@Joseph
“Yiddish is the language of Ashkenazic Jewry.”
Wrong……………….
Yiddish WAS the common language linking much of Ashkenazic Jewry.
BUT it wasn’t the language of my maternal German forebears. My Oma always referred to Yiddish as a gutter language.
It wasn’t the language of much of Hungarian Jewry
My Litvish great grandparents and great great grandparents spoke Polish, Russian, Lithuanian and Yiddish.
My paternal grandparents born in NYC in the 1890s did not speak Yiddish. My father A”H born in Brooklyn 100 years ago and myself born in CT more than 65 years ago only learned Yiddish for business reasons. My siblings some as old as 75 do not speak Yiddish.
“There are those who speak Yiddish that don’t know English well (or even at all.)”
If they live in the USA, it’s about time they learn to read, write and speak English. That sentiment does not apply just to Hispanics (as the right wing complains).
“Yiddish is a unifying language for Jews from different countries and national languages (i.e. English, French, Ivrit, German, etc.)”
A completely meaningless point for an AMERICAN event. and as I’ve stated many times it is NOT a unifying language for German Jews. OMA never felt unified with the ‘peasants from the east’ who could not speak ‘real German’
My 70 year old sister went to seminary in Switzerland in the 1960s. Those girls who spoke Yiddish had a very hard time dealing with the locals, shopping, using transportation, banks, post office, etc. She learned German from our Great Grandmother and had no problem.
I learned Litvish Yiddish, I haven’t got a clue what most Galitzianers are saying when speaking Yiddish, especially when they substitute the P sound for B.
My forbears chose to leave Europe for America 150 years ago. Our unity with fellow Jews was belief and practice, not Yiddish.
If you want to attend an event that has almost all speeches in Yiddish, fine, I would not enjoy it. I’d mail my contribution and not attend