I am a senior lecturer of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Before joining the Hebrew University in 2012 I spent five years as a visiting PhD student at the University of Munich, and another three years as a visiting post-doctoral fellow at Duke University. My book, A Goy Who Speaks Yiddish: Christians and the Jewish Language in Early Modern Germany, appeared in 2012 with Stanford University Press. The book explores the unique and unlikely phenomenon of “Christian Yiddishism” in early modern Germany, namely the Christian interest in and engagement with Yiddish language and literature from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the late eighteenth century. It explains why some Christians were preoccupied with Yiddish and discusses the various ways in which they depicted this Jewish language and literature in their writings. In the process, it sheds light on the broader linguistic, theological, cultural, and social concerns of early modern Christian authors and their intellectual environment. My main fields of interest are German and German-Jewish history and culture; Christian-Jewish relations; Yiddish language and literature; the history of the Yiddish-German encounter; and the social and cultural history of language and translation. My current project explores the place of Old Yiddish literature in modern German and German-Jewish culture.
As a field, German-Jewish Studies emphasizes the dangers of nationalism, monoculturalism, and eth... more As a field, German-Jewish Studies emphasizes the dangers of nationalism, monoculturalism, and ethnocentrism, while making room for multilingual and transnational perspectives with questions surrounding migration, refugees, exile, and precarity. Focusing on the relevance and utility of the field for the twenty-first century, German-Jewish Studies explores why studying and applying German-Jewish history and culture must evolve and be given further attention today. The volume brings together an interdisciplinary range of scholars to reconsider the history of antisemitism—as well as intersections of antisemitism with racism and colonialism—and how connections to German Jews shed light on the continuities, ruptures, anxieties, and possible futures of German-speaking Jews and their legacies.
As a field, German-Jewish Studies emphasizes the dangers of nationalism, monoculturalism, and eth... more As a field, German-Jewish Studies emphasizes the dangers of nationalism, monoculturalism, and ethnocentrism, while making room for multilingual and transnational perspectives with questions surrounding migration, refugees, exile, and precarity. Focusing on the relevance and utility of the field for the twenty-first century, German-Jewish Studies explores why studying and applying German-Jewish history and culture must evolve and be given further attention today. The volume brings together an interdisciplinary range of scholars to reconsider the history of antisemitism—as well as intersections of antisemitism with racism and colonialism—and how connections to German Jews shed light on the continuities, ruptures, anxieties, and possible futures of German-speaking Jews and their legacies.
The book sheds light on various chapters in the long history of Protestant-Jewish relations, from... more The book sheds light on various chapters in the long history of Protestant-Jewish relations, from the Reformation to the present. Going beyond questions of antisemitism and religious animosity, it aims to disentangle some of the intricate perceptions, interpretations, and emotions that have characterized contacts between Protestantism and Judaism, and between Jews and Protestants.
While some papers in the book address Luther’s antisemitism and the NS-Zeit, most papers broaden the scope of the investigation: Protestant-Jewish theological encounters shaped not only antisemitism but also the Jewish Reform movement and Protestant philosemitic post-Holocaust theology; interactions between Jews and Protestants took place not only in the German lands but also in the wider Protestant universe; theology was crucial for the articulation of attitudes toward Jews, but music and philosophy were additional spheres of creativity that enabled the process of thinking through the relations between Judaism and Protestantism. By bringing together various contributions on these and other aspects, the book opens up directions for future research on this intricate topic, which bears both historical significance and evident relevance to our own time.
The book sheds light on various chapters in the long history of Protestant-Jewish relations, from... more The book sheds light on various chapters in the long history of Protestant-Jewish relations, from the Reformation to the present. Going beyond questions of antisemitism and religious animosity, it aims to disentangle some of the intricate perceptions, interpretations, and emotions that have characterized contacts between Protestantism and Judaism, and between Jews and Protestants. While some papers in the book address Luther’s antisemitism and the NS-Zeit, most papers broaden the scope of the investigation: Protestant-Jewish theological encounters shaped not only antisemitism but also the Jewish Reform movement and Protestant philosemitic post-Holocaust theology; interactions between Jews and Protestants took place not only in the German lands but also in the wider Protestant universe; theology was crucial for the articulation of attitudes toward Jews, but music and philosophy were additional spheres of creativity that enabled the process of thinking through the relations between Judaism and Protestantism. By bringing together various contributions on these and other aspects, the book opens up directions for future research on this intricate topic, which bears both historical significance and evident relevance to our own time.
This book explores the unique phenomenon of Christian engagement with Yiddish language and litera... more This book explores the unique phenomenon of Christian engagement with Yiddish language and literature from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the late eighteenth century. By exploring the motivations for Christian interest in Yiddish, and the differing ways in which Yiddish was discussed and treated in Christian texts, A Goy Who Speaks Yiddish addresses a wide array of issues, most notably Christian Hebraism, Protestant theology, early modern Yiddish culture, and the social and cultural history of language in early modern Europe.
Elyada's analysis of a wide range of philological and theological works, as well as textbooks, dictionaries, ethnographical writings, and translations, demonstrates that Christian Yiddishism had implications beyond its purely linguistic and philological dimensions. Indeed, Christian texts on Yiddish reveal not only the ways in which Christians perceived and defined Jews and Judaism, but also, in a contrasting vein, how they viewed their own language, religion, and culture.
This book explores the unique phenomenon of Christian engagement with Yiddish language and litera... more This book explores the unique phenomenon of Christian engagement with Yiddish language and literature from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the late eighteenth century. By exploring the motivations for Christian interest in Yiddish, and the differing ways in which Yiddish was discussed and treated in Christian texts, A Goy Who Speaks Yiddish addresses a wide array of issues, most notably Christian Hebraism, Protestant theology, early modern Yiddish culture, and the social and cultural history of language in early modern Europe.
