Why are so many Jews today who live in Australia and America not bothering to learn Hebrew or Yiddish?

Answer 1

Because they don't realize the connections to their past and to Tanakh available through those languages are lost to them without them.

I now wish I had learned Yiddish from my Father. His parents spoke no English when they arrived here and with my generation, Yiddish was the language the adults spoke when they were saying things they didn't want us to understand! I know enough Yiddish to sometimes get the gist of a conversation and I can pepper my speech with many Yiddish phrases.


The only Hebrew I learned was the Hebrew of prayers and a little bit of Torah and I rather stayed at the same abysmal level until I was around 40 when I started "RE" learning with my son. He's now surpassed me and I feel rather stuck again..

Laziness and a feeling of not having enough time to do it..I am sure come into play for some. Assimilation and the fact that we live in lands where we do not hear and use Hebrew enough.

There are many Jewish youth who do learn these things, but it is up to us ..my generation and those younger who now have small children..to show by how we live and what we say, that it is important not to lose the connection we have with our past.

Yiddish is a very colorful language that reflects where we've been..the mixture of Polish, Russian, German, Slavic, and even Italian in with Hebrew and using Hebrew script..is a story of the Diaspora itself.

Do not forget Ladino and other Jewish languages that are even in greater danger of being lost.

Hebrew has millions of speakers now who learn it as their first and native tongue..and because it is the language of Torah and siddur..it won't ever be lost.

But other languages can become that way.
Here is a GREAT link to explore about Jewish languages!

EDIT: I see Maya once again answering FOR Jews with completely false information. I wish I had a quarter for every time that's happened.
Every statement was factually incorrect as the scholarship at the link below will attest. It is NOW that it is only being largely taught and used by the Chasidic sect. At one time it was the primary language of almost all Ashkenazi Jews. My family was not Chasidic and spoke Yiddish as a first language.
I respectfully suggest that references to university scholarship and studies about Jewish languages is preferrable.

There is a wealth of information available there.
http://www.jewish-languages.org/yiddish.html


EDIT to rosends..I am 49..since my youth, Hebrew is used a GREAT deal more in Reform services than it was. As a child...it was more than half English..now it is perhaps only a third or less in English. We say many more prayers exclusively in Hebrew without saying the English translation as was often done before.

Reform Judaism, while still having much in English to relate to the language that we think in when speaking it as a first language..has returned to teaching and modeling the importance to learn the Hebrew of our traditional prayers to also speak to our heart and spirit.

Answer 2

Well, yiddish has no real link to Jews outside of Germanic nations/communities which would have used that hybrid; its demise is a sad closing to a chapter of the cultural development of Judaism in Europe and the US, but isn't indicative of anything else (though, there is a yiddish renaiisance currently). As for Hebrew, the study of it mirrors the more religious sections of the Judaism. As the reform movement grows, so grows a sense that English is good enough for prayer and study. A better question might be to explain the growing reform movement. But the movement is also asking questions, and recently has considered restressing authentic ritual including Hebrew use.

Ask me again in 20 years.

Answer 3

I can't speak for others, but many in our Reform congregation in Arizona are learning Hebrew and are using more Hebrew in the services. Many people in our Torah and Talmud study groups speak Hebrew.

Even if we don't learn the language, we pick up many words and phrases from the prayerbook and Torah. Our rabbi frequently teaches us the meanings of words such as Shalom -- the root of which means whole/entire.
.

Answer 4

i've got not been to the Mainland however the changes in Hawaii have been thrilling. enjoyed the gentle beverages at Cheesecake production unit and Outback steakhouse had loose refills. At McDonalds poultry burgers have been referred to as poultry sandwiches. I consistently have worry with human beings understanding me, there could be language changes. in case you reside at a lodge go away the maids tip on the pillow, a minimum of two$ in keeping with guy or woman, they understand once you're a vacationer you will go incorrect often times. the lavatory is crammed with water, and no it would not splash upwards. often times the bathe/bathtub faucets are puzzling which button activates which. observed Billy Connelly do direction sixty six on television appears like truly an journey. Have a great time.

Answer 5

Because hebrew is a dead language and the big revival of it in Palestine is just as phoney as the Irish attempt to revive Gaelic in the 1920's. Most of the jews I've known from Palestine moved there from someplace like Russia,then moved away - usually to the U.S. - because of idiocies like being expected to learn a dead language and learn it fluently. You have to remember the jewish state rigged up over there is actually an artificial contrivance. It's not a society that evolved organically; it was heavily planned and financed from the 1890's on. As to yiddish,it's merely a German dialect common to hassidic jews from about the 16th to the 20th centuries. Expecting jews in English-speaking countries to learn either of these defunct languages is a lot like expecting Catholics to learn fluent spoken Latin. That would be absurd,and catholics know it. Jews in Palestine just go on and on with this old romantic russian fantasy of struggling to resuscitate or reconstitute a long-gone nation.

Answer 6

Because they live in English speaking countries.

How many Irish Americans do you know who have learned Gaelic?

Answer 7

I think that the language is separate from the identity, although there are many who would disagree with me.

Answer 8

because they live in Australia and America . its called assimilation .