, the library of published
books, became the basic Ashkenazi diasporic source of culture. Indeed,
an entire period of diaspora history is epitomized by the use of Yiddish.
The Western Yiddish literary corpus is a testimony to the coming to age
of diasporic Ashkenazi culture. It reflects the transition of the Exilic
outlook of Jewish existence into a diasporic outlook, and as such the
Ashkenazi configuration of Jewish European history. Locality played an
increasing role. Particular demands of a regional and temporal character
won the upper hand. Ashkenazi Judaism found, among other things, its
own vernacular.

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