ISRAEL BARTAL ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney, and I'm here in Washington, DC, at the AJS Conference, with Israel Bartal, and we're going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Today is December 19th, 2011. Professor Bartal, do I have your permission to record this interview?

ISRAEL BARTAL:Yes, by all means.

CW:Thank you. I'd like to start by asking you to briefly tell me about your family background.

IB:Well, ikh bin a galitsyaner [I am a Galician Jew]. That means that both my parents came from a small shtetl [small Eastern European town with a Jewish community] in southeastern Poland of the interwar period, which is today in 1:00western Ukraine, the so-called "Eastern Galician region." The name of the shtetl is, in Yiddish, "Deliatin"; in Polish, "Delatyn" (emphasis shift). They grew up in the shtetl. My father left the shtetl at the age of nineteen, which was on May '39. He left all his family behind. All his family didn't survive the Holocaust. I'm not going to elaborate on that, but the story's very, very sad. He was left alone in the world in Palestine of the late '30s. Then, he met my mother, who came as a girl with my grandmother, who was a widow, and made aliyah to Palestine in 1935. And he looked for relatives, people that he might connect, you know, from the old home. So, he went to my grandmother's place. My grandmother was a Yiddish-speaking Orthodox woman of the old style. She owned a 2:00small shop in the outskirts of Tel Aviv, in a place called Givatayim. And this was a Yiddish-speaking environment, because my grandmother until her death couldn't barely speak one word of Hebrew. So, I grew up in a context of Yiddish-speaking, eastern Galician dialect. Actually, the same shtetl dialect of both my father and mother, who met in Palestine, kind of reunited in Palestine, and married in the early '40s, the beginning of World War II. And all their life they spoke Yiddish, and I was surrounded also by my aunts and uncles, who spoke Yiddish.

CW:Can you -- actually, I'm just gonna move the camera a tiny bit so it looks -- there we go. That's even better. (laughs) Okay. And can you describe -- if you 3:00put yourself back in that home you grew up in, what are the things that stand out in your memory about the home you grew up in?

IB:Well, this was, I would say, a typical Eastern European environment that was kind of transplanted into Palestine of the '30s, '40s, and '50s. Actually, many Israelis grew up in such places. And due to the Zionist narrative -- put it quite ironically -- people tend to forget that in the '40s and '50s, most of the people of Tel Aviv spoke Yiddish, not Hebrew. It's funny, this afternoon I am going to talk about that in one of the sessions of the conference, on the place of Yiddish in Tel Aviv of the '30s and '40s. For all practical matters, people communicated in languages other than Hebrew. However, in school and the 4:00children's -- so-called -- the children's culture was a kind of strong Hebraic one. So, I grew up in a, if you like, bilingual environment in which the house had to do with Yiddish while the school and my kid's environment was purely Hebraic. But it was not only with the case of Yiddish. It was also the case of Polish, the case of German, the case of Hungarian. I remember -- and I can give you one typical example. The first time I ever learned that there is a language called German is that when I was three years old or four years old, my mom and I went to a store around the corner, of Herr Kleinmann. And talking about Israel (UNCLEAR) German, Herr Kleinmann was a Polish Jew. But everyone used to address him "Herr Kleinmann," because the high language in those days, even in Palestine, was regarded German. So, my mother thought she was speaking German 5:00while she spoke to him in Galician Yiddish. And I ask my mother, "What are you talking about? What is this kind of language that you use?" She said, "This is Deutsch [German: German]." Okay. Now I learned that there is a language is called Deutsch. And I learned it in Palestine of the '40s, visiting the shop of Herr Kleinmann. Okay, this is one little minute thing. But actually, our daily life were full of Eastern European, if you like, cultural -- the atmosphere was very, very strong Eastern European. It's incredible. When you asked this question, I am reminded of how actually most of the words that we use even in our spoken Hebrew for all practical matters, concrete matters, were Yiddish, not Hebrew. Also, you probably know that the Israeli colloquial language -- now 6:00scholars argue whether it is still Hebrew or Israeli -- had a very strong, how should I put it? -- a very strong Yiddish component to it. In lexical terms, in syntactic terms. I'll give you one example in Hebrew. When you say in Hebrew "az," the biblical word means "then." But in Yiddish, when you say "az," it means something totally different. But in colloquial Hebrew, "Az, mah atah omer" -- "What do you say?" Okay, this is Yiddish, although you say it supposedly in Hebrew. Other than that, since my grandmother was an Orthodox woman, and she took care of -- like, a very strong widowed shopkeeper of a little bourgeois 7:00neighborhood in east Tel Aviv, she was much involved in the shul business, in the synagogue business. So, I was exposed to a typical Polish synagogue, which was -- for me, it was like a shtetl. And later in the years, read Sholem Aleichem, you know, I was reminded. I know that Sholem Aleichem's kind of a nostalgic, mistaken understanding of the real thing. But in those days, as a kid, I knew -- for example, the synagogue, which is still there, was next to the cemetery. And they had the mikve [pool for ritual immersion] and the beit taharat [Hebrew: house of purification] and all those things. And it was kind of a little shtetl on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Later on, I learned that much of Tel Aviv consists of such neighborhood. I was not alone. It was not only this place. Okay? And the food, of course. Okay. We had all the Polish-Jewish and Eastern European dishes, called in the Yiddish names. And we awaited them. And 8:00all the baking, and of course, the -- let alone the yoykh [broth], you know, the chicken soup, which I hated so much, by the way. But my mother claimed, as usual, that this is actually the best thing for my upbringing. And I'm saying deliberately "upbringing," because it had also kind of a cultural meaning that you have better memory if you consume such soup.

CW:Wow. (laughs) And did you have a favorite yontev [holiday] growing up?

IB:Sorry --

CW:A favorite yontev or holiday growing up?

IB:Yes, a modern one, actually. My favorite -- now, let me tell (UNCLEAR). It's much more complicated because we have to do here with the nascent Hebrew, or Hebraic, culture, which was very, very strong. Yeah, so at school, for example, the most important and most beloved holiday for us all, yontev, was Hanukkah. 9:00But this was the Zionist Hanukkah. It's not -- neither the American one nor the Polish one. This was the holiday of the Maccabites [sic], you know, the holiday of strength, the holiday of national pride, of things like that. It had nothing to do with Yiddish. However, Pesach, the seder, was totally identified with Yiddish. By the way, my father, who is still alive, biz hundert un tsvantsik [may he live to be a hundred and twenty] -- when he came to Palestine, he knew all the Haggadah by heart. But he never understood the fact that the language he was reciting, Ashkenazi Hebrew in a heavy Eastern European Galician dialect, was the same language spoken by the people around. 'Cause this was Sephardi Hebrew. So, for me Pesach, the seder evening, was the most, I would say, Eastern European of all, and it was much beloved because the songs and all those things 10:00had to do not only with religion. It was kind of an ethnic -- if I read it in my later years' perspective, it has to do with kind of a home culture, okay?

