Yiddish Renaissance

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Yiddish Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement which began among Jews in Eastern Europe during the latter part of the 19th Century. Some of the leading founders of this movement were Mendele Moykher-Sforim (Mendele Mocher Seforim) (1836- 1917), I.L. Peretz (1852-1915), and Sholom Aleichem (1859-1916).

According to historian Paul Kreingold, "Beginning in the Eighteenth century, followers of the great German- Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn undertook to spread his ideas to the majority of Europe's Jews, who lived in Eastern Europe and Russia, and who spoke the Germanic language Yiddish. Known as the Haskalah movement, its adherents, the maskilim, set out to elevate the Jewish population from the self-imposed backwardness of Hasidic religious fundamentalism. In order to carry out this mission, the impoverishment of the Yiddish language as a conveyor of profound ideas had to be overcome, and a number of Jewish authors undertook the task of creating true literature in Yiddish, as a means of popular education."

Due in large part to the efforts of this movement, Yiddish became one of the great languages of the world, spoken by over 11,000,000 people. As many Eastern European Jews began to emigrate to the United States, the movement became very active there, especially in New York City. One aspect of this became known as Yiddish Theatre, and involved many talented authors such as Ben Hecht and Clifford Odets.