Elyada's analysis of a wide range of philological and theological works, as well as textbooks, dictionaries, ethnographical writings, and translations, demonstrates that Christian Yiddishism had implications beyond its purely linguistic and philological dimensions. Indeed, Christian texts on Yiddish reveal not only the ways in which Christians perceived and defined Jews and Judaism, but also, in a contrasting vein, how they viewed their own language, religion, and culture.
Nearly eighty years after the Holocaust and the end of the Second World War, studying German-Jewi... more Nearly eighty years after the Holocaust and the end of the Second World War, studying German-Jewish history and culture continues to be a worthwhile undertaking, though the underlying motivations have shifted over the years and there are new benefits to doing this work. What is the significance of German-Jewish Studies in the twenty-first century, both in academia and in society at large? How will German-Jewish Studies look in the 2030s and 2040s? In which directions is the field headed, and what approaches and issues are driving new research? This essay offers some initial reflections on the relevance and utility of German-Jewish Studies for the twenty-first century. It outlines the general development of the field from the early 1950s to the present, and it points out current trends and research directions. For example, the essay delineates the expansion of the field’s geographical, chronological, and linguistic boundaries over the years; it further discusses the challenges that working in German-Jewish Studies presents to current scholars and students, such as the problem of saturation and the question of attracting younger audiences. It also highlights the pertinence of German-Jewish history – and its legacy – to present-day struggles for minority rights, civic equality, religious tolerance, and liberal democracy.
The rise of Wissenschaft des Judentums in early nineteenth-century Germany was one of the most si... more The rise of Wissenschaft des Judentums in early nineteenth-century Germany was one of the most significant developments in modern Judaism. Considering its far-reaching impact on the formation of modern Jewish cultures, it is hardly surprising that this intellectual movement has stood at the center of numerous studies from the nineteenth century to the present. Yet one aspect of this movement has gone largely unnoticed: the engagement of German-Jewish scholars, adherents of the Wissenschaft des Judentums, with their Yiddish heritage. That these scholars, like the Maskilim before them, utterly rejected their ancestors’ Yiddish language is well known and indisputable. A closer look at the sources, however, reveals that, unlike their outright disdain for the Yiddish language, their relationship with the Yiddish literary heritage is far more complex and ambivalent. Moreover, their understanding of this literary heritage was closely intertwined with their broader vision(s) of the German-Jewish past, present, and future and, especially, with the attempt to promote their own agendas concerning the Jewish experience in the modern world. In the article, I explore the engagement of nineteenth-century German-Jewish Wissenschaftler with their Yiddish literary heritage by focusing on its most prominent genre: the biblical literature in Yiddish, which dominated the religious and cultural world of Ashkenazi Jews throughout the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. By the early nineteenth century, with the gradual decline of Yiddish in the German-Jewish communities and the newly founded tradition of Jewish Bibles in the German language, the older biblical works in Yiddish ceased to appear in the German-speaking lands. These once very popular Yiddish texts, however, were by no means forgotten. They continued to be objects of collection, translation, examination, and discussion in the works of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German-Jewish scholars, adherents of the Wissenschaft des Judentums. Through a close reading of the prominent representatives of this discourse, I not only recount the writings on Yiddish literature as a contested field of diverse perceptions but also aim to uncover the historical and ideological factors that shaped them. Thus, the article adds a new dimension to our understanding of the German-Jewish struggle with what the historian Ismar Schorsch once called ʻthe major issue of the emancipation era, namely, what was to be done with the legacy of the past.ʼ Concurrently, the article calls for the revision of a major chapter in the reception history of Yiddish literature: the place and function of this early modern corpus within nineteenth-century German-Jewish culture.
During the Middle Ages and throughout early modernity Yiddish served the Jewish communities in th... more During the Middle Ages and throughout early modernity Yiddish served the Jewish communities in the Germanic sphere as a spoken language and, alongside Hebrew, also as a written and literary language. With the advent of the Enlightenment (Haskalah) and the beginning of emancipation, Germany׳s Jews began to abandon Yiddish and to adopt the German language in its stead. Yet, as this article seeks to show, although Yiddish lost its traditional status as the language of Germany׳s Jews, the literature written in Yiddish over the generations did not entirely disappear from nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century German-Jewish culture. Works of this literature continued to feature-albeit in German and in Latin letters-in the writings of German-Jewish scholars during this late period: they were translated and adapted, and were discussed and analyzed in annotated anthologies, literary reviews, and critical essays. The present article focuses on a particular case study-Abraham Moses Tendelau׳s translations of Yiddish folk stories, which appeared in German in the mid-nineteenth century and gained considerable popularity. Through analysis of the translation methods used and the motives that underlay the project, the article seeks to explore the tension between rejection and nostalgia that characterized the attitude of German Jews toward their Yiddish heritage, as well as the manner in which Yiddish acquired the status of a "post-vernacular" language in modern German-Jewish culture.
