Adventures in Yiddishland: Postvernacular Language and Culture
ISBN: 9780520931770
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / University of California Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Yiddish language; Yiddish language -- Social aspects; Jews -- Languages; Language and culture;

Adventures in Yiddishland examines the transformation of Yiddish in the six decades since the Holocaust, tracing its shift from the language of daily life for millions of Jews to what the author terms a postvernacular language of diverse and expanding symbolic value. With a thorough command of modern Yiddish culture as well as its centuries-old history, Jeffrey Shandler investigates the remarkable diversity of contemporary encounters with the language. His study traverses the broad spectrum of people who engage with Yiddish--from Hasidim to avant-garde performers, Jews as well as non-Jews, fluent speakers as well as those who know little or no Yiddish--in communities across the Americas, in Europe, Israel, and other outposts of "Yiddishland."

Jeffrey Shandler is assistant professor in the Department of Jewish Studies at Rutgers University.


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