Yiddish Culture in Greater Romania (1918-1940)

Yiddish culture was an important part of the cultural landscape of Eastern Europe from the Baltic Sea to the Danube, connecting the scattered Ashkenazi Jewry, the overwhelming majority of the Jews living in this geographical area.

In the newly created Greater Romania, the Jewish component included more than half a million individuals still speaking Yiddish. Building on pre-war trends, the new nation-state faced an antisemitism problem since its inception. This continued in the period that followed, culminating in the horrors of the Holocaust, which destroyed most of the Yiddish-language community. Most survivors were discouraged from continuing to use a language that reminded them of a painful past.

This volume examines the socio-cultural mechanismsresponsible for restructuring the Yiddish cultural life after the changes brought about by the end of World War I and the creation of Greater Romania. It describes how this process evolveduntil the politic