Never Say Die! A Thousand Years of Yiddish in Jewish Life and Letters

By Fishman, Joshua A.
Mouton De Gruyter, 1981, Hardcover, 763 pp., ISBN: 9027979782, $41.95

With nearly 800 pages of articles and illustrations about the role of Yiddish during a thousand years of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, the United States, and Israel, this volume offers more than just ‘something for everyone’; it offers ‘a lot for everyone’.

It is intended for all those whose grandparents spoke Yiddish, as well as for those who still speak it today. Indeed, it is intended for all those (and their number is legion) who not only love the language but also are eager to find out what outstanding writers, cultural spokesman, political leaders, and religious authorities have long said and written about Yiddish as a great storehouse of Jewish resistance to assimilation.

A multilayered volume containing ample material for beginners, sophisticates, and scholars, this work will long remain a Jewish- (as well as Yiddish) consciousness wherever either English or Yiddish or both are read., With its hundreds of illustrations of Yiddish authors, cultural institutions, placards, documents, rare and current publications, this volume is a joy to the eyes, rather than to the intellect alone. Particularly noteworthy in this connection are some two dozen cartoons pertaining to the Yiddish Lower East Side of New York during the years just prior to and after World War I. Like Yiddish itself, then, this volume is full of hope, of wisdom, and of life. Book flap