Im ausgehenden 18. Jahrhundert, als immer weitere Kreise deutscher
Juden die jiddische Mutterspr... more Im ausgehenden 18. Jahrhundert, als immer weitere Kreise deutscher
Juden die jiddische Muttersprache durch die deutsche Sprache ersetzten, kam die
Veröffentlichung altjiddischer Literatur in West- und Mitteleuropa de facto zum
Stillstand. Dessen ungeachtet geriet dieses umfassende, einst äußerst populäre
literarische Korpus keineswegs in Vergessenheit. Vielmehr erhielten diese Texte in
den Arbeiten deutsch-jüdischer Wissenschaftler und Autoren aus dem 19. und
frühen 20. Jahrhundert einen festen Platz: Sie wurden übersetzt und adaptiert
sowie in kommentierten Anthologien, Literaturverzeichnissen und -übersichten
paraphrasiert, diskutiert und analysiert. Oftmals verlieh man den altjiddischen
Werken dadurch nicht nur ein „Nachleben“, sondern sie erfuhren dabei
gleichermaßen eine Rehabilitierung, indem sie als literarische und historische
Monumente einer verschwundenen jüdischen Vergangenheit neue Wertschätzung
erhielten. Der vorliegende Beitrag konzentriert sich auf zwei entscheidende
Momente in der Geschichte der Übersetzung und Rehabilitierung dieser vergessenen
Tradition: einerseits das Werk Abraham M. Tendlaus, das vor dem Hintergrund
der Akkulturationsbemühungen in der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts und der deutschjüdischen Nostalgiekultur gelesen werden muss; andererseits die Werke Max
Grunwalds und anderer prominenter Volkskundler des ausgehenden 19. und
frühen 20. Jahrhunderts – eine Zeit also, in der die liberale Idee einer deutschjüdischen
Symbiose durch die aufkommenden Rassenideologien und den politischen
Antisemitismus zunehmend untergraben wurde. Wie gezeigt werden soll,
beeinflussten die verschiedenen historischen Kontexte sowohl die Rolle, die altjiddischen Texten in den Schriften dieser jüdischen Gelehrten zugesprochen wurde,
als auch die Art und Weise, in der sie im Rahmen der deutsch-jüdischen Suche
nach einer „verwertbaren Vergangenheit“ übersetzt, präsentiert und diskutiert
wurden.
From the late eighteenth century, as German Jews gradually replaced Yiddish with German, the publ... more From the late eighteenth century, as German Jews gradually replaced Yiddish with German, the publication of Old Yiddish literature practically ceased in Western and Central Europe. But this rich and once very popular literary corpus was by no means forgotten there. Rather, it gained a "second life" in the works of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholars, in the form of annotated anthologies and translations, bibliographic lists, and literary surveys. This article focuses on one prominent example, that of the German-Jewish folklorist Abraham M. Tendlau (1802-1878). In his popular anthologies, Buch der Sagen und Legenden jüdischer Vorzeit (1842) and Fellmeiers Abende: Märchen und Geschichten aus grauer Vorzeit (1856), as well as in his renown collection of proverbs Sprichwörter und Redensarten deutsch-jüdischer Vorzeit (1860), Tendlau incorporated German translations of older Jewish folktales, which he took primarily from the Old Yiddish Mayse-bukh (1602) and Seyfer mayse nisim (1696). The article analyzes Tendlau's translations of the Old Yiddish folktales against the backdrop of Jewish modernization and acculturation on the one hand, and, on the other, the culture of remembrance and nostalgia, which permeated Jewish culture in nineteenth-century Germany. By this, it hopes to shed light on the important yet hitherto underestimated role of Old Yiddish Literature in the formation of a distinct German-Jewish identity in the modern era.
As an integral part of the cultural history of German Jewry, early modern Yiddish and the literar... more As an integral part of the cultural history of German Jewry, early modern Yiddish and the literary corpus it produced found their way into the debate over the "Jewish question" in German scholarly discourse of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century. Focusing on the field of Jewish Volkskunde, this paper explores the place of Yiddish in the works of two ideologically opposing camps: the racial perception of Jewry on the one hand, and the liberal, integrationist definition of Jewry on the other. As demonstrated in the paper, the engagement of turn-of-the-century Jewish folklorists with early modern Yiddish did not derive merely from a scholarly ambition to encompass all aspects of Jewish culture, or from nostalgic longings to a bygone Jewish world. It was, to a large extent, an expression of cultural and intellectual resistance by a minority group, who attempted to promote an alternative to the hegemonic scholarly discourse of the time.
This paper explores German translations from Yiddish, prepared by Christian authors for Christian... more This paper explores German translations from Yiddish, prepared by Christian authors for Christian readership in the early modern era. By examining the motivations for translation, the methods used by the Christian translators, and how these methods served the latter’s purposes, the paper aims to promote our understanding of the cultural exchange between Jews and Christians in the early modern period. It also aims to shed light on a unique phenomenon in the history of translation in the German-speaking world.
As a field, German-Jewish Studies emphasizes the dangers of nationalism, monoculturalism, and eth... more As a field, German-Jewish Studies emphasizes the dangers of nationalism, monoculturalism, and ethnocentrism, while making room for multilingual and transnational perspectives with questions surrounding migration, refugees, exile, and precarity. Focusing on the relevance and utility of the field for the twenty-first century, German-Jewish Studies explores why studying and applying German-Jewish history and culture must evolve and be given further attention today. The volume brings together an interdisciplinary range of scholars to reconsider the history of antisemitism—as well as intersections of antisemitism with racism and colonialism—and how connections to German Jews shed light on the continuities, ruptures, anxieties, and possible futures of German-speaking Jews and their legacies.
As a field, German-Jewish Studies emphasizes the dangers of nationalism, monoculturalism, and eth... more As a field, German-Jewish Studies emphasizes the dangers of nationalism, monoculturalism, and ethnocentrism, while making room for multilingual and transnational perspectives with questions surrounding migration, refugees, exile, and precarity. Focusing on the relevance and utility of the field for the twenty-first century, German-Jewish Studies explores why studying and applying German-Jewish history and culture must evolve and be given further attention today. The volume brings together an interdisciplinary range of scholars to reconsider the history of antisemitism—as well as intersections of antisemitism with racism and colonialism—and how connections to German Jews shed light on the continuities, ruptures, anxieties, and possible futures of German-speaking Jews and their legacies.
The book sheds light on various chapters in the long history of Protestant-Jewish relations, from... more The book sheds light on various chapters in the long history of Protestant-Jewish relations, from the Reformation to the present. Going beyond questions of antisemitism and religious animosity, it aims to disentangle some of the intricate perceptions, interpretations, and emotions that have characterized contacts between Protestantism and Judaism, and between Jews and Protestants.