CW:It sounds like you're describing sort of two very distinct cultures that you were brought up in. Was there ever a challenge or a conflict for you in that --

IB:Between Yiddish and Hebrew?

CW:-- identity? Yeah.

IB:Well, I'm sure that I'm one of the very few people who managed to compromise both, and it has to do probably with my galitsyaner [Galician] background. And also I -- by the way, I wrote a whole article on that many years ago, on the question how I was able to compromise Hebrew and Yiddish, by the way, not only in my private life but also in my scholarship, because I'm -- you know, I'm 11:00studying early Zionism, I'm studying the Yishuv, I'm studying Hashomer, and I'm studying the IDF history, things like that. And on the other end, I am studying Eastern European culture. And for me, it's just part of a much larger -- one picture. One unified picture. Now, in terms of -- when I said quite ironically that it has probably something to do with my galitsyaner background, I meant to say that those contradictions, I think early on from my very young years, were regarded by me -- and I probably understood it already then -- that we are talking of something which is a -- it's a process of transformation. It's not something which is kind of one eliminating another or one arresting other. Rather, one is kind of living within the other. I know that it sounds quite 12:00sophisticated for a kid, but I already understood it then. I swear to it. (laughs) I can give you some examples. And they all have to do with the Eastern European Jewish irony and Eastern European Jewish -- I would say almost -- well, impossible ability to look at yourself from the outside and understand your situation in an alien or foreign area. For example, in school we were taught that Yiddish -- I'm talking of the early '50s -- that Yiddish is a lashon hagolah, language of the Diaspora. And this is an ugly language; it symbolizes the weakness of the Jew; it symbolizes the -- whatever -- everything bad that 13:00had to do with the past. And, by the way, when they spoke in Israel, especially in the '40s and '50s, about the negative features of Diasporic Judaism, they never spoke about Moroccan Jews. They spoke about Polish Jews. This is one of the common mistakes that people who didn't grow up in Israel never understand, because the commonplace was for many years, that Eastern Europ-- Oriental Jewish culture were looked down upon. It was not true. Actually, the lowest of all, in terms of this popular Zionist Hebraic culture, was Eastern European, because this was the epitome of Diaspora. And Yiddish was the epitome of this negative Diaspora. Now, for me, right from the beginning, I couldn't take it seriously! For example, in the '50s, Yiddish was identified in Israel either with jokes or 14:00with the Holocaust. In those days, not many people spoke of the Holocaust. Not that people didn't know, but it was not part of their national culture. Again, a commonplace mistake in this country, in America, when people say that once every Israeli remembered, and it's just the opposite. Holocaust began to have a place in Israeli collective memory when I was already a student or even a young professor, with the '70s and '80s of the twentieth century. So, when we talk about -- or when we talk of Yiddish either as a very tragic language, the symbol of the Holocaust, or Yiddish as a funny language, I never bought those both, because I spoke at home Yiddish on all kinds of very serious matters. Not necessarily telling jokes or reminding all the time the bad things that happened during the Holocaust. Also, I have to tell you how complicated it was, because 15:00for all those Eastern European Jews who came to Palestine who were not sworn Zionists -- and both my father and mother were -- it's -- was quite outstanding in those days in Israel -- were not kind of farbrent [zealous], you know, extreme political-minded people. They were kind -- you know, little bourgeois, things like that. And they loved Hebrew culture, and they loved Yiddish culture. My mother, who grew up in the shtetl, was sent to a Tarbut school in the shtetl. Tarbut school was a Hebrew school. So, when she came to Palestine, she mastered Hebrew. She could recite Bialik in Hebrew. That was one thing. It was nice. And she even taught us Bialik's poems when we studied him at school. At the same time, she could sing Yiddish lullabies. She could read Yiddish literature. She could enjoy a good -- nice talk in Yiddish. There was no contradiction. So, I 16:00grew up in that environment that it was not kind of enmity, rather kind of complementary. So, the conflict was between, as I said, the home culture and the street culture, okay? But since I was a galitsyaner, I knew how to outmaneuver it. For example, I was later on an active member of a Zionist socialist youth movement. I went to a kibbutz. I was a member of a kibbutz. I was reading -- I was a shepherd. I worked in a sheep shed. I used to take Sholem Aleichem Yiddish books with me, and I was reading them while watching the sheep. Okay. So, nobody in the kibbutz knew that I am reading Yiddish and not Hebrew, okay? But it took years. I completed (UNCLEAR), later on I wrote a doctorate on, among other things, Sholem Aleichem. I am a well-known Israeli expert (laughs) on Sholem Aleichem. But much of it came to me from this kind of -- underground reading in a most Hebraic Palmach kibbutz. It was a kibbutz that was established by members 17:00of the Palmach. I don't think they would be very happy to learn that one of those young members of the youth movement was actually reading Yiddish. Okay?

CW:But for you, there was no conflict.

IB:No, not at all. And still now, by the way. But today, things have changed. So, in Israel, many people talk like me today. But in those days, it was very, very special, very -- I was alone on that. Actually, I can give you another thing. I had several kids, boys and girls, in my youth movement, all of them, like me, sons and daughters of people who came from Eastern Europe either just before the Holocaust or right after the Holocaust. So, everyone had this pekele [baggage], you know, this family story. One of my colleagues today was with me in the youth movement, actually for -- she was my first girlfriend. And she came 18:00-- her family came from a Polish city or a big, big town, called Częstochowa. She was like me. She liked Yiddish. We talked about Yiddish. We even -- in the youth movement, we performed something that was never heard of in the early '60s or late '50s, I don't remember. We made an evening devoted to Yiddish songs. Songs. And people liked it! So, you know, it was (UNCLEAR) that. By the way, now she's teaching in a college in southern Israel, and she's teaching Yiddish literature. She's now my age, sixty-six, okay, almost retiring. Yeah.

CW:I mean, there's so -- you have such a rich background, it's hard to know exactly where to go. But I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit about 19:00your education and what schools did you go to and --

IB:Okay. You want me to start from the kindergarten or just from university level or whenever?

CW:I think from the earlier time. Yeah.

