Re: Future of Yiddish Eastern Europe in no-WWII world

On Jul 8, 11:56=A0pm, bm2...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
>
> [deletia]
>
> Under this sort of scenario, what odds that a high percentage of the
> Yiddish-speaking Jews of eastern Europe still are doing so in 2008?
> Given nationalist pressures to assimilate, and efforts to make them
> proper Soviets in the USSR, possibly at gulag-point, one would think
> there would be a serious drop in the number of Yiddish-speakers: and
> not only by assimilation, but also by emigration (in a WWII-free
> world, how long does the US keep its immigration as restricted as it
> was during the 30's?).

I'd separate the Soviet Jews from the non-Soviet central and eastern
European Jews. Soviet Jews, as has been noted elsewhere in this
thread, were assimilating strongly to Russian culture even before the
Revolution.

Yiddish-speaking Jews in non-Soviet Europe would be different, with
their relatively and absolutely larger numbers and the existence of
strong barriers to assimilation via prejudice and residential
segregation and whatnot. There likely would be a non-trivial amount of
language ****ft, but would there be that much?

All the best,
Randy