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i have also known several secular Jews (not from religious homes) who learned Yiddish because they had a grandparent living with them who spoke Yiddish.
there is a funny story, this is true and i have permission to share it. There was a Jewish man, a successful attorney, he marries a Jewish woman. Soon they get divorced. He marries wife #2, also a Jewish woman. That marriage does not last either, they get divorced. He's fed up with Jewish women so he marries a non-Jewish woman. They are very happy and have been married 35 years, he's pleased to have found the right woman. So they are getting older and the mother of wife #3 is ill and nearing the end, so the man and his wife go to visit the aging mother-in-law in the hospital. Towards the end she is rambling and they have trouble understanding what she is saying. Shortly after she passes away.
Wife #3 notices a really strange look on her husband's face. She figures he is sharing in her grief because he really looks shocked. "What is it?" she asks him. Well it turns out the husband could understand very clearly, before passing she began speaking in Yiddish. It turns out wife #3 was Jewish after all and this was kept hidden from her. I love that story! Hashem really wanted him married to a Jewish woman and her married to a Jewish man. She was so happy to find out, and got him going to shul again, keeping kosher, taking Torah classes, and no matter how many times I hear that story I never get tired of it.
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 08-10-2015 at 09:20 PM..
Maybe so, but I don't fully agree. When you have parents who speak multiple languages and your kid(s) was born in the USA they need to learn English since that is what they teach in the public schools. Also, some parents don't want the kid knowing their business.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Yiddish is the main language spoken in the public schools in Kiryas Yoel.
i have also known several secular Jews (not from religious homes) who learned Yiddish because they had a grandparent living with them who spoke Yiddish.
there is a funny story, this is true and i have permission to share it. There was a Jewish man, a successful attorney, he marries a Jewish woman. Soon they get divorced. He marries wife #2, also a Jewish woman. That marriage does not last either, they get divorced. He's fed up with Jewish women so he marries a non-Jewish woman. They are very happy and have been married 35 years, he's pleased to have found the right woman. So they are getting older and the mother of wife #3 is ill and nearing the end, so the man and his wife go to visit the aging mother-in-law in the hospital. Towards the end she is rambling and they have trouble understanding what she is saying. Shortly after she passes away.
Wife #3 notices a really strange look on her husband's face. She figures he is sharing in her grief because he really looks shocked. "What is it?" she asks him. Well it turns out the husband could understand very clearly, before passing she began speaking in Yiddish. It turns out wife #3 was Jewish after all and this was kept hidden from her. I love that story! Hashem really wanted him married to a Jewish woman and her married to a Jewish man. She was so happy to find out, and got him going to shul again, keeping kosher, taking Torah classes, and no matter how many times I hear that story I never get tired of it.
Maybe so, but I don't fully agree. When you have parents who speak multiple languages and your kid(s) was born in the USA they need to learn English since that is what they teach in the public schools. Also, some parents don't want the kid knowing their business.
The post WW2 secular Yiddishkeit are nearly all gone and two to three generations have passed.The parents you speak of are now in their 90's. So the only homes currently using Yiddish is Ashkenazi Ultra Orthodox.
How many people speak Yiddish today?
It is estimated that there are about a quarter million Yiddish speakers in the United States, about the same number in Israel, and another 100,000 or so in the rest of the world. That's a lot less than the peak number of Yiddish speakers— 11,000,000— on the eve of the Holocaust. However, some scholars believe that the number of Yiddish speakers is no longer declining and may in fact be on the rise.
What do people do in Yiddish today?
There are Yiddish theater companies that perform in New York, Warsaw, Tel Aviv, and Montreal.
There are ATMs that allow you to do your banking in Yiddish (in Boro Park, Brooklyn).
There are several Yiddish bloggers on the Internet, and children in a Jewish day school in Melbourne, Australia, have their own Yiddish web journal.
There are Yiddish board games created especially for hasidic children and spy novels written in Yiddish for their parents.
