“A Foreign and Grating Language”? Yiddish In Israel – A History
Challenging the commonly held view that Yiddish was suppressed and even banned by the Israeli authorities, Rachel Rojanski offers a radical new interpretation of the interaction between Yiddish and Israeli Hebrew culture. Based on detailed archival research, this talk will follow the development of Yiddish in Israel and present Yiddish culture’s vibrant growth in Israel’s first decades. It will argue that although the Israeli leadership made promoting Hebrew a high priority, it did not have an explicit policy on Yiddish. The language’s varying fortunes in Israel over the years were shaped less by governmental policy than by social and political developments as well as by the state’s changing cultural climate.
Date: 8 June 2021, 14:15 (Tuesday, 7th week, Trinity 2021)
Venue: https://zoom.us/j/92898163373?pwd=Ym90S2pmMGRNdVppZnZLcEhNV2kyUT09
Speaker: Professor Rachel Rojanski (Brown University)
Organising department: Oxford School of Global and Area Studies
Organiser: Professor Yaacov Yadgar
Part of: Israel Studies Seminar Trinity term 2021
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Public
Editor: Stephen Minay