Hebrew-Yiddish Bilingualism in European Educational Poetry in Eastern
Europe

The subject of the paper is Haskalah – Jewish Enlightenment,
which emerged in Prussia in the middle XVIII century and reached Eastern Europe
about a century later. The maskilim called for learning official languages of
the countries the Jews lived in (German, French, English, etc.) and wrote in
them. Of the Jewish languages, Hebrew was the only language regarded adjusted
for creating literature. Yiddish was perceived as the language of Jewish isolation,
as a distorted and deformed language, and, therefore, was to have been
eradicated. In Eastern Europe, however, the maskilim used it as a vehicle for
literary creativity. The paper focuses on two bilingual poets – Avrom
(Avraham) Ber Gotlober (1811–1899) and Yehuda Leib Gordon (1830–1892).
Their poetry in Hebrew and Yiddish can be juxtaposed: they have entirely different
contents, metrics and language. Creating poetry in Hebrew was regarded
as erecting a protecting wall around the sacred language (“may it not resemble acity which walls have been breached”) and, therefore, is regulated by strict
rules. It is deeply rooted in the strong old tradition. Yiddish poetry is created as
naïve.