RE: Yiddishkayt & Israelis

[SamWeiss <SamWeiss...>]

The theme of Klezkamp1998 was "Yiddish in Israel".  It included an 
Alberstein/Klezmatics concert of the then newly-released "Well" CD, as well 
as classes by Dov Noy, eminent Yiddish folklorist at the Hebrew University 
of Jerusalem.  In one these classes I learned of another wrinkle in the 
tapestry of anti-Yiddishism in Israel -- post-WWII and earlier.  This was 
the function of Yiddish as "mame-loshn."  Motherhood for early settlers was 
not among the things they glorified.  Women were Chalutzot first and 
foremost, even to their own children, who were encouraged to address their 
mothers by their first name.  The worldwide stereotype of "Di Yidishe Mame" 
was absent in that society, the term "Polish Mother" being the closest 
equivalent.  Israeli Ethnomusicologist Gila Flam reported discovering only 
4 or 5 Hebrew songs from that period with "mother" as the subject.
Early anti-Yiddishism in Israel was not just a grass-roots phenomenon, but 
was translated into a lack of government funding for Yiddish cultural 
undertakings.  Such activities had to compete with performances in other 
"non-Jewish languages" for survival.  Only recently (I think 2-3 years ago) 
were Yiddish and Ladino officially classified as Jewish languages for 
purposes of receiving annual government grants.  And only =very= recently 
was Yiddish able to benefit from this money by finally overcoming 
organizational squabbling and forming a unified Yiddish language authority 
to utilize this funding.

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Cantor Sam Weiss === Jewish Community Center of Paramus, NJ

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