While some papers in the book address Luther’s antisemitism and the NS-Zeit, most papers broaden the scope of the investigation: Protestant-Jewish theological encounters shaped not only antisemitism but also the Jewish Reform movement and Protestant philosemitic post-Holocaust theology; interactions between Jews and Protestants took place not only in the German lands but also in the wider Protestant universe; theology was crucial for the articulation of attitudes toward Jews, but music and philosophy were additional spheres of creativity that enabled the process of thinking through the relations between Judaism and Protestantism. By bringing together various contributions on these and other aspects, the book opens up directions for future research on this intricate topic, which bears both historical significance and evident relevance to our own time.
The book sheds light on various chapters in the long history of Protestant-Jewish relations, from... more The book sheds light on various chapters in the long history of Protestant-Jewish relations, from the Reformation to the present. Going beyond questions of antisemitism and religious animosity, it aims to disentangle some of the intricate perceptions, interpretations, and emotions that have characterized contacts between Protestantism and Judaism, and between Jews and Protestants. While some papers in the book address Luther’s antisemitism and the NS-Zeit, most papers broaden the scope of the investigation: Protestant-Jewish theological encounters shaped not only antisemitism but also the Jewish Reform movement and Protestant philosemitic post-Holocaust theology; interactions between Jews and Protestants took place not only in the German lands but also in the wider Protestant universe; theology was crucial for the articulation of attitudes toward Jews, but music and philosophy were additional spheres of creativity that enabled the process of thinking through the relations between Judaism and Protestantism. By bringing together various contributions on these and other aspects, the book opens up directions for future research on this intricate topic, which bears both historical significance and evident relevance to our own time.
This book explores the unique phenomenon of Christian engagement with Yiddish language and litera... more This book explores the unique phenomenon of Christian engagement with Yiddish language and literature from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the late eighteenth century. By exploring the motivations for Christian interest in Yiddish, and the differing ways in which Yiddish was discussed and treated in Christian texts, A Goy Who Speaks Yiddish addresses a wide array of issues, most notably Christian Hebraism, Protestant theology, early modern Yiddish culture, and the social and cultural history of language in early modern Europe.
Elyada's analysis of a wide range of philological and theological works, as well as textbooks, dictionaries, ethnographical writings, and translations, demonstrates that Christian Yiddishism had implications beyond its purely linguistic and philological dimensions. Indeed, Christian texts on Yiddish reveal not only the ways in which Christians perceived and defined Jews and Judaism, but also, in a contrasting vein, how they viewed their own language, religion, and culture.
This book explores the unique phenomenon of Christian engagement with Yiddish language and litera... more This book explores the unique phenomenon of Christian engagement with Yiddish language and literature from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the late eighteenth century. By exploring the motivations for Christian interest in Yiddish, and the differing ways in which Yiddish was discussed and treated in Christian texts, A Goy Who Speaks Yiddish addresses a wide array of issues, most notably Christian Hebraism, Protestant theology, early modern Yiddish culture, and the social and cultural history of language in early modern Europe.
Elyada's analysis of a wide range of philological and theological works, as well as textbooks, dictionaries, ethnographical writings, and translations, demonstrates that Christian Yiddishism had implications beyond its purely linguistic and philological dimensions. Indeed, Christian texts on Yiddish reveal not only the ways in which Christians perceived and defined Jews and Judaism, but also, in a contrasting vein, how they viewed their own language, religion, and culture.
Nearly eighty years after the Holocaust and the end of the Second World War, studying German-Jewi... more Nearly eighty years after the Holocaust and the end of the Second World War, studying German-Jewish history and culture continues to be a worthwhile undertaking, though the underlying motivations have shifted over the years and there are new benefits to doing this work. What is the significance of German-Jewish Studies in the twenty-first century, both in academia and in society at large? How will German-Jewish Studies look in the 2030s and 2040s? In which directions is the field headed, and what approaches and issues are driving new research? This essay offers some initial reflections on the relevance and utility of German-Jewish Studies for the twenty-first century. It outlines the general development of the field from the early 1950s to the present, and it points out current trends and research directions. For example, the essay delineates the expansion of the field’s geographical, chronological, and linguistic boundaries over the years; it further discusses the challenges that working in German-Jewish Studies presents to current scholars and students, such as the problem of saturation and the question of attracting younger audiences. It also highlights the pertinence of German-Jewish history – and its legacy – to present-day struggles for minority rights, civic equality, religious tolerance, and liberal democracy.
The rise of Wissenschaft des Judentums in early nineteenth-century Germany was one of the most si... more The rise of Wissenschaft des Judentums in early nineteenth-century Germany was one of the most significant developments in modern Judaism. Considering its far-reaching impact on the formation of modern Jewish cultures, it is hardly surprising that this intellectual movement has stood at the center of numerous studies from the nineteenth century to the present. Yet one aspect of this movement has gone largely unnoticed: the engagement of German-Jewish scholars, adherents of the Wissenschaft des Judentums, with their Yiddish heritage. That these scholars, like the Maskilim before them, utterly rejected their ancestors’ Yiddish language is well known and indisputable. A closer look at the sources, however, reveals that, unlike their outright disdain for the Yiddish language, their relationship with the Yiddish literary heritage is far more complex and ambivalent. Moreover, their understanding of this literary heritage was closely intertwined with their broader vision(s) of the German-Jewish past, present, and future and, especially, with the attempt to promote their own agendas concerning the Jewish experience in the modern world. In the article, I explore the engagement of nineteenth-century German-Jewish Wissenschaftler with their Yiddish literary heritage by focusing on its most prominent genre: the biblical literature in Yiddish, which dominated the religious and cultural world of Ashkenazi Jews throughout the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. By the early nineteenth century, with the gradual decline of Yiddish in the German-Jewish communities and the newly founded tradition of Jewish Bibles in the German language, the older biblical works in Yiddish ceased to appear in the German-speaking lands. These once very popular Yiddish texts, however, were by no means forgotten. They continued to be objects of collection, translation, examination, and discussion in the works of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German-Jewish scholars, adherents of the Wissenschaft des Judentums. Through a close reading of the prominent representatives of this discourse, I not only recount the writings on Yiddish literature as a contested field of diverse perceptions but also aim to uncover the historical and ideological factors that shaped them. Thus, the article adds a new dimension to our understanding of the German-Jewish struggle with what the historian Ismar Schorsch once called ʻthe major issue of the emancipation era, namely, what was to be done with the legacy of the past.ʼ Concurrently, the article calls for the revision of a major chapter in the reception history of Yiddish literature: the place and function of this early modern corpus within nineteenth-century German-Jewish culture.
