For displaced, misplaced, and nostalgic ex-Bronxites
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Posted by Mike L
on Thursday, May 8th 2008: In Reply to: Question posted by steve barry on Thursday, May 8th 2008:
Steve, to answer your question, Yiddish and Hebrew are completely different languages. Hebrew is the ancient language of the Bible, while Yiddish is very much like German. What's confusing is that they're both written using the same characters. In other words, if you look in a Jewish prayerbook in the synagogue, you'll see the same lettering that's used in a Yiddish newspaper. Hebrew is what Israeli Jews speak, and it's the language of prayer in the conservative and orthodox synagogues, but Yiddish is a kind of international language spoken by Jews all over the world. Unfortunately, it's a dying language. To give you an example, our parents often spoke Yiddish fluently. How many young Jews of today know more than several phrases or expressions?
Reference ID: BX22079
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