CW:Okay. First of all, like a typical Israeli from Tel Aviv neighborhood, I grew up in a place where everyone had to go to what was called a compulsory kindergarten, gan hovah. And it was, if I remember correctly, the most extreme Hebraist exposure that I ever had. Because there it was -- we're talking of the heydays of Israeli-Hebrew culture. Late '40s, early '50s, just after the War of Independence. So, everything had to do -- you know, the Hanukkah thing, the -- every holiday was connected with agriculture, no shtetl, no past, just present. 20:00We were all --- Yom HaAtzmaut, Day of Independence, was very strong. I remember it vividly. Actually, I mentioned before that the synagogue was next to the cemetery. In this cemetery, there was also a part in which soldiers who fell in the war of '48 were buried. And we as kindergarten kids, the age of four, used to go there on Yom HaAtzmaut in a ceremony, all dressed with white and blue and things like that. So, this was, you know, the future children of the Hebrew nation. Okay? And then, I went home and had my chicken soup and -- okay. Then, I grew up -- I attended an elementary school which was -- although my parents were regarded -- in those days in Israel, it was very important that they were regarded as bourgeois, they sent me to a Labor Zionist school. In those days, the educational system (UNCLEAR) were not still unified. There were political 21:00streams. And I grew up in a socialist Zionist school -- again, a very Hebraist one -- up to the point the school was named after a major Labor Zionist leader, Berl Katznelson. His name was Berl, but nobody knew that his name was Berl, 'cause this was Yiddish. It was transformed into a Hebrew name, Be'eri: bet-alef-resh-yud, which meant something like "my well," you know, "my water well." Nobody knew that this school was called after a person whose first name was in Yiddish. Very symbolic. Minute fact. But the education in Israel in those days was much better than in today's Israel, unfortunately. I am talking like a very old man, but I am standing -- we had what I said. So, we were exposed to the best of Hebrew literature. And among other things, one of the paradox of 22:00things that exposed me much to Eastern European culture was the huge reading we had in the works of Yud Lamed Peretz -- the Hebrew Yud Lamed Peretz -- and Sholem Aleichem in the Hebrew rendition of Yud Daled Berkowitz. And, of course, Bialik and things like that. And although these were selected reason because they were meant to present the negative features of this decline in culture, I read it just in the opposite. I read it subversively, probably, in a way. So, now when you ask me about how did I come to the study of Eastern European, it had much to do with my exposure to modern Hebrew literature. Not Yiddish literature. The Yiddish literature I read later -- except for Sholem Aleichem that I mentioned. Sholem Aleichem was the first. Okay. Then I, like every Israeli of my time, I went to the army, I joined the kibbutz, then I came to the 23:00kibbutz committee and told them, "I want to go to study." Which was in those days like treason, high treason, giving up on agriculture and activist Zionism and going to a bourgeois persuasion. That is something that one shouldn't do because it's not productive. We do not need so many Jewish intellectuals, like your grandfather in Eastern Europe, blah, blah, blah, okay? It wouldn't help. So, we decided that I will go to study chemistry, because my kibbutz had a factory, and they wanted me to become kind of a food engineer. I don't remember exactly what, and it's better that I forget about that. Anyway. So, after a couple of months, I said, "Forget about that; I want to study Jewish history; I want to study Yiddish." And then, I heard for the first time that in Jerusalem 24:00there is a department of Yiddish literature headed by two professors, one by the name of Dov Stock, known better as Dov Sadan. And the other one is, of course, my beloved late teacher, Professor Chone Shmeruk, okay? And then, I went to the Hebrew University, and after a couple of years I joined the department of Jewish history, specializing on a history of the Jews in Central and Eastern Europe. But I was able to combine my study of Yiddish and my study of Jewish history, and it ended up with my doctoral thesis on the image of Jews --- sorry, the image of non-Jews and gentile society in bilingual Jewish literature -- that is, Hebrew and Yiddish -- in Eastern Europe, 1856-1914. A major work that was never 25:00published in a book form due to the fact that I'm still working with it. But parts of it you can find as article mainly in English, okay?

CW:Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about Shmeruk? What was it like to study with these Yiddish scholars at that time?

IB:It was very interesting because we are talking now a couple of years after the war of '67, the Six-Days War. And things have changed. This kind of, you know, extreme Zionist secular culture, I wouldn't say faded away but gave way for all kinds of undercurrents and all kinds of variations of Jewish culture, and let alone the slow development of an alternative ultra-Orthodox culture, a 26:00very strong anti-Zionist one, which is very strong in Jerusalem today. You've probably heard about what's going on in Jerusalem today. It's almost endangering the sheer existence of this -- you know, the Hebrew culture of Jerusalem these days. But in those days, actually, it was for me a great revelation to know that beyond the kibbutz and beyond the youth movement, there are people who are studying very seriously and in a scientific manner Yiddish literature and Jewish history in Eastern Europe, and not only that they do not think that this is part of the declining past, rather they see it as a major part of modern Jewish culture. So, in a way, I kind of -- you know, I was co-opted into it almost naturally, because this was me. And I established strong -- I had two great 27:00teachers. They were very different people, and they both were my supervisors in my doctoral thesis. One of them is Professor Shmuel Ettinger, a sworn communist who gave up on communism, like many others in those days, and became a sworn Zionist, of a left --- I feel like a left-wing sort. A sworn nationalist, almost extreme Jewish nationalist, but a world expert on the history of the Jews in Eastern Europe, especially in the Russian-speaking area of it. And Chone Shmeruk, who came from Warsaw -- and survived the war in the Soviet Union. He managed to flee from the Warsaw Ghetto. Not from the Warsaw --- sorry, from Warsaw. A couple of days after the beginning of the war. And he made it to -- he crossed the border to the Soviet Union and survived and made it to Palestine in 28:00'46. Now, Chone Shmeruk was a great scholar. Actually, for me, he was the -- I would say the greatest scholars of all, due to the fact that he was able to combine thorough knowledge of Yiddish literature of all sorts -- linguistic, literary, historical -- with incredible knowledge of Russian culture, Russian literature, Polish culture and Polish literature, German culture and German literature -- it was incredible. So, it was a great intellectual experience that I still miss today. He died almost twenty years ago. Now, he was not the easiest person, to put it mildly, okay? He was very demanding, and he was very -- very tough. But (laughs) I survived him, so to speak. And one of the good things is that I was never teaching at the Yiddish department in those days; I was 29:00teaching always at the department of Jewish history. And I was one of the first who more or less began to teach cultural history. We didn't call it cultural history in those days, but what I was doing, now I'm proud to say, this was cultural history. So, I taught literature, history as literature, literature as history, things like that. I also specialized on Jewish minute books, pinkeysim [registers, esp. of a Jewish organizations or communities], which have much to do with Yiddish. This is one of the major source of pre-modern Yiddish. You know, they're minute books of the kehile, of the community. And I would like to mention another teacher of mine who was very, very important, and this was also a great scholar in relation to Yiddish, but he's well-known mainly for his study of Jewish autonomy in Eastern Europe in the early modern period, Professor Israel Halperin, who came from Bialystok. Again, a sworn Zionist who was able to compromise his Zionism with his great love for Yiddish. He wrote some of the 30:00best works on Ashkenazi Hebrew and its relation to Yiddish. And these are the things I'm doing right now, fifty years after he died, myself. By the way, my latest article on this is going to be published in a week or so in a major linguistic Hebrew journal devoted to the Hebrew language. It's an analysis of the Yiddish elements in the works of Mendele Moykher-Sforim, okay? And this I devoted to his memory, to Halperin's memory. Okay?

CW:Great. So, you've mentioned that it was for you, very -- combined these -- the Yiddish and Hebrew.

IB:Um-hm.

CW:But did you -- was it ever difficult for you on -- in sort of the street 31:00culture, so to speak, to have this Yiddish --

IB:Um --

CW:-- I mean, we hear stories about people being beat up on the bus or whatnot.

