Hebrew in Ashkenaz

This is an edited volume of invited original essays on the linguistic and sociolinguistic history of Hebrew in the European diaspora. Hebrew linguists are now emerging from a preoccupation with the Classical and "reborn" language, to consider the continuous evolution in the structure and social role of Hebrew in Ashkenazi Jewish life from Medieval times up to the Holocaust. There is increasing interst in the direct origins of the reborn living Hebrew, but as yet little hard research has been done. In this volume, a group of internationally respected Hebraicists address themselves to such questions as the origins of Northern European medieval Hebrew, the role of medieval Hebrew as a written medium, the linguistic structure of this Hebrew and the evolution of its lexicon, the interplay with Yiddish and other vernaculars, the rise of Chasidic popular literature and philosophy, the Yiddishist-Hebraist conflict, the present-day use of Hebrew in Europe, and the Hebrew Movement among Refuseniks in Russia. This groundbreaking collection should be great interest not only to Hebraicists, but to scholars of Judaism and of European Jewish History.