During the Middle Ages and throughout early modernity Yiddish served the Jewish communities in th... more During the Middle Ages and throughout early modernity Yiddish served the Jewish communities in the Germanic sphere as a spoken language and, alongside Hebrew, also as a written and literary language. With the advent of the Enlightenment (Haskalah) and the beginning of emancipation, Germany׳s Jews began to abandon Yiddish and to adopt the German language in its stead. Yet, as this article seeks to show, although Yiddish lost its traditional status as the language of Germany׳s Jews, the literature written in Yiddish over the generations did not entirely disappear from nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century German-Jewish culture. Works of this literature continued to feature-albeit in German and in Latin letters-in the writings of German-Jewish scholars during this late period: they were translated and adapted, and were discussed and analyzed in annotated anthologies, literary reviews, and critical essays. The present article focuses on a particular case study-Abraham Moses Tendelau׳s translations of Yiddish folk stories, which appeared in German in the mid-nineteenth century and gained considerable popularity. Through analysis of the translation methods used and the motives that underlay the project, the article seeks to explore the tension between rejection and nostalgia that characterized the attitude of German Jews toward their Yiddish heritage, as well as the manner in which Yiddish acquired the status of a "post-vernacular" language in modern German-Jewish culture.
Im ausgehenden 18. Jahrhundert, als immer weitere Kreise deutscher
Juden die jiddische Mutterspr... more Im ausgehenden 18. Jahrhundert, als immer weitere Kreise deutscher
Juden die jiddische Muttersprache durch die deutsche Sprache ersetzten, kam die
Veröffentlichung altjiddischer Literatur in West- und Mitteleuropa de facto zum
Stillstand. Dessen ungeachtet geriet dieses umfassende, einst äußerst populäre
literarische Korpus keineswegs in Vergessenheit. Vielmehr erhielten diese Texte in
den Arbeiten deutsch-jüdischer Wissenschaftler und Autoren aus dem 19. und
frühen 20. Jahrhundert einen festen Platz: Sie wurden übersetzt und adaptiert
sowie in kommentierten Anthologien, Literaturverzeichnissen und -übersichten
paraphrasiert, diskutiert und analysiert. Oftmals verlieh man den altjiddischen
Werken dadurch nicht nur ein „Nachleben“, sondern sie erfuhren dabei
gleichermaßen eine Rehabilitierung, indem sie als literarische und historische
Monumente einer verschwundenen jüdischen Vergangenheit neue Wertschätzung
erhielten. Der vorliegende Beitrag konzentriert sich auf zwei entscheidende
Momente in der Geschichte der Übersetzung und Rehabilitierung dieser vergessenen
Tradition: einerseits das Werk Abraham M. Tendlaus, das vor dem Hintergrund
der Akkulturationsbemühungen in der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts und der deutschjüdischen Nostalgiekultur gelesen werden muss; andererseits die Werke Max
Grunwalds und anderer prominenter Volkskundler des ausgehenden 19. und
frühen 20. Jahrhunderts – eine Zeit also, in der die liberale Idee einer deutschjüdischen
Symbiose durch die aufkommenden Rassenideologien und den politischen
Antisemitismus zunehmend untergraben wurde. Wie gezeigt werden soll,
beeinflussten die verschiedenen historischen Kontexte sowohl die Rolle, die altjiddischen Texten in den Schriften dieser jüdischen Gelehrten zugesprochen wurde,
als auch die Art und Weise, in der sie im Rahmen der deutsch-jüdischen Suche
nach einer „verwertbaren Vergangenheit“ übersetzt, präsentiert und diskutiert
wurden.
From the late eighteenth century, as German Jews gradually replaced Yiddish with German, the publ... more From the late eighteenth century, as German Jews gradually replaced Yiddish with German, the publication of Old Yiddish literature practically ceased in Western and Central Europe. But this rich and once very popular literary corpus was by no means forgotten there. Rather, it gained a "second life" in the works of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholars, in the form of annotated anthologies and translations, bibliographic lists, and literary surveys. This article focuses on one prominent example, that of the German-Jewish folklorist Abraham M. Tendlau (1802-1878). In his popular anthologies, Buch der Sagen und Legenden jüdischer Vorzeit (1842) and Fellmeiers Abende: Märchen und Geschichten aus grauer Vorzeit (1856), as well as in his renown collection of proverbs Sprichwörter und Redensarten deutsch-jüdischer Vorzeit (1860), Tendlau incorporated German translations of older Jewish folktales, which he took primarily from the Old Yiddish Mayse-bukh (1602) and Seyfer mayse nisim (1696). The article analyzes Tendlau's translations of the Old Yiddish folktales against the backdrop of Jewish modernization and acculturation on the one hand, and, on the other, the culture of remembrance and nostalgia, which permeated Jewish culture in nineteenth-century Germany. By this, it hopes to shed light on the important yet hitherto underestimated role of Old Yiddish Literature in the formation of a distinct German-Jewish identity in the modern era.