IB:This is -- no, no, no. It was not like that. It was very different. I remember only one case in all my young life that had to do with a violent conflict of Hebrew and Yiddish, and it had nothing to do with the street culture. It was something totally different. It had to do with the political culture of Israel of the '50s. As a bourgeois family, my father and mother used to take me and my brother to vacation in a -- to a place which nobody goes today anymore, but in those days was a favorite place of all Polish Jews of Tel Aviv. It's the little town of Tzfat in the upper Galilee. It was a summer resort in 32:00which Yiddish and Polish were the dominant language from July first to September first. I'm not joking. You could just go there and talk Polish or Yiddish and no Hebrew. Because it was in the early '50s. And this was a town full of hotels -- all of them disappeared today, by the way. It's very strange. Now it is a place that has been taken over by ultra-Orthodox. So, no people from Tel Aviv would ever go to Tzfat anymore. Israel has changed so much in that regard. I'm going back to the conflict. There was a nightclub or something which -- in Israeli terms, "nightclub," this is a restaurant where you have a cabaret. And you probably heard of the Bursteins, Pesach Burstein and, you know -- they were very popular in Israel. They would never appear in public theaters, due to all kinds 33:00of municipal restrictions on Yiddish in those days -- we are talking the early '50s. But they would appear in hotels and restaurants, and they were very, very popular. Now, the couple, the Bursteins, appeared with this little son, the well-known -- what's his name? He's now a well-known Israeli singer in his seventies, but then he was a boy of ten years old or something. Forgot his name. Mike Burstyn. Okay. And in the middle of one of the songs, a Sephardi Jew, who was also sitting there, stood up and said, "We don't want to listen to Ashkenazi stuff," okay? "We don't want Yiddish here, you bloody Ashkenazi," or something. This could happen in -- by the way, it can happen still today. But in different 34:00context. And there was kind of a little war there, you know, like you see in American films. You know, people will begin to beat -- (laughs) I'm not joking. So, my parents and I and my brother left. We didn't see it happen. But it was so typical that I cannot forget it, you know. But this was not a conflict between (UNCLEAR). This was something total different. This was the identification people used to make in the '50s, and even the '60s, between Yiddish and the hegemony of the Ashkenazi veteran immigrants to Israel who were controlling the establishment, as it was claimed. It had nothing to do with Yiddish, by the way. This was the anti-Ashkenazi political bias. Okay? But it had to do still with this connection.

CW:Right. So, how have you seen this attitude towards Yiddish change over time over your career in Israel?

IB:In Israel or in the world?

CW:Well, let's start with Israel, and then we can --

IB:Can I tell you -- I tell you why I asked in the -- about the world, because actually, due to the globalization, in today's Israel, the American impact is so strong that things that took place in America thirty years ago found their way also back to Israel, if you like. So, back but -- you see, because now, unlike thirty years ago, everything that happens here, in less than a second, you see there. But going back to the early years of Israel -- (coughs)

CW:Can I get you a glass of water?

IB:No, no, no. It's okay.

CW:Okay.

IB:First of all, the language has been kind of legitimized in, if you like, something which I might describe as the collective attitude of Israeli society. And for two opposing reasons, two different, very different reasons. Let's start with my family. I'm now a grandfather of five grandchildren. One of my daughters is married to a boy whose father is a Sephardi Jew from Monastir, Ladino-speaking Jew. His mother is Iraqi, and one of his grandfather -- was a Polish Jew. My grandchildren are now, if you like, twenty percent Polish, twenty percent Sephardi, twenty percent Iraqi -- I don't know why that -- I'm just 37:00kidding, but you see what I mean. In today's Israel, except for the ultra-Orthodox, the linguistic and cultural differences have no meaning for the younger generation whatsoever. Not at all. On the contrary, there is kind of a revival of interest in all kinds of Jewish cultures, including Moroccan Jewish culture and including Sephardi Moroccan Jew-- up to the point that they perform shows. For example, we have "Hamlet" in Moroccan Jewish dialect. Or we have a Ladino, you know, Judeo-Español. My mekhutn [son-in-law's father], actually, is much involved. And we talk about this. It's very interesting. He's interested in Ladino; I'm interested in Yiddish; and it's kind of complementary. Okay. For the kids, it sounds -- you know, Yiddish sounds like Swedish or something. They can't tell the difference. Except for the ultra-Orthodox. But the ultra-Orthodox, again, it's political; it's not linguistic and cultural. So, the 38:00Yiddish thing is not the major thing these days. The other things. It's kind of countercultural of the ultra-Orthodox is the major thing, not the language, per se. By the way, their Yiddish is terrible. It's not Yiddish at all. One of my students studied it. It is Yiddish still, okay, but it's Yinglish Hebrew, you know. So, the attitude has totally changed. For example, in Sholem Aleichem hoyz [house] in Tel Aviv, we have Israeli young soldiers, boys and girls, on their free time, they would go and study Yiddish, okay? And they have, I think, 150 students in one class. Today, Yiddish is part of the cultural heritage. That's just it. There's nothing negative whatsoever. Neither the political one I mentioned earlier nor the -- this cultural Zionist old-style Hebraism. But it 39:00took forty or fifty years. Now I'm -- you know, I'm very popular in Israel in those terms. I'm the only sabra [Hebrew: Jewish person born and raised in Palestine/Israel] who can claim a Yiddish-speaking, non-Orthodox background, who could speak in sabra Israeli Hebrew on Yiddish matters, okay? So, it's very popular. I'm very popular in Israeli shows and radio and TV, for example. I make a living out of that. And I'm not joking. (laughs) Because there are very few scholars who can deal with it not on the popular level.

CW:Right. And then, you've also taught both in Eastern Europe and in the United States and --

IB:Um-hm.

CW:-- other parts of --

IB:Many years, by the way.

CW:-- Europe. How do you see the attitudes towards Yiddish changing in the whole world, I guess?

