Yiddish Landscapes in Chicago

During my research stay at the University of Chicago, I took on new perspectives and discovered unfamiliar landscapes. While the purpose of my stay was landscape research, I didn’t expect to discover Yiddish landscapes in Chicago. This post is about my unexpected journey into the – at the same time – familiar and unfamiliar Yiddish language.

My first Yiddish book

As native speaker of a German dialect with a good command of Hebrew, it isn’t hard to understand Yiddish. Since I learned Hebrew, I occasionally met Yiddish speakers and came across some texts and parts of movies and series in Yiddish. For most language learners, the biggest hurdle seems to be the Hebrew script which is used to write in Yiddish. Learning another alphabet is easier than it seems, but it takes a while to become a fluent reader.

Recently, I decided to read a Yiddish book to get the twist of the language. Only then did I find out that it is almost impossible to buy Yiddish books. I assumed it would be easy because there is a rich literary tradition with many Yiddish publications from the 20th century. Many of these titles can be read online thanks to the precious conservationist work of the Yiddish book center.

However, I wanted a physical copy of the book to keep me motivated to turn the pages and keep track of my progress. I thought that it would be easier to find a Yiddish book in the US, so I asked in several used book shops in Chicago – without success or any hints. When I searched for an online shop, I was happy to discover that you can order used books from the Yiddish book center.

It seems almost unbelievable and sad that no new Yiddish books are being sold. I felt like witnessing a rich and close culture disappear right in front of me, without fully understanding the reasons. I wonder what it would take to reprint Yiddish books and who would buy them?

Meeting the Yiddishists

While the Yiddish book I ordered was on its way, I coincidentally met some of the wonderful people who keep the Yiddish book center going. I was attending a scientific conference on „Yiddish Ecologies“ at the University of Chicago when I recognised one of the presenters. Caleb Sher had just processed my first Yiddish book order and made sure that it would get to me before leaving the US again. He told me that the center collects donations of Yiddish books, digitalizes them and keeps three copies. They try to resell the rest of the Yiddish books to keep them circulating and to clear out their storage.

From the Shtetl into the forest

The conference itself felt like going on several journeys to remote times and places of Yiddish life which I am going to summarise in the following. Caleb Sher’s captivating presentation was about Avrom Golombs nature education stories which are situated “Between Shul and Swamp” in an imaginary Shtetl – a traditional East European Jewish village. The setting is metaphorically situated between tradition and modernity: Bored Jewish school boys leave their classroom as their rabbi fell asleep and discover a rich natural and social outside world. On each trip to the outside, they learn something about the wonders of nature like the life cirlce from frogspawn and tadpoles to frogs. The stories follow an archetypical storyline: a hero leaves his home, gets lost in the forest and returns as a better version of him/herself (cf. Yorke 2013).

From Argentina to Japan

Leaving the old continent behind, Julian Levinson took us to Argentina where Mordecai Alperson was part of Maurice de Hirsch’s utopian enterprise to settle the Pampa with Jewish villages. Alperson wrote in Yiddish about his „colonialist“ (his own words) endeavours in his voluminous book „30 Jahr in Argentina.“ I enjoyed hearing in Yiddish about Argentinian lanscapes which I discovered myself in 2011 on an extensive backpacking trip. Alperson’s description of a storm which is particular to the Pampa – a so-called pampero – served Levinson as a metaphor: Alperson integrated pampero as loan into the Yiddish which hints at his struggle to grasp the unfamiliar landscape in his own terms. Ultimately, Yiddish has been disappearing again from the Pampa as its speakers moved to Buenos Aires and mostly switched to Spanish.

Daniel Ari Baker covered yet another continent in his talk “Es Brent, Briderlekh: Bushfires in Australian Yiddish Fiction.” From his description it seemed that most Yiddish writers in Australia led a (sub)urban life and were unable or at least hesitant to embrace the particular Australian landscape characteristics.

Ber Kotlerman gave the only talk of the conference that was entirely in Yiddish. He reflected on Peretz Hirschbein’s experience in Nara „Deer City in Japan” which I just visited last year (like so many other tourists). Because Nara is so popular today, Hirschbein’s idyllic experience in the ancient Japanese city which led him to rethink his relation to nature isn’t exactly what I experienced.

Palestinian landscape

Finally, Eyshe Beirich took us to Israel/Palestine where many Yiddish speakers passed their lives and published novels in Yiddish. By comparing hand-written maps by Jews and Arabs of the same village, he highlighted similarities and differences in their perspectives on Palestinian landscapes. He mentioned a book by Susan Slyomovics about „The Object of Memory: Arab and Jew Narrate the Palestinian Village“ that I want to look into. I am still waiting for the opportunity to apply again for a research project in which I will record landscape narratives in Israel/Palestine from Arabic and Hebrew speakers who live next to each other.

Is Yiddish an urban language? Does it have a home?

Several talks revolved around the concept of Do’ikayt which translates to ‚Hereness.‘ This term was used to stress the belonging of Jews to the places where they lived . The concept Do’ikayt opposes or at least supplements the concept of ‚diaspora.‘

In her talk „Building Doikeyt through Engagement with Nature: The Example of the Vilna ‚Cheap Houses,’“ Cecile Kuznitz emphasised how the Jewish community in Vilna developed a special sense of place when they moved to the outskirts of the city. Being close to nature enabled them to pursue their modernist political activities. E.g. they went on bike rides together which were part of the Maccabi sport association’s program. Madeleine Cohen also studied “Do’ikayt/Hereness between the human, the natural, and the built in the works of Moyshe Kulbak.”

Imagined utopian landscapes

Finally, Auden Finch analysed a utopian novel which takes places in a imagined landscape beyond the mythical river Zambatyon. The topic of his talk “Beyond the Speculative Borderlands: The Geo-Colonial Imaginaries of Lazar Borodulin’s Af Yener Zayt” reminded me of Theodor Herzl’s utopian novel Altneuland (1902) which must have been known to Borodulin.

More Yiddish landscapes in April 2025

In this article, I wanted to share some insights from this amazing conference and keep track of the literature that I found interesting. Here’s the full program of the conference Yiddish Ecologies: Velder, Felder, Berg Un Tol (University of Chicago, February 16-17, 2025). There will also be a second part of the conference which will take place online on April 7, 2025. I hope that I will discover more Yiddish landscapes soon

References and further reading:

Yorke, J. (2013). Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them. Penguin Books Limited.

Herzl, T. (1902). Altneuland. Leipzig: Hermann Semann Nachfolger.

In geveb a journal for Yiddish studies which also still publishes texts in Yiddish (besides English).