As an integral part of the cultural history of German Jewry, early modern Yiddish and the literar... more As an integral part of the cultural history of German Jewry, early modern Yiddish and the literary corpus it produced found their way into the debate over the "Jewish question" in German scholarly discourse of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century. Focusing on the field of Jewish Volkskunde, this paper explores the place of Yiddish in the works of two ideologically opposing camps: the racial perception of Jewry on the one hand, and the liberal, integrationist definition of Jewry on the other. As demonstrated in the paper, the engagement of turn-of-the-century Jewish folklorists with early modern Yiddish did not derive merely from a scholarly ambition to encompass all aspects of Jewish culture, or from nostalgic longings to a bygone Jewish world. It was, to a large extent, an expression of cultural and intellectual resistance by a minority group, who attempted to promote an alternative to the hegemonic scholarly discourse of the time.
This paper explores German translations from Yiddish, prepared by Christian authors for Christian... more This paper explores German translations from Yiddish, prepared by Christian authors for Christian readership in the early modern era. By examining the motivations for translation, the methods used by the Christian translators, and how these methods served the latter’s purposes, the paper aims to promote our understanding of the cultural exchange between Jews and Christians in the early modern period. It also aims to shed light on a unique phenomenon in the history of translation in the German-speaking world.
This book explores the unique phenomenon of Christian engagement with Yiddish language and litera... more This book explores the unique phenomenon of Christian engagement with Yiddish language and literature from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the late eighteenth century. By exploring the motivations for Christian interest in Yiddish, and the differing ways in which Yiddish was discussed and treated in Christian texts, A Goy Who Speaks Yiddish addresses a wide array of issues, most notably Christian Hebraism, Protestant theology, early modern Yiddish culture, and the social and cultural history of language in early modern Europe.
Elyada's analysis of a wide range of philological and theological works, as well as textbooks, dictionaries, ethnographical writings, and translations, demonstrates that Christian Yiddishism had implications beyond its purely linguistic and philological dimensions. Indeed, Christian texts on Yiddish reveal not only the ways in which Christians perceived and defined Jews and Judaism, but also, in a contrasting vein, how they viewed their own language, religion, and culture.
Discussing the unique phenomenon of Christian literature on Yiddish, written and published betwee... more Discussing the unique phenomenon of Christian literature on Yiddish, written and published between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries in the German-speaking lands, the present article focuses on the depictions of the Jewish language in Christian works. It demonstrates the various ways in which the Christian authors described Yiddish via its relations to the German language—both in the linguistic dimension, which relates to the structure of the language, and in the functional dimension, relating to the social functions of Yiddish within German society—and discusses the social and cultural determinants that shaped the German-Christian perceptions of the language of the German Jews.
The long-standing Christian ambition to convert the Jews to Christianity received a new impetus w... more The long-standing Christian ambition to convert the Jews to Christianity received a new impetus with the Reformation and the beginning of the Protestant movement. The search for effective albeit non-violent ways to conduct successful missionary work presented Protestant theologians and missionaries in the German lands with a challenging dilemma: which language would be most suitable and effective when trying to convert the Jews? After realising that anti-Jewish polemics in Latin, German, or even Hebrew, were not useful for missionary work among the common Jewish populace, missionary circles decided to turn to Yiddish, the Jewish-German vernacular of their time. Underlying the use of Yiddish in the early modern Judenmission was the principle of “linguistic adaptation”, alluding to the efforts of missionaries to adapt the Christian message to the language of the people they hoped to convert. Although usually considered an effective means to aid the process of conversion, linguistic adaptation was never unproblematic, as missionaries had to decide how far they could or were willing to go in adapting the Christian message to the language of the missionized. The article focuses on the way in which the principle of linguistic adaptation was employed in the theory and practice of Protestant mission among the Jews in early modern Germany. It examines the advantages the missionaries hoped to achieve by adapting to the Jewish-German language, as well as the dilemmas they faced upon confronting the shortcomings of such adaptation.
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While some papers in the book address Luther’s antisemitism and the NS-Zeit, most papers broaden the scope of the investigation: Protestant-Jewish theological encounters shaped not only antisemitism but also the Jewish Reform movement and Protestant philosemitic post-Holocaust theology; interactions between Jews and Protestants took place not only in the German lands but also in the wider Protestant universe; theology was crucial for the articulation of attitudes toward Jews, but music and philosophy were additional spheres of creativity that enabled the process of thinking through the relations between Judaism and Protestantism. By bringing together various contributions on these and other aspects, the book opens up directions for future research on this intricate topic, which bears both historical significance and evident relevance to our own time.
While some papers in the book address Luther’s antisemitism and the NS-Zeit, most papers broaden the scope of the investigation: Protestant-Jewish theological encounters shaped not only antisemitism but also the Jewish Reform movement and Protestant philosemitic post-Holocaust theology; interactions between Jews and Protestants took place not only in the German lands but also in the wider Protestant universe; theology was crucial for the articulation of attitudes toward Jews, but music and philosophy were additional spheres of creativity that enabled the process of thinking through the relations between Judaism and Protestantism. By bringing together various contributions on these and other aspects, the book opens up directions for future research on this intricate topic, which bears both historical significance and evident relevance to our own time.
Elyada's analysis of a wide range of philological and theological works, as well as textbooks, dictionaries, ethnographical writings, and translations, demonstrates that Christian Yiddishism had implications beyond its purely linguistic and philological dimensions. Indeed, Christian texts on Yiddish reveal not only the ways in which Christians perceived and defined Jews and Judaism, but also, in a contrasting vein, how they viewed their own language, religion, and culture.
Elyada's analysis of a wide range of philological and theological works, as well as textbooks, dictionaries, ethnographical writings, and translations, demonstrates that Christian Yiddishism had implications beyond its purely linguistic and philological dimensions. Indeed, Christian texts on Yiddish reveal not only the ways in which Christians perceived and defined Jews and Judaism, but also, in a contrasting vein, how they viewed their own language, religion, and culture.
