Table Of ContentThe Politics of Interpretation : Alterity and
title:
Ideology in Old Yiddish Studies
author: Frakes, Jerold C.
publisher: State University of New York Press
isbn10 | asin: 0887068464
print isbn13: 9780887068461
ebook isbn13: 9780585078069
language: English
subject Yiddish philology--Historiography.
publication date: 1989
lcc: PJ5111.F7 1989eb
ddc: 437/.947
subject: Yiddish philology--Historiography.
Page iii
The Politics of Interpretation
Alterity and Ideology in Old Yiddish Studies
Jerold C. Frakes
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS
Page iv
Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
© 1989 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For information, address State University of New York Press, State
University Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Frakes, Jerold C.
The politics of interpretation: alterity and ideology
in Old Yiddish studies / Jerold C. Frakes.
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-88706-845-6. ISBN 0-88706-846-4 (pbk.)
1. Yiddish philology - Historiography. I. Title
PJ5111.F7 1988 87-37479
437'. 947 - dc19 CIP
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Page v
Contents
Preface vii
1. Alterity, Ideologies, and Old Yiddish 1
2. The Names of Old Yiddish 21
3. Alterity, Accessibility, Audience, Alphabet: On Editing 105
Old Yiddish Texts
4. The New Paradigm(s) 165
Appendix: Notes on Transliteration/ Transcription 191
Systems
Notes 203
Bibliography 257
Author-Title Index 277
General Index 279
Scholar Index 281
Page vi
For roughly five hundred years, Yiddish has attracted far more than
sober scholarly interest and popular study. It has persistently drawn an
almost obsessive angle-oriented and ax-grinding scrutiny from highly
diverse groups of investigators, each of which was driven by its own
peculiar ulterior motive. Indeed, an account of the history of literature
on Yiddish will have to delve deeply into the sociolinguistic
phenomena of love and hate of the language, both of which have been
(and continue to be) rather intense.
DOVID KATZ
Page vii
Preface
This study has developed over the course of the past four years out of
an interest in things Yiddish stimulated initially by the frustration and
irritation provoked by recurring, conflicting, and enigmatic references
to the Old Yiddish Dukus Hurnt in the scholarly literature of medieval
German studies. As I became more deeply involved in learning the
modern Yiddish language and reading medieval Yiddish texts, the
plan for and structure of the present study took shape. It was not to be
a "survey" of the history of Old Yiddish studies, nor in itself an
analysis - literary, linguistic, or otherwise - of Old Yiddish per se. And
it has not, I think, become either the one or the other. Rather, it is a
study of the critical ideologies that have shaped the perception,
reception, and projection of Old Yiddish during the course of the past
century. Most likely as a direct result of the path leading to my
involvement in this research, my perspective is somewhat skewed, but
no more so than those of others who have trod similar paths before
me. But be that as it may, it seems to me that this particular sub-field
of literary/linguistic studies reveals more clearly the determinant role
of ideology in scholarly research than many if not most other
literary/linguistic disciplines: even to the point that the form and
content of Old Yiddish as a discipline per se of scholarly endeavor is
itself strictly defined, and its limits marked off by ideological
determinants.
The reasons for this determinism are many and complex, most arising
out of the very core of the sociological problematic of Jewish
existence within (but also, necessarily, always without) European
culture. Such cultural prejudices, which are not simply manifestations
of anti-Semitism (although that is ultimately at the root of the major
part of the problem), have so ingrained and integrated themselves into
the institutions and thereby the education and thus the mentality of
scholars who deal with or might come into contact with this
literature/language, that the initially quite obviously ideological
Page viii
claims have in the course of time been reified, taken on the
appearance of fact, datum, and information. They are taken for
granted, unquestioned and unquestioning. It is these ideologies,
petrified into "fact," that are the objects of study here.
This state of affairs in Old Yiddish studies seems to be gradually
changing. But that is not to say that ideology is thus left behind; it
seems rather that the emerging ideology of contemporary studies of
Old Yiddish simply provides a necessary antithesis to that which has
come before: a new paradigm of Old Yiddish in its historical context
has made possible the relocation and reevaluation of Old Yiddish
studies and its place in the present scholarly world. The present study
seeks to organize the mass of research devoted to the subject over the
past century, extrapolate the ideological constraints on various
movements and individual scholars and provide some articulation of
the sociological contexts that gave rise to such interpretive ideologies.
In the end, I also attempt to contextualize the recent shift in the critical
ideology that is now moving to prominence in Old Yiddish studies
against the backdrop of what has come before and what has developed
in other literary/linguistic fields.
The inherent ideological pre-conceptions concerning the subject of
(Old) Yiddish may perhaps best be initially broached anecdotally:
after my initial pass through Uriel Weinreich's College Yiddish, I
began to seek a native speaker of Yiddish among the large Yiddish-
speaking community of Los Angeles, with whom I could simply
converse in Yiddish to gain some facility in speaking the language and
to rid myself of my strong German accent in the language. My efforts
were so very frustrating for such an extended period of time that I
finally gave up the initial plan. The primary problem did not stem
from a dearth of Yiddish-speakers, a lack of interest or enthusiasm on
my part, or any unwillingness to compensate the tutor; rather, the
stumbling block was one of a pervasive and complete lack of
comprehension on the part of my potential tutors of any possible
reason for me, a non-Jew, to have any interest whatsoever in (as they
said) a dying or already dead, bastardized, pseudo-language, unfit for
human usage and incapable of expressing even the most basic human
concepts. Thus there were in fact two objections: first, there was
simply something suspicious about my not being a Jew, who
nevertheless had an interest in Yiddish (if it was in fact suspicion,
then, in view of the history of Jewry in the present. century, that
suspicion of outsiders attempting to insinuate themselves into the
inside is fully justified); second, there was a deep-seated, often
vehemently-expressed
Page ix
vilification of the "target language" in every case the native language
of my interlocutors. A third objection appeared, if (as happened on
rare occasions), I managed to persuade the potential tutor momentarily
to disregard the first two objections: there could be no hope of my
ever learning to speak Yiddish, since it was too radically different
from anything that I, as an adult non-Jew could possibly know. Again,
there are two aspects to this objection: that as an adult I could not
learn such a complicated language, and that Yiddish is somehow
inextricably connected to and defined by Jewishness.
These objections surfaced time and again, until I became rather adept
in at least offering quick and relatively coherent responses to them.
Since my potential tutors still conversed on a daily basis in Yiddish
(with family members and friends), but so rarely came across anyone
"interested" in Yiddish (rather only others who spoke the language), it
was in fact not so very difficult to get them to carry on our
conversations in Yiddish almost from the beginning of our tête-ô-
têtes. Thus I gradually even became rather adept at responding in
Yiddish to their objections, and resigned myself to the possibility that,
since in fact my only objective was conversational practice in Yiddish,
I might be forced to pursue that objective via friendly argumentation
(in Yiddish) about the impossibility of achieving any such objective.
The culmination of my experiment was an hour-long exchange with a
retired professor of Judaic studies, who meticulously and at great
length detailed his argument that my very proposition was
preposterous, since it would only be after years of study that I could
attempt even the simplest conversation in Yiddish. He suggested that I
mail him a postcard listing ten English words of my choice per week,
which he would then mail back to me with the Yiddish equivalents.
The entire conversation, discussion, and argument took place in
Yiddish.
Thereafter, I became distracted by other duties from seeking out other
