Czernowitz at 100 represents a collection based on the proceedings of a 2008 international conference convened at York University in Toronto. Each chapter looks back at a portion over a long century, one marked with the mass migration of Ashkenazi Jews across the globe, two world wars, the Holocaust, the birth of Israel, and the rise and fall of the Soviet bloc. They assess the achievements and fate of those who participated in the 1908 Yiddish Language Conference that was held at Czernowitz, now known as Chernivtsi, Ukraine. Featuring contributions from a new generation of scholars re-examining eastern European Jewish life, the successes and failures of the Yiddishist movement are examined. The contributors discuss how Yiddishism_a fascinating example of language-based nationalism_shaped the political and cultural landscape of territorially dispersed Jews across Eastern Europe and the world during the twentieth century.

Joshua Fogel is a Canada Research Chair and professor of history at York University in Toronto, Canada. Keith Weiser is the Silber Family Professor of Modern Jewish Studies and associate professor of history at York University in Toronto, Canada.

1 Table of ContentsChapter 2 IntroductionChapter 3 1. The Czernowitz Conference: Contexts, Ironies, and the Verdict of Jewish HistoryPart 4 I. Politics, Language and IdeologyChapter 5 2. A Tale of Two Photographs: Nathan Birnbaum, the Election of 1907 and the 1908 Yiddish Language ConferenceChapter 6 3. Peretz's Commitment to Yiddish in Czernowitz: A National Caprice?Chapter 7 4. Mother tongue, Mame-loshn, and Kulturshprakh: The Tension between Populism and Elitism in the Language Ideology of Noah PryluckiPart 8 II. Literature and the ArtsChapter 9 5. Y. L. Peretz and the Politics of YiddishChapter 10 6. Reclaiming Czernowitz in Aharon Appelfeld's Flowers of DarknessChapter 11 7. Dem Oyle Regls Tokhter: The Poetic Pilgrimage of Beyle Schaechter-GottesmanChapter 12 8. The Painter as Ethnographer: Maurycy Minkowski and the European Yiddish Intelligentsia before World War IPart 13 III. The Legacy of CzernowitzChapter 14 9. The Success of the Czernowitz Yiddish Conference: Setting the Agenda for Yiddish Language Planning in the Twentieth CenturyChapter 15 10. From Czernowitz to Paris: The International Yiddish Culture Congress of 1937Chapter 16 11. Yiddishism in Canadian GarbPart 17 IV. AppendicesChapter 18 12. The Nathan and Solomon Birnbaum Archives, TorontoChapter 19 13. Mates Mieses's Defense of the Yiddish Language