IB:You know, one story's the story of what happened in the former Soviet Union. By the way, when I first came there, I was much involved in the activity for reviving Judaic studies in the former Soviet Union, mainly in Moscow. We have a program, a mutual program -- Moscow State University and the Hebrew University, of which I was the head for several years -- in Russia. I was amazed when I came there how strong Yiddish was there. I mean, I'm talking of the, if you like, the practical presence of the language, not about the attitude to the language. Everyone who was over forty or fifty was fluent in Yiddish. It turns out that people -- even if they spoke Russian outside, they maintained the Yiddish at home or speaking to the grandparents or things like that. And many people would 41:00boast, I grew up in Moscow; my grandmother used to take care of us when parents were in work; hence my Yiddish. And we spoke in Yiddish, not in Russian. Now, this was one thing. The other thing at the Soviet Union was that Yiddish was identified with the Soviet regime over there, with the Bolshevik regime. Which was not so popular, to put it mildly, at least in the last years of communism in Russia. So, surprisingly enough, these two attitudes contradicted each other up to the point. The people would say, Okay, it's fine that we speak Yiddish, but we don't want to revive the language. This is the language of the regime, the language of the communists, okay? And for sure you heard about this. But I can witness to that, because I experienced it on my daily activity. Hence, the alternative was, of course, the revival of Hebrew, which we took care of it. But 42:00in our program in Moscow, there were Hebrew classes and Yiddish classes. However, when Hebrew classes were packed with students, Yiddish was not so attractive. This is one thing. The other thing is the -- you know, people began to pop up after the fall of communism who were still active in writing poetry and prose in Yiddish. I went to Minsk. It was fourteen years ago. Minsk is the, you know, capital city of Belarus. It's a big city, but as we say in Yiddish, ergets a lokh [backwoods, lit. "a hole somewhere"]. You know, it's sort of like a big provincial -- actually, a huge provincial town. And I met there people who were writing poetry in Yiddish who were in the '50s -- these were post-World War II people, okay? And the poetry was -- well, it was not so great. (laughs) But 43:00the fact that they were able to write poetry in the language means that they mastered the language. Also in Odessa, the same. Far away, southern Ukraine, I bumped into people who were writing poetry in Yiddish. And they were so happy that someone could read it and to say something about this and -- by the way, in the Odessa case, their language was half Yiddish, half Ukrainian. This was very interesting. So, I don't see much future for Yiddish in Eastern Europe because of those reasons. And I don't see any future for Yiddish in any place other than Israel, surprisingly enough. One of the great successes of Zionism is that in Israel, you have anti-Zionist cultures, or a-Zionist cultures, flourishing under the protection of Zionism. This is, again, one of the paradoxes of Israel. Up to the point that they endanger -- I'm not talking about the Yiddish culture; I'm 44:00talking about the Orthodox -- ultra-Orthodox. That's another story. And the question how strong is the connection between Yiddish in Israel and ultra-Orthodox in Israel is yet to be determined, because we don't know. Because one of the claims of the ultra-Orthodox is that the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language is a blasphemy, is something which is against divine law, things like that. Hence Yiddish. However, the Yiddish they develop -- and I have much information there, because there are schools in Yiddish in Jerusalem and in Bnei Brak, especially for girls. I have history books in Yiddish for Hasidic girls from Jerusalem. By the way, every Hasidic sect has its own book -- so typical for the Jews -- in Yiddish! And the Yiddish is amazing. On the one hand, it's like -- I don't know how familiar, you know, with the Yiddish of the "Algemeyner 45:00Zshurnal," this -- you know. Which is very strange for someone who knows classic Eastern European Yiddish. So, this Americanization of the Yiddish is very strong also in Israel. On the other hand, it is heavily Hebraized. Because Hebrew, whether they like it or not, is a state language. So, they have to use legal terms and tax terms and things like that. Like you have here, with English and Yiddish. It sounds funny, but they kind of bend the Hebrew language. But for all practical matters they have to because of this lashon hagoyim [Hebrew: non-Jewish language]. And they don't call it "ivrit [Hebrew: modern Hebrew]." They don't call it "loshn hakoydesh [Ashkenazi Hebrew: biblical Hebrew, lit. "holy language"]." This is "ivrit" -- or "ivris [Ashkenazi Hebrew: modern Hebrew]." Depends who says it. The fact that they say "ivrit" and not "ivris" shows that something happened to their Yiddish. Now, about America, it's a different story. You know, America is very big. I have very good friends who are 46:00bringing up their children in Yiddish. A little group at Johns Hopkins. My colleague, my young colleague, Ken Moss. I spoke to his kids in Yiddish. It was -- I almost bursted into tears, speaking to so little children in such a good Yiddish, okay? But this is something totally different, because now, here you have Jewish intellectuals who identify Yiddish as an ethnic feature of identity. Religion here is not the major thing, although it has to do with it. But it's the American way. So, this is a total different story. I don't think a revival of this language can take place -- and now my Zionism, so to speak, ironically speaking, is -- a language can survive only when you have a state system to 47:00maintain it. This is why Hebrew succeeded in Israel -- so far, okay? This is why Yiddish could survive in the Soviet Union until the Soviets themselves decided on kind of annihilating the state system. And I'm not so sure it would have survived in the long run, because people opted for the Russian, as you know, if you study the Soviet case. In America, you -- okay, the state has nothing against the language. However, they -- it is a private initiative, okay? And if you don't have a school network, if you don't have a system, and if you don't have religion -- because religion is the only power which -- based on my understanding of the twenty-first century -- the only power, except for the state, that can drive people to maintain culture. Okay? So, I know it sound -- 48:00quite pessimistic. Of course, people used to say -- like Bashevis Singer used to say always, "Yiddish will never die." No. Ver vayst [Who knows]?

CW:So, how -- if the state and -- I guess I'd like to ask a little bit more about what some people call the Yiddish revival, and which --

IB:Revival or survival? It's two different things.

CW:The renaissance.

IB:Renaissance.

CW:Yeah.

IB:Okay. That sounds much better. Much more optimistic.

CW:(laughs) Because there -- while you say that the state and religion maintain that -- languages, there -- I mean, what is your take --

IB:It's either the state or religion.

CW:Right.

IB:Okay.

CW:But so, what is your take on sort of Yiddishism and people who, maybe like Ken Moss, who for them -- is it -- is there an alternative that you see sort of 49:00between those two?

IB:Well, since bin a galitsyaner, as I said earlier, this is why I collaborate enthusiastically with Ken Moss, although I do not share his, I would say, political aspect. I mean, it's not the political -- it's cultural political aspect. With all due respect. Because, for example -- (laughs) you know, I'm not so sure that it would work. If I was sure that his way would work, I would support him much more. But I don't see it -- in terms of realpolitik, as we say, how many American Jews today would join a movement to, okay, get back to bilingualism? Now, let's be practical. Yiddishism had nothing to do with unilingual culture. It was always bilingual. By the way, my best article ever 50:00that is taught all over the world in English is the analysis of the biling-- the shift from bilingualism to unilingualism, which was published some twenty years ago in a collection on -- "Hebrew in Ashkenaz," okay? My analysis direction -- I gave part of it to you earlier when I spoke about the state and the religion and what can maintain a language or what can make a language survive, let alone what can revive a language. Now, you need to have, first of all, supporters. You need to have cohorts behind you. So, what have -- where are the cohorts in this country? How many of them exist? And this is not the first case. Since I'm old enough, I can tell you that in the -- it's funny. When I was in my postdoctoral years at Harvard, I went with my wife and two little girls, four and six then, 51:00to Pennsylvania and visited in the Amish Country. And I overheard in a place -- we had kind of a picnic somewhere in the park, and I overheard a little girl speaking a strange language which didn't sound like Amish Country Dutch or something. I'm joking. I don't know how it sounds. I never heard it. But it was a very strange language. And so, I approached the little girl, and I saw that she was talking to her doll in Yiddish. It was in '82, in the spring of '82, which -- after Pesach. And I discovered that somewhere behind the trees, her parents were sitting and talking also Yiddish. A young couple. They turned to be 52:00people from Columbia University, very young. I forgot their name. But they became very active in the Yiddish business in America. So, thirty years ago, that girl spoke Yiddish. Now, in Ken Moss's family, they speak Yiddish, thirty years later. Which means that -- well, sometime, someplace, somewhere, little kids will still speak Yiddish. But unfortunately, unfortunately, I do not see great future, due to the lack of state, religion, system. It has to be -- I hate to say this, but it has to be compulsory, as we call it in Israel, "khinukh khovah [Hebrew: compulsory education]," okay? Kids do not pick up language just like that. They have to be taught. They have to be instructed, okay? Someone has to pay for the system.

