| A question for Jewish Yahoo-ers?

A question for Jewish Yahoo-ers?

jimthecelt asked:


I am not Jewish (Irish, in fact!), but I have a longtime interest in Jewish culture, history, etc.
My question: What is the current status of the Yiddish language?
Here in California where I live, I’ve not met anybody under the age of 80 who still speaks it.
Is there anywhere in the United States or in the world where the language still thrives as a daily vernacular? Is there still literature being produced in Yiddish? Who are the current Yiddish authors, so to speak? How many people still speak the language? Does Hebrew literature compare to Yiddish literature in volume, quality, etc.?
A link or links, please!

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One Response to “A question for Jewish Yahoo-ers?”

  1. Jason on March 22nd, 2009 12:37 am

    Yiddish thrives in Chassidic Jewish communities, concentrated in the US (Mostly New York) and in Israel. Other than Chassidic communities, there are not many yiddish speakers, other than elderly Jewish Russian and European immigrants. Quite a number of children of immigrants picked up Yiddish from their parents, but few passed it along to their children.

    There is somewhere between half a million and 3 million speakers of Yiddish today, as there are conflicting studies.

    There is an organization called Yugntruf (”Call to Youth”), a worldwide organization devoted to teaching Yiddish to new generations. There is also the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, which is a center for the study of East European Jewry and Yiddish.