Unveiling of a new Yiddish-Ukrainian dictionary in Jerusalem

On February 12, from 1-2 p.m. the Jerusalem Book Fair will host the event Quo Vadis, Yiddish? featuring Dr. Dmytro Tyshchenko, editor of Ukraine’s Mame-loshn journal and author of a brand new Yiddish-Ukrainian dictionary.

The rise of Yiddish and Ukrainian to the level of literary languages ran in parallel at least until 1939, but the demographic base of Yiddish was destroyed in the Shoah and in the USSR the Yiddish culture was suppressed by the Stalinist regime. The choice of Hebrew as the state language of Israel sealed the fate of the Yiddish literary language. Thus, Yiddish is not a widespread literary language today, as it is used by scattered religious communities or by a narrow group interested in it professionally. Dr. Tyschenko will discuss trends in Ukraine and elsewhere to popularize Yiddish and how the language can still be used to rally a nation and prevent assimilation.

The event is supported by the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter.

For more information see: http://www.jbookfair.com/en/and https://ukrainianjewishencounter.org/media/A4-1.pdf