Today in Jewish History

Sivan 22

In 1902, the Yiddish daily newspaper, "Die Yidishe Velt," was founded in New York. Yiddish is a colloquial mixture of German and Hebrew, and came to be the spoken language of much of European Jewry. Following the influx of Jewish immigrants to America, Yiddish was increasingly heard on the streets of New York, and by 1925 New York alone had seven daily newspapers printed in Yiddish. According to the U.S. census of 1940, 1.75 million Jews spoke Yiddish at home. Today, Yiddish words like chutzpah, klutz, schmaltz and schlep have crept into mainstream English usage.

Today Yiddish is making a resurgence with many young men and women learning the language anew. I was fortunate to learn Yiddish by listening to my mother, her sisters and my grandmother all talking in it. Although I'm not fluent in the language, I do understand it, and through it German.