CW:Right. So, how do you personally keep up your Yiddish?

IB:Oy. First of all, biz hundert un tsvantsik, my father is still around, and we speak Yiddish. And that's more than enough, because I -- even from here, I'm now on sabbatical at Rutgers -- I call him three times a week and we discuss politics in Israel, and this is a wonderful opportunity to use all the nasty words in Yiddish. You know, I am sixty-six; my father is now ninety-three years old. So, we are both alter mentshn [old people]. So, we kind of joke (laughs) about that. And talking about diseases and -- ver iz geshtorbn [who has died] and ver leybt shoyn [who is still living] and about -- I have to tell you something. You know, the posterity and the question of survival of Yiddish. My father, as I told you, is the only survivor of a big family. Killed until the last one in '41. Except for one aunt, the younger sister of his mother, my 54:00grandmother, Dvoyre. Her name was auntie Frida, or Fride, okay? Because in Polish, Frida. Okay. Auntie Frida survived the Holocaust. She was hidden by Ukrainians. When she came out of the hiding, she found out that her three little children were murdered; her husband didn't survive. And then, she -- like many people like that, she bumped into another guy, my uncle Lonya, okay? From Czernowitz, and they got married, and then went to the other part of the Ukraine, the Soviet Union, and as you remember, a couple of thousands of -- hundreds of thousands of Jews, actually -- came back from Russia in the mid-'50s to Poland, and most of them ended up in Palestine -- in Israel, those days. 55:00Okay. My father, after sixteen years of separation, reunited with the only survivor of his family, auntie Frida. She spoke seven languages. With her, I spoke Yiddish all the time, okay? And she died a year ago, at the age of 101, in the Israeli beach town, Netanya. And every Friday morning, she would go to the barber shop and had her hair arranged. And she would call me up and say, "a nekume [vengeance]." She meant to say, "This is my revenge on Hitler, that I go to the --" You see what I mean? So, this is one of the funny -- it's not funny at all, of course. (laughs) And in her funeral, we said things in Yiddish. But only people who were over fifty -- over sixty, actually -- would understand what 56:00we were talking -- what we were saying. So, she was the last speaker of Yiddish, except for my father, in my family. My wife, by the way, doesn't speak one word of Yiddish, although she -- her grandfather was a major Yiddishist in Poland, okay? But she doesn't know the language, literally. She's here, okay? Ken Moss tried to speak to her in Yiddish. She said, "Forget about it; I can't speak Yiddish." (laughs)

CW:Um --

IB:I maintain it also by -- ironically, when I go in downtown Jerusalem, I sometimes approach Haredim in Yiddish. Also, when I fly from New Jersey to Tel Aviv, I talk to my Haredi neighbors in Yiddish. Sometimes they look at me like, You speak Yiddish? "Avade red ikh yidish. Nu, lomir redn yidish, a bisl yidish [Of course I speak Yiddish. Well, let's speak Yiddish, a little Yiddish]." But it turns out we don't have -- what to talk about. (laughs) That's another story.

CW:Right. And do you ever run into people that use -- have the same dialect?

IB:Oy vey. They are getting fewer and fewer from day to day. By the way, I have to tell you something. I came back from London two days ago, and there was a meeting -- you know, probably -- maybe you saw the new volume of "Polin," number twenty-four. It just came out, edited by Scott Ury, Israel Bartal, and Antony Polonsky. And we celebrated it in London. And they brought from -- believe it or not -- from eastern Galicia, from Drohobych, a klezmer, a Jewish klezmer, more or less the age of my father, I think, ninety-one or ninety-two, Emil Shrayer. And that gentleman spoke exactly the dialect of my parents. So, I had all evening talking to him in Yiddish. Problem is that we didn't have much to talk about. Again. Can you imagine someone who survived in Drohobych, the whole thing. Like aunt Frida, the same, you know. His first family was totally -- 58:00annihilated, so to speak. He had another family. Now he's more than ninety. His wife died. His kids are living in Germany. He would never go to Germany. He would never go anywhere. I ask him, "Why don't you go to Israel?" He said, "What should I do in Israel? What language will I speak? I don't speak Hebrew." I told him, "Speak Yiddish." He said, "Who understand Yiddish today in Israel?" (laughs) I said, "I." (laughter)

CW:Your academic work spreads many different topics.

IB:That's right.

CW:And is there a unifying factor or some -- a thread that you see that -- of interest between the Haskalah and the pre-Zionist --

IB:Wow. (Whitney laughs) That's a wonderful question. It's a very good question. Well, it's not so easy to explain the unifying thread, but there is one. And one 59:00of my students, who tried to evaluate part of my work, described it as the totality of Jewish culture. Again, if you go back to my comment concerning the fact that there is no -- in the long run, in the greater context -- there is no contradiction between Hebraism and Yiddishism. This is the way I perceive Orthodoxy, Haskalah, Jewish socialism. These are all parts -- or, if you like, rather I put it, these are all alternative expressions of Jewish identities, challenged by modernity. All of them. And what was unique in my time when I was a little bit younger, I was regarded, especially in Israel, as a kind of 60:00revisionist, due to the fact that I said, "Forget about your political conviction. Don't read history as a Bundist or as a Mizrahi or Poale Tzion. Read history as history, and read it as Jewish history." Now, when I say Jewish history, I mean the totality of Jewish history involves all contradicting elements. By the way, my understanding of Haskalah -- and it's good that you asked that, because actually one of the -- if not one, the most well-known scholar of Haskalah today in the world is my student Shmuel Feiner, who published already four books. And by the way, we have total disagreement on -- he was my student, he studied with me, and his first year -- and I supervised him in his doctorate, and I tend to disagree with him on everything that has to do with Haskalah. Still, this is Israel Bartal. This is not the old school. If he thinks like that, if he does wonderful work, I have nothing to say bad about 61:00it. Now, both understanding of Haskalah -- I understand Haskalah as a conservative movement. While Haskalah was always -- or has been, rather, always presented by scholars on partisan grounds as assimilationist, acculturation -- it is acculturation, that's true. But it was not assimilation. Haskalah was yet another expression of Jewish survival of modernity. Hence all my students -- Shmuel Feiner is the one exception -- stress today the conservative aspect. I don't know if you had the opportunity to see my book on "The Jews of Eastern Europe, 1772-1881," by University Pennsylvania Press. I have a whole chapter on the conservative nature of Haskalah so far. Now, this gives one a hard time, 62:00especially the writer -- I mean, the historian -- because still, yidn zenen yidn [Jews are Jews]. What Bundist would agree that the Zionist and the Bundist share common features? I mean, today, mainly, because zey zenen ale shoyn geshtorbn [they are all gone now]. You know, Chone Shmeruk used to say -- and he was like this, by the way. He was my mentor, (UNCLEAR). He used to say that, "Alte bundistn shtarbn nisht" -- old Bundists never die, or die -- do not die. They just fade away. And then, I elaborate his -- elaborated this observation: Every Jewish partisan -- I mean, member of a party -- never dies. It's still there. All my teachers of the old school had their meshugas, and they had their evils: communist or fervent Zionist of a sort or a Bundist or whatever. But none of 63:00them would say, Okay. There is much more in common between us, the Poale Tzion and -- I'll give you a musical example, because -- maybe you don't know, but I'm also a little bit involved in music, in Jewish music, and I wrote a little bit on the invention of Eastern European national Jewish music. So, there are two -- there were two parties, Poale Tzion and the Bund. They both had their anthem. They both are called "Di shvue [The oath]." Okay? The melody's the same. The words are different. Now, you tell me, is it different or is it similar? Are not we talking about the same thing? If someone from the outer space would come and -- to Grodne, for example, in the mid-'30s, and watch on the one hand, side of 64:00the street, a Poale Tzion club, and on the other side, a Bundist club, and he would say, "These are two similar things." But for the people in both clubs, there was nothing I would say more far away than the gap of the street between the two clubs. You see what I mean. Many years ago, I compared the Birobidzhan project to Zionism. Not in terms -- I know, of course, that the Soviet cheated on the Jews. That's another story. I'm talking about the attraction of this idea for the Jews, why it was so attractive for Jews, not why the Soviets did so-and-so. And I was so bitterly attacked by the old school in Israel -- I'm talking thirty years ago, forty years ago, (laughs) I don't know. "How dare you compare such things! It's blasphemy!" Okay? Now some of my students are writing in this vein.