There are choirs and klezmer bands around the world that perform songs written in Yiddish.
There are new translations of classic works of children's literature— including Winnie the Pooh, The Little Prince, and The Cat in the Hat— into Yiddish.
There are Yiddish clubs, where people gather to speak Yiddish with one another, all round the world-even in Japan.
There are Yiddish speakers who gather every summer in the Berkshires and spend the entire week playing baseball, studying Jewish texts, hiking, singing folksongs, eating meals— all in Yiddish.
There are dozens of universities in North America, Europe, and Israel that offer courses in Yiddish language and literature— including Rutgers.
Yiddish is today enjoying a resurgence. Several populations use it as their main language: primarily the generation that lived during and immediately after the Holocaust, and the ultra-Orthodox populations living in New York and parts of Israel. But more significantly, Yiddish is today receiving attention from the non-Jewish scholarly community as a real language, and not as the "corrupted tongue" that it was considered throughout history. Many universities worldwide offer courses and even degree programs in Yiddish linguistics, and the literature of the Yiddish cultural period is receiving attention for its astute depiction of contemporary Jewish existence. Even linguists of the German language are learning Yiddish, because the development of the German language, is related to the medieval versions of it that today are manifested only in Yiddish.
And there are also homes where yiddish is spoken that are not this description
There are no secular Yiddish communities left. There are communities that have secular Yiddish speakers in them where most of those people will have passed over the next decade.
Yiddish is today enjoying a resurgence. Several populations use it as their main language: primarily the generation that lived during and immediately after the Holocaust, and the ultra-Orthodox populations living in New York and parts of Israel. But more significantly, Yiddish is today receiving attention from the non-Jewish scholarly community as a real language, and not as the "corrupted tongue" that it was considered throughout history. Many universities worldwide offer courses and even degree programs in Yiddish linguistics, and the literature of the Yiddish cultural period is receiving attention for its astute depiction of contemporary Jewish existence. Even linguists of the German language are learning Yiddish, because the development of the German language, is related to the medieval versions of it that today are manifested only in Yiddish.
How many people speak Yiddish today?
It is estimated that there are about a quarter million Yiddish speakers in the United States, about the same number in Israel, and another 100,000 or so in the rest of the world. That's a lot less than the peak number of Yiddish speakers— 11,000,000— on the eve of the Holocaust. However, some scholars believe that the number of Yiddish speakers is no longer declining and may in fact be on the rise.
What do people do in Yiddish today?
There are Yiddish theater companies that perform in New York, Warsaw, Tel Aviv, and Montreal.
There are ATMs that allow you to do your banking in Yiddish (in Boro Park, Brooklyn).
There are several Yiddish bloggers on the Internet, and children in a Jewish day school in Melbourne, Australia, have their own Yiddish web journal.
There are Yiddish board games created especially for hasidic children and spy novels written in Yiddish for their parents.
There are choirs and klezmer bands around the world that perform songs written in Yiddish.
There are new translations of classic works of children's literature— including Winnie the Pooh, The Little Prince, and The Cat in the Hat— into Yiddish.
There are Yiddish clubs, where people gather to speak Yiddish with one another, all round the world-even in Japan.
There are Yiddish speakers who gather every summer in the Berkshires and spend the entire week playing baseball, studying Jewish texts, hiking, singing folksongs, eating meals— all in Yiddish.
There are dozens of universities in North America, Europe, and Israel that offer courses in Yiddish language and literature— including Rutgers.
You should've included the link of the rest of the information and that it was dated over five years ago.
Nearly each sentence is out of date for the secular community. I'll cover one.
Quote:
There are Yiddish speakers who gather every summer in the Berkshires and spend the entire week playing baseball, studying Jewish texts, hiking, singing folksongs, eating meals— all in Yiddish.
The last time they posted was in 2010. The remnants of that group basically meet for lunch now. Yidish-vokh 2010
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