Yiddish and Power

Hardback

Main Details

Title Yiddish and Power
Authors and Contributors      By (author) D. Katz
SeriesPalgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities
Physical Properties
Format:Hardback
Pages:330
Dimensions(mm): Height 216,Width 140
Category/GenreSociolinguistics
ISBN/Barcode 9780230517608
ClassificationsDewey:306.440947
Audience
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Illustrations X, 330 p.; X, 330 p.

Publishing Details

Publisher Palgrave Macmillan
Imprint Palgrave Macmillan
Publication Date 19 December 2014
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

Yiddish and Power surveys the social, linguistic and intellectual history of the Yiddish language within the traditional civilisation of Jewish Ashkenaz in central, and then in eastern Europe, and its interaction with the surrounding non-Jewish culture. It explores the various ways in which Yiddish has empowered masses and served political agendas.

Author Biography

Dovid Katz is an international authority on Yiddish and Ashkenazic Jewish culture. He founded Yiddish studies at Oxford University, where he taught for 18 years, and then in Vilnius, where he was professor of Yiddish in Vilnius for 11 years. He has published many academic works in Yiddish studies in addition to three collections of original Yiddish fiction. He is also a leader of the movement against Holocaust revisionism in Eastern Europe. His websites are www.dovidkatz.net and www.DefendingHistory.com.

Reviews

"Katz's book invites scholars of Yiddish and of vernacular languages generally, especially those spoken by minority peoples living in a diaspora, to think expansively about a language's potential to empower its speakers. In the case of Yiddish, this approach is key to considering the state of the language today and tracking its future." (Jeffrey Shandler, Journal of Jewish Languages, Vol. 4, 2016)