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Somehow this article managed to discuss the status of a post-Holocaust European Jewish community without once mentioning Israel - where the largest community of
by azernik 8y ago
Somehow this article managed to discuss the status of a post-Holocaust European Jewish community without once mentioning Israel - where the largest community of Ladino speakers live, and where public radio has regular broadcasts in Ladino.
If Sephardi Jews who take up the Spanish Law of Return don't seem attached to Ladino, it's because they're a self-selected group who have decided not to take up the more famous Law of Return.
- pokemongoaway 8y agoWhomever flagged or downvoted this comment should state the reason why they did so.
- Mediterraneo10 8y agoWhile there is a bit of Ladino media in Israel, overall among the Ladino community immigration to Israel has been seen as the death of the language, because there is pressure there to assimilate to the Hebrew mainstream. (This is analogous to the death of Yiddish in many contexts that it had prewar, because all those Yiddish speakers switched to Hebrew after migrating to Israel, except for the Haredim who do not use Yiddish outside their own narrow contexts.) Because Ladino speakers remain an Other in the European diaspora and can therefore draw on more minority-language support, etc., they have a way to maintain their identity that they would not have if they made aliyah.
- man-and-laptop 8y agoThe Haredim do mainly speak Yiddish. They use Hebrew only in prayer and religious study.
- Mediterraneo10 8y agoThe Haredim speak Yiddish, but they no longer use Yiddish in the whole range of social contexts that prewar Jews did. There was a vibrant prewar Yiddish film and theatre scene, for example, but the Haredim today aren’t interested in that kind of thing, to put it mildly. As a cultural language in Israel, Yiddish is dead, and Hebrew has taken its place.