The politics of interpretation: alterity and ideology in Old Yiddish studies PDF
Preview The politics of interpretation: alterity and ideology in Old Yiddish studies
The 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
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