Yiddish

A Popular Dictionary of Judaism

Language of the *Ashkenazic community. Yiddish is written in Hebrew letters.

Although it died out in Western Europe, it continued to be used in Russia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland and the Ukraine. Before the *holocaust, there were thought to be approximately eleven million native Yiddish speakers. Immigrants to the United States often spoke Yiddish, but were anxious that their children should be assimilated into the English-speaking culture so Yiddish was often forgotten.