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Holy land, holy language: A study of an Ultraorthodox Jewish ideology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Lewis Glinert  and
Yosseph Shilhav
Lewis Glinert
Affiliation:
Department of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London
Yosseph Shilhav
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Bar Ilan University
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Abstract

This study explores the correlation between notions of language and territory in the ideology of a present-day Ultraorthodox Jewish group, the Hasidim of Satmar, in the context of Jewish Ultraorthodoxy (Haredism) in general. This involves the present-day role of Yiddish vis-à-vis Hebrew, particularly in Israel. We first address the relative sanctity of a space that accommodates a closed Haredi lifestyle and of a language in which it is expressed, then contrast this with the absolute sanctity of the land of Israel and the language of Scripture both in their intensional (positive) and in their extensional (negative) dimensions, and finally examine the quasi-absolute sanctity with which the Yiddish language and Jewish habitat of Eastern Europe have been invested. Our conclusion is that three such cases of a parallel between linguistic and territorial ideology point to an intrinsic link. Indeed, the correlation of language and territory on the plane of quasi-absolute sanctity betokens an ongoing, active ideological tie, rather than a set of worn, petrified values evoking mere lip-service. These notions of quasi-sanctity find many echoes in reality: in the use of Yiddish and in the creation of a surrogate Eastern European lifestyle in the Haredi “ghettos.” (Cultural geography, sociolinguistics, Judaism, Hasidism, religion, Israel, sociology of language, Yiddish, sacred land, Hebrew, territory)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 1991 , pp. 59 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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