CW:And what do you see as sort of the potential gain in letting these political differences sort of -- in bringing these cultures back together?

IB:Well, a problem is that the modern Jewish society anywhere -- America, Israel, Eastern Europe, Europe in general -- is still very highly politicized. Although it has a different, I would say, appearance than the one it had in the interwar period, let alone Israel of the '50s and '60s. Still, it's a highly politicized society. So, it's very difficult to separate culture from politics. Now, I think that -- but this is a very subjective political observation, it's not my historical one. By the way, I was much involved in Israeli school system 66:00and history curriculum of the State of Israel, which also gave me hard time with fanatics on both sides, both left-wingers and extreme right-wingers, because one group claimed that I'm this fervent Zionist -- which I took very nicely -- and the other side said that I am anti-Zionist because it's too less fervent and too less nationalistic-minded like they wanted it to be. Okay? (laughs) So, I wish that someday we would get rid of the politics in terms of culture, but I'm not sure -- knowing my Eastern European Jews -- I mean, Eastern European Jews, American Jews. Eastern European Jews, Israeli Jews. Eastern European Jews anywhere -- that it's possible. It would be very, very nice if we would, once 67:00and for all, would say, Let's study Haskalah. Let's study Bund. Let's study Orthodoxy. And let's understand that we have a large picture of something vibrant, lively, something which has much in common. Also, the linguistic question here is included. You know, the only way to maintain some knowledge of Yiddish culture -- I'm not talking about the language -- is to make it part of the whole picture, okay? It's the only way. Otherwise we'll end up like Yiddishism ended up, or like fervent Hebraism ended up. Both failed, by the way. Don't believe some Israelis who would tell you that their Hebraistic extreme 68:00prognosis succeeded. It didn't. It succeeded partially, like everything in history.

CW:Can you describe how, if at all, your academic work and your personal identity intersect?

IB:(laughs) What a wonderful question. I think they're intersected in many ways, not only in one way. First of all, I'm engaged. You see, I'm an engaged historian. By the way, in this regard I am part of the old style, of the veteran school. But I'm engaged more or less in mental terms, not in ideological terms. I love it, first of all. I admire the culture, or I have -- I know this especially after a discussion we had yesterday here. My younger colleagues do 69:00not tend anymore to boast a kind of personal involvement in matters of scholarship. But I cannot deny, I'm a member of a different generation. Actually, I'm -- in this regard, I continue my old teachers. But not politically: mentally, or -- it's a state of mind. So, my -- if you like -- (laughs) my spirit and my intellectual activity go together, in a way. I still have this very dangerous drive, which was so typical of my teachers and of all Jewish historians from the beginning of nineteenth century, to educate, okay, to reform, to change, to complaint about -- to complain, sorry -- about all kinds of faults in Jewish society, okay? I cannot deny it. And this is politics, in a 70:00way. But I try to play it down as much as I can. I'm aware to the dangers of this.

CW:Being involved in the historical study of Jewish culture, what's your opinion on the role that an academic can play in cultural transmission?

IB:Whoa. Again, depends -- we -- the twentieth century was the most horrible century of all in terms of involvement of intellectuals and academics in trying to shape the world, or rather reshape the world, which involved massive killing of people, all kind of what we call human engineering, okay? Zionism included, 71:00in a way, okay, this idea of shaping a new Jew, yehudi chadash [Hebrew: new Jew], m'shteyns gezogt [so to speak], okay, as we say in Yiddish. This ironic comment has to be added (laughs) because in the long run, what kind of -- I always tell my students -- not today, because today it's anachronistic, but thirty years ago I told them, "Look at me. I am --" I said in Hebrew, "Ani tzabar -- I am a sabra," okay? But my mother tongue is Yiddish. I have a long, curled nose. I have long ears. I don't stand straight up. I don't have this kind of hair that the Palmachnik had. But I am a sabra." You see what I mean? This human engineering failed, in a way. And also, I doubt some of the basics of Zionism, (laughs) okay? Now this, it sounds much better. But I am very reluctant 72:00in terms of giving intellectuals political power, based on our, I would say, gloom experience in the last hundred years or so. This is one thing. On the other hand, I am much more bothered by the fact that state bureaucrats tend to interfere in political culture and in education and things like that. These are things that I experience all the time in Israel. But the connection of this to Yiddish in Eastern Europe is only partial. Only one thing: I always claim that -- I learned a great lesson from the Soviet Jewish experience as to the dangers of this, you know --- khutspe [nerve], I put it, of historians to prophesize the future. You know, of course, that Marxism had an enormous negative impact on 73:00historiography that made almost historical rights in Eastern Europe worth nothing because the Marxist historian knew the future in advance. And he had to recruit the past for it. Okay? You see what I mean? So, once you know the future, you are not a historian. You're a prophet. And we are not prophets. Because, as it is said in the Talmud, that after the khurbm, after the destruction, prophesy was given to the silly men, hanevuah nitnah leshotim [Hebrew: the prophecy was given to the fools]. And I don't want to be silly. However, some politicians have the khutspe, not only in Israel but also in this 74:00country -- and I'm talking about Jewish politician. I'm talking Jewish politics, not on general politics now -- although it's no different, of course -- to tell us historians that this is what history teaches, and this is what Jewish history teaches. Which reminds me of something very, very beautiful. You probably remember the late Menachem Begin, who was a nice person, although I never shared his political opinions. And once, he had a debate with a great teacher of mine, Professor Jacob Talmon at Hebrew University, a major scholar on Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Not Jewish history in general. And he told him, in Hebrew, "Adoni profesor, lo yelamed oti istoria -- Mr. Professor, you shouldn't teach me history." Begin told the professor of history, okay? "Because we politicians know history better than historians." And I don't want to be with 75:00them, so to speak. Neither with the historians who know politics or no -- with the politicians who claim to be historians.

