CONTENTS:

Acknowledgments xi
For the second edition xiv
Notes to the Reader xv

Introduction
Accepted Truth, Globalization, and Yiddish 1
Jewish Continuity 6
Religious Core And Secular Outbursts 7

1 Genesis
Prehistory 11
Hebrew 12
Aramaic 15
The European Period in Jewish History 20
The Rise of Yiddish 24
The Nature of Yiddish Meanings 27
Ashkenaz 29
Early Genocide 35
The Inner Ashkenazic World 40

2 The Three Languages of Ashkenaz
Internal Jewish Trilingualism 45
Yiddish Comes Out 50
Women, Christians and Early Yiddish Literature 54
Christians Launch Yiddish Publishing 63
Language, Function, Stature and Typeface 74

3 Old Yiddish Literature
Origins 79
European Epic for a Yiddish Audience 81
Bible Study and Translation, Bible as European Epic 86

4 What Should a Lady Read?
The Bible or European Romances? 89
A Women's Bible and the Book of Stories 94
Lifestyle Literature 99
Women Pioneer Old Yiddish Poetry 104
Glikl Hamel 109

5 Yiddish and Kabbalah
Pious of Ashkenaz 116
Kabbalah of Safad 118
A Yiddish-Kabbalah Partnership 121
The Zohar in Yiddish 124
Messiah Syndrome: Kabbalah out of Hand 126

6 In the East
Eastern Ashkenaz 131
East European Yiddish 140
Litvaks and Polish Jews: A North-South Divide 145
The Rise of Hasidism 154
Yiddish in Hasidism 157
Litvaks Opposing Hasidism 164

7 Westernization and Language
How did the Modern Jew Arise? 173
Efforts to Stamp Out Yiddish in Germany 176
Westernization Efforts in Eastern Europe 182
The First Yiddish Debate in the East 188
New Jewish Literary Languages 192
The First Modern Yiddish Master 198
The Second Master 209
The Third Master 217

8 New Visions of Judaism
Reform and Counterreform in Germany 225
The Situation in The East 228
To Zion, with Nationalism, in Hebrew 232
Stay where you are, with Humanism, in Yiddish 238
Traditional Religion (with Yiddish) as a New Movement 246

9 The Twentieth Century
Critical Cultural Mass and Jewish Socialism 257
The Spirit of Chernowitz 264
Polemics to Scholarship 271
In the New Republics 279
The Religious (Silent) Majority 288
Interwar Yiddish Scholarship 294
The Soviet Chapter 300
The Holocaust 306
In The Land of Israel 310
In America 323

10 In the Twenty-First Century
Mohicans 349
As an Academic Subject 355
"Saving Yiddish" 360
The Three Stigmas 362

11 The Future of Yiddish
Perils of Prophecy 367
Language Aftermath of the Great Secular Outburst 368
Literary Heritage of the Great Secular Outburst 371
Jewish Solutions on the Table 373
The Future of American Jewry 375
The Hasidic Future of Yiddish 379

Coda 393
Notes 399
Bibliography 415
Index 463


Maps and diagrams by Giedre Beconyte