This essay offers some initial reflections on the relevance and utility of German-Jewish Studies for the twenty-first century. It outlines the general development of the field from the early 1950s to the present, and it points out current trends and research directions. For example, the essay delineates the expansion of the field’s geographical, chronological, and linguistic boundaries over the years; it further discusses the challenges that working in German-Jewish Studies presents to current scholars and students, such as the problem of saturation and the question of attracting younger audiences. It also highlights the pertinence of German-Jewish
history – and its legacy – to present-day struggles for minority rights, civic equality, religious tolerance, and liberal democracy.
language, their relationship with the Yiddish literary heritage is far more complex and ambivalent. Moreover, their understanding of this literary heritage was closely intertwined with their broader vision(s) of the German-Jewish past, present, and future and, especially, with the attempt to promote their own agendas concerning the Jewish experience in the modern world.
In the article, I explore the engagement of nineteenth-century German-Jewish Wissenschaftler with their Yiddish literary heritage by focusing on its most prominent genre: the biblical literature in Yiddish, which dominated the religious and cultural world of Ashkenazi Jews throughout the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. By the early nineteenth century, with the gradual decline of Yiddish in the German-Jewish
communities and the newly founded tradition of Jewish Bibles in the German language, the older biblical works in Yiddish ceased to appear in the German-speaking lands. These once very popular Yiddish texts, however, were by no means forgotten. They continued to be objects of collection, translation, examination, and discussion in the works of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German-Jewish scholars, adherents of the Wissenschaft des Judentums. Through a close reading of the prominent representatives of this discourse, I not only recount the writings on Yiddish literature as a contested field of diverse perceptions but also aim to uncover the historical and ideological factors that shaped them. Thus, the article adds a new dimension to our understanding of the
German-Jewish struggle with what the historian Ismar Schorsch once called ʻthe major issue of the emancipation era, namely, what was to be done with the legacy of the past.ʼ Concurrently, the article calls for the revision of a major chapter in the reception history of Yiddish literature: the place and function of this early modern corpus within nineteenth-century German-Jewish culture.
Juden die jiddische Muttersprache durch die deutsche Sprache ersetzten, kam die
Veröffentlichung altjiddischer Literatur in West- und Mitteleuropa de facto zum
Stillstand. Dessen ungeachtet geriet dieses umfassende, einst äußerst populäre
literarische Korpus keineswegs in Vergessenheit. Vielmehr erhielten diese Texte in
den Arbeiten deutsch-jüdischer Wissenschaftler und Autoren aus dem 19. und
frühen 20. Jahrhundert einen festen Platz: Sie wurden übersetzt und adaptiert
sowie in kommentierten Anthologien, Literaturverzeichnissen und -übersichten
paraphrasiert, diskutiert und analysiert. Oftmals verlieh man den altjiddischen
Werken dadurch nicht nur ein „Nachleben“, sondern sie erfuhren dabei
gleichermaßen eine Rehabilitierung, indem sie als literarische und historische
Monumente einer verschwundenen jüdischen Vergangenheit neue Wertschätzung
erhielten. Der vorliegende Beitrag konzentriert sich auf zwei entscheidende
Momente in der Geschichte der Übersetzung und Rehabilitierung dieser vergessenen
Tradition: einerseits das Werk Abraham M. Tendlaus, das vor dem Hintergrund
der Akkulturationsbemühungen in der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts und der deutschjüdischen Nostalgiekultur gelesen werden muss; andererseits die Werke Max
Grunwalds und anderer prominenter Volkskundler des ausgehenden 19. und
frühen 20. Jahrhunderts – eine Zeit also, in der die liberale Idee einer deutschjüdischen
Symbiose durch die aufkommenden Rassenideologien und den politischen
Antisemitismus zunehmend untergraben wurde. Wie gezeigt werden soll,
beeinflussten die verschiedenen historischen Kontexte sowohl die Rolle, die altjiddischen Texten in den Schriften dieser jüdischen Gelehrten zugesprochen wurde,
als auch die Art und Weise, in der sie im Rahmen der deutsch-jüdischen Suche
nach einer „verwertbaren Vergangenheit“ übersetzt, präsentiert und diskutiert
wurden.
While some papers in the book address Luther’s antisemitism and the NS-Zeit, most papers broaden the scope of the investigation: Protestant-Jewish theological encounters shaped not only antisemitism but also the Jewish Reform movement and Protestant philosemitic post-Holocaust theology; interactions between Jews and Protestants took place not only in the German lands but also in the wider Protestant universe; theology was crucial for the articulation of attitudes toward Jews, but music and philosophy were additional spheres of creativity that enabled the process of thinking through the relations between Judaism and Protestantism. By bringing together various contributions on these and other aspects, the book opens up directions for future research on this intricate topic, which bears both historical significance and evident relevance to our own time.
While some papers in the book address Luther’s antisemitism and the NS-Zeit, most papers broaden the scope of the investigation: Protestant-Jewish theological encounters shaped not only antisemitism but also the Jewish Reform movement and Protestant philosemitic post-Holocaust theology; interactions between Jews and Protestants took place not only in the German lands but also in the wider Protestant universe; theology was crucial for the articulation of attitudes toward Jews, but music and philosophy were additional spheres of creativity that enabled the process of thinking through the relations between Judaism and Protestantism. By bringing together various contributions on these and other aspects, the book opens up directions for future research on this intricate topic, which bears both historical significance and evident relevance to our own time.
Elyada's analysis of a wide range of philological and theological works, as well as textbooks, dictionaries, ethnographical writings, and translations, demonstrates that Christian Yiddishism had implications beyond its purely linguistic and philological dimensions. Indeed, Christian texts on Yiddish reveal not only the ways in which Christians perceived and defined Jews and Judaism, but also, in a contrasting vein, how they viewed their own language, religion, and culture.
