Words on Fire

From its ancient roots in Hebrew and Aramaic, through its rise as the common language of Jews in medieval Europe to its blossoming as sophisticated modern literature, the story of Yiddish mirrors the history, tenacity, and humor of the Jewish people. In Words on Fire, leading Yiddish scholar Dovid Katz recounts the sweeping history of this evocative and multifaceted language. Drawing on 30 years of research, Words on Fire traces the arc of a language identified from medieval times onward with women and uneducated men, and relates how efforts to raise its prestige were often met by opposition from the powers that be. Katz highlights the rise of literary Yiddish in the Renaissance -- widely read translations of knightly epic poems and guides for daily living -- particularly by and for Jewish women. In the wake of secularizing and modernizing movements of the 19th century, Yiddish rose spectacularly in a few short years from a mass folk idiom to the language of sophisticated modern literature, theater, journalism, and scholarship. From the rise of the Hasidic movement to the fiction of Isaac Bashevis Singer, from its complex relationship with the Zionist movement to its appearance on the Internet, Words on Fire argues that Yiddish represents a high point in Jewish civilization. Decimated by the Holocaust, the once-thriving secular Yiddish culture is in deep crisis, but Katz shows that -- far from being a dying language, as many claim -- Yiddish is making a resurgence among religious Jewish communities and will still be thriving well into the next century. Gracefully narrated and generously illustrated, Words on Fire is a definitive account of this remarkable language and the culture that created and sustained it. - Jacket flap.