Lost Treasure
LAPHAM’S QUARTERLY
1944 | New York City
Lost Treasure
Isaac Bashevis Singer calls for the preservation of Yiddish.
For some time now, people have spoken of Yiddish and Hebrew coming closer together. It’s hard to understand what exactly this “closer together” is supposed to be about—or what it should allow us to do.
You can’t bring one language closer to another. Yiddish cannot form a united front with Hebrew. Each language has its history, its fate. There’s a natural relationship between Hebrew and Yiddish. They are both Jewish languages. They influence each other. But these are things that happen naturally, we can’t decide to make their relationship stronger.
But there is one realm in which Hebrew and Yiddish are coming closer together—one that is quite tragic.
Yiddish used to have—and still has—one major quality that Hebrew did not have until recently: it is a living language, one that does not necessarily have to be gleaned from books but that can be learned from the mouths of people. The Hebraists had to resurrect Hebrew, while the Yiddishists worked with a living language. Hebraists had to find words in the Talmud, but Yiddish writers could, every single day, hear new words and expressions in the marketplace—from their parents, relatives, and friends. Yiddish writers were always proud of this fact, and their pride was justified. Thousands of old books cannot take the place of a living source. Hebrew writers were always jealous of Yiddish writers for being able to draw their language directly from living people.
The Repast of the Lion, by Henri Rousseau, c. 1907. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Sam A. Lewisohn, 1951
But there are signs that in recent years the situation has considerably changed for the worse, and there’s a risk that Yiddish will indeed get closer to Hebrew—which is to say, that it, too, will become a dead language, a language of books. This kind of coming together would not be a joyful event.
The reasons are as follows:
First, the destruction of Poland, where the Jews have been literally annihilated, has wiped away a rich folk culture and impoverished the treasures of Yiddish. With every Yiddish community, many customs, sayings, and words have been lost. The loss of living people is, naturally, incomparable, a greater tragedy than the loss of a culture. But Hitler has also brought a spiritual catastrophe upon the Jews.
Second, Jews who live in other countries quickly forget the customs and traditions—often even words and sayings—from the Old World. American Jews no longer speak the Yiddish that their mothers and fathers spoke. It’s completely natural for them to mix all kinds of English words and sayings into their Yiddish. They forget many things about the old way of life. Time does its work. Changes in circumstances have also changed their language and their habits. You meet Jews in America who have only been in the country a few years but have already managed to forget so much that it would seem they’ve been here for decades. The average person on the street is not interested in remembering useless, impractical things and forgets them very quickly.