Elyada's analysis of a wide range of philological and theological works, as well as textbooks, dictionaries, ethnographical writings, and translations, demonstrates that Christian Yiddishism had implications beyond its purely linguistic and philological dimensions. Indeed, Christian texts on Yiddish reveal not only the ways in which Christians perceived and defined Jews and Judaism, but also, in a contrasting vein, how they viewed their own language, religion, and culture.
This essay offers some initial reflections on the relevance and utility of German-Jewish Studies for the twenty-first century. It outlines the general development of the field from the early 1950s to the present, and it points out current trends and research directions. For example, the essay delineates the expansion of the field’s geographical, chronological, and linguistic boundaries over the years; it further discusses the challenges that working in German-Jewish Studies presents to current scholars and students, such as the problem of saturation and the question of attracting younger audiences. It also highlights the pertinence of German-Jewish
history – and its legacy – to present-day struggles for minority rights, civic equality, religious tolerance, and liberal democracy.
language, their relationship with the Yiddish literary heritage is far more complex and ambivalent. Moreover, their understanding of this literary heritage was closely intertwined with their broader vision(s) of the German-Jewish past, present, and future and, especially, with the attempt to promote their own agendas concerning the Jewish experience in the modern world.
In the article, I explore the engagement of nineteenth-century German-Jewish Wissenschaftler with their Yiddish literary heritage by focusing on its most prominent genre: the biblical literature in Yiddish, which dominated the religious and cultural world of Ashkenazi Jews throughout the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. By the early nineteenth century, with the gradual decline of Yiddish in the German-Jewish
communities and the newly founded tradition of Jewish Bibles in the German language, the older biblical works in Yiddish ceased to appear in the German-speaking lands. These once very popular Yiddish texts, however, were by no means forgotten. They continued to be objects of collection, translation, examination, and discussion in the works of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German-Jewish scholars, adherents of the Wissenschaft des Judentums. Through a close reading of the prominent representatives of this discourse, I not only recount the writings on Yiddish literature as a contested field of diverse perceptions but also aim to uncover the historical and ideological factors that shaped them. Thus, the article adds a new dimension to our understanding of the
German-Jewish struggle with what the historian Ismar Schorsch once called ʻthe major issue of the emancipation era, namely, what was to be done with the legacy of the past.ʼ Concurrently, the article calls for the revision of a major chapter in the reception history of Yiddish literature: the place and function of this early modern corpus within nineteenth-century German-Jewish culture.
Juden die jiddische Muttersprache durch die deutsche Sprache ersetzten, kam die
Veröffentlichung altjiddischer Literatur in West- und Mitteleuropa de facto zum
Stillstand. Dessen ungeachtet geriet dieses umfassende, einst äußerst populäre
literarische Korpus keineswegs in Vergessenheit. Vielmehr erhielten diese Texte in
den Arbeiten deutsch-jüdischer Wissenschaftler und Autoren aus dem 19. und
frühen 20. Jahrhundert einen festen Platz: Sie wurden übersetzt und adaptiert
sowie in kommentierten Anthologien, Literaturverzeichnissen und -übersichten
paraphrasiert, diskutiert und analysiert. Oftmals verlieh man den altjiddischen
Werken dadurch nicht nur ein „Nachleben“, sondern sie erfuhren dabei
gleichermaßen eine Rehabilitierung, indem sie als literarische und historische
Monumente einer verschwundenen jüdischen Vergangenheit neue Wertschätzung
erhielten. Der vorliegende Beitrag konzentriert sich auf zwei entscheidende
Momente in der Geschichte der Übersetzung und Rehabilitierung dieser vergessenen
Tradition: einerseits das Werk Abraham M. Tendlaus, das vor dem Hintergrund
der Akkulturationsbemühungen in der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts und der deutschjüdischen Nostalgiekultur gelesen werden muss; andererseits die Werke Max
Grunwalds und anderer prominenter Volkskundler des ausgehenden 19. und
frühen 20. Jahrhunderts – eine Zeit also, in der die liberale Idee einer deutschjüdischen
Symbiose durch die aufkommenden Rassenideologien und den politischen
Antisemitismus zunehmend untergraben wurde. Wie gezeigt werden soll,
beeinflussten die verschiedenen historischen Kontexte sowohl die Rolle, die altjiddischen Texten in den Schriften dieser jüdischen Gelehrten zugesprochen wurde,
als auch die Art und Weise, in der sie im Rahmen der deutsch-jüdischen Suche
nach einer „verwertbaren Vergangenheit“ übersetzt, präsentiert und diskutiert
wurden.
Elyada's analysis of a wide range of philological and theological works, as well as textbooks, dictionaries, ethnographical writings, and translations, demonstrates that Christian Yiddishism had implications beyond its purely linguistic and philological dimensions. Indeed, Christian texts on Yiddish reveal not only the ways in which Christians perceived and defined Jews and Judaism, but also, in a contrasting vein, how they viewed their own language, religion, and culture.
described Yiddish via its relations to the German language—both in the linguistic dimension, which relates to the structure of the language, and in the functional dimension, relating to the social functions of Yiddish within German society—and discusses the social and cultural determinants that shaped the German-Christian perceptions of the language of the German Jews.
Underlying the use of Yiddish in the early modern Judenmission was the principle of “linguistic adaptation”, alluding to the efforts of missionaries to adapt the Christian message to the language of the people they hoped to convert. Although usually considered an effective means to aid the process of conversion, linguistic adaptation was never unproblematic, as missionaries had to decide how far they could or were willing to go in adapting the Christian message to the language of the missionized. The article focuses on the way in which the principle of linguistic adaptation was employed in the theory and practice of Protestant mission among the Jews in early modern Germany. It examines the advantages the missionaries hoped to achieve by adapting to the Jewish-German language, as well as the dilemmas they faced upon confronting the shortcomings of such adaptation.