21st Century Yiddish Popular Culture: Quotations, Translations, Reverberations

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Session Sponsor: In Geveb

Abstract

A transnational Yiddish popular culture is evolving rapidly in the twenty-first century in both the secular and Hasidic milieus and across traditional and new media. The panel begins with Zehavit Stern’s theoretical model for Yiddish in contemporary culture. Stern suggests that new works by Yiddishists create an “echo chamber” to evoke the culture. She offers examples from American popular music and Israeli literature. The second paper, by Sarah Bunin Benor, examines the ethnolinguistic infusion of Yiddish into two metalinguistically oriented YouTube-based projects and analyses viewer responses. The third paper, by Rebecca Margolis, discusses the semiotics of Yiddish in two American sitcoms with the same name—The Goldbergs—from the 1940s and in the 2020s to analyse the changes to the Jewish linguistic repertoire on network television. The final paper, by Dalit Assouline, offers a counterpoint to the first three by examining the linguistic features of contemporary Israeli comedy routines in Hasidic Yiddish.
This panel employs interdisciplinary approaches to examine four areas of contemporary Yiddish popular culture in the United States and Israel, drawing on cultural studies, sociolinguistics, literary studies, screen studies, and comedy studies. The papers propose innovative theoretical models for interpreting cultural production that integrates Yiddish today, ranging from fluently spoken Yiddish to Yiddish-inflected Hebrew or English. Following the short presentations, the chair, Saul Zaritt, will facilitate discussion among panelists and then with the audience, focusing on points of similarity and difference among the presentations and the cultural products they analyze.
In short, this session will offer new directions in the field of Yiddish Studies as well as secondary fields.

Sub Unit

• Yiddish Studies

Chair

• Saul Zaritt, Harvard University

Individual Presentations

• “YidLife Crisis” and “Jewbellish”: Yiddish Ethnolinguistic Infusion on YouTube - Sarah Bunin Benor, Hebrew Union College

• Between Two Goldbergs: The Semiotics of Yiddish on American Sitcoms - Rebecca Margolis, ACJC - Monash University