CW:Well, we're -- I want to make sure you can -- we're running out of time here. But --

IB:Okay. That's fine.

CW:-- but I --

IB:I missed the Yiddish (UNCLEAR) but that's fine. (laughter)

CW:But I have a --

IB:Okay, go ahead, go ahead. (Whitney laughs) The two last questions were wonderful. I'm going to use it somewhere else.

CW:Good.

IB:Very good.

CW:(laughs) I'd like to ask sort of from your perspective now, what is the place of Yiddish within the academy?

IB:Today.

CW:Um-hm.

IB:Depends where. This is a wonderful question, because this is a real scholarly question, a good one. Depends where. Actually, let me start with the institutional aspect. In some places in Europe -- and I know all the places, 76:00because unfortunately we don't have a great industry of Yiddish scholarship in the world today. Let's talk about Germany for a second. And not only in Germany, but also in this country, sometimes you have the Yiddish within the German -- or Germanic, rather. I used to be the dean of faculty of humanities, so I'm a world expert on how can you combine departments according to (laughs) institutional changes. So, when I made a reform in the Jerusalem faculty of humanities, I studied carefully the place of linguistics -- or languages, rather -- histories and regional cultures in this country, in Germany, and in England. These are the best models that one can take from. And it happens that Yiddish sometimes ends up in linguistics, especially in Germany. In today's Germany, the major scholars 77:00are now very good scholars. That's Erika Timm. They're all in the Germanic departments in a German university. That is, they regard Yiddish as part of their German linguistic -- well, let's put it even -- heritage. It's yet another Germanic -- much more -- it's a German dialect sometimes, okay? Which is fine, by the way. Historically speaking, that I wish we had in Jerusalem. Because after my colleague Chava Turniansky, we do not have young scholars who still work on alt [old] Yiddish, the premodern Yiddish. Which is a major component of -- also of modern Yiddish. One cannot do without it. The "Tsene-rene [book of women's prayer]" was written in that language, just to give you a little example of the importance. Now, this is one thing: Yiddish as part of the European Germanic language groups. In other places, you have Yiddish within literature. 78:00Well, if I'm not mistaken, at Harvard, my colleague Ruth Wisse, she is professor of Germanic, in a way, although she has the chair of Yiddish. But this is part of the Germanic linguistic and cultural literary study. In some places, you have Yiddish as part of history. And this is the way it used to be in Jerusalem in the old time when I studied -- you know, heavy -- because Chone Shmeruk was, in the first place, a historian. So, the place of Yiddish in academic studies is, you know, kind of depends on institutional decisions, on disciplinary observations, and also on persons, okay? Now, beyond that, Yiddish has an 79:00enormous attraction for both linguists and sociologists. So, it turns out that in some places, especially this country, there are people who are studying the sociolinguistics of Yiddish, some of them already veteran scholars, such as Shikl Fishman, of course. But we have new people around. This, by the way, is totally missing in Israel. In Israel, it's a heavily -- today it's heavily literary. So, it is identified mainly with literature, with modern literature. And in my reform, I managed to do something which was incredible twenty years ago: to unite the Hebrew literature -- you see, I followed my ideology this time -- Hebrew literature and Yiddish literature into one department. Alas, some professors still objected. This is the Jewish state, you know. (laughs) So, it is kind of still -- I'm now here, so they can't (UNCLEAR) and come back. Anyway. 80:00But I think I've answered this question. But again, it depends on the university; it depends on the school; it depends on the decision of what is more important. But basically, we have three academic subtopics in the teaching and also the research of Yiddish, and that is linguistic, cultural, and literary. And when I say "cultural," I speak also of sociological, of this sociolinguistic aspect.

CW:Well, I'd like to just close with a question about advice. I'm wondering what advice you have to those who are studying Yiddish today.

IB:Studying academically?

CW:Um-hm.

IB:Aiming at an academic position somewhere?

CW:Sure.

IB:No, no, I'm serious. Because, again -- I'm very, very serious when I mention this because of the institutional aspect. Because of the idea that this language would not survive even academically without an institutional basis. You can't do without it. Let alone in this time when humanities are kind of endangered species in academia. I don't have to tell you that. And I went for it being a dean for such a long period. Well, my advice is -- well, let's put it like this. I have to advise this -- first of all, as far as academic training is concerned, one should start with a broad linguistic background. At least one more European, either Germanic or Slavic language. My one recommendation is that one should take either Polish or German. Otherwise, you know, he lacks a major linguistic 82:00component. Because I don't have to tell you that Yiddish consists of three major linguistic elements, and at least he should master one of the two, okay? Now, of course, you can't do it without Hebrew -- or, if you want to be a good scholar, also Aramaic. Because the Aramaic component of Yiddish is very, very important. Actually, it's incredible how little attention -- scholarly attention, rather -- has been given to the place of Aramaic in Yiddish. It's still awaiting study. I wish in my second life I would become more kind of a linguist. Although recently, I'm participating more and more with linguists. We have a major project in Israel on the revival of the Hebrew language in which I'm covering the aspect of Yiddish and its impact on modern Hebrew, something which you 83:00couldn't believe would be taken seriously at Hebrew University even twenty years ago because of ideological reasons, okay? Now, this is one advice: language. The other one: literature out of the ghetto, so to speak. One should master one major European literature, at least. Well, depends on your preference. I think historically, the relevance of Russian literature and Polish literature and German literature is much more important than English literature, of course, because we are the -- only in the American, a little bit in Britain, it has to do. But I think that beyond that, we talk of literary theory, things like that, one has to at least know something about it. And last but not least: the historical background. Modern Jewish history, Jewish history, early modern 84:00Jewish history, Ashkenazi history, cultural history, history of the Jewish community -- the kahal, the kehile. Again, we are still awaiting studies on the relation between Yiddish and the Jewish corporation, the premodern Jewish corporation. I'm now working on that. One of my current project is the -- Yiddish as the language of the Jewish corporation, of the premodern autonomous Jewish corporation. And of course, the epitome of this is the pinkes [book of records of a Jewish community], which is a bilingual, if not trilingual, quadrilingual, historical document. And you have thousands, ten thousands of pinkeysim, which only one or two real studies have (UNCLEAR). It's incredible how much we still have to do in this. Okay.

CW:Well, a hartsikn dank [thank you very much].

IB:A sheynem dank. Zol zayn mit mazl. [Thank you very much. Good luck.]

[END OF INTERVIEW]