August 30 1908 – 3 Elul 5668
“The Conference for the Yiddish Language” convened in Czernowitz, capital of the Austro-Hungarian dukedom of Bukovina (today in Ukraine). Author and publicist Nathan Birnbaum was the driving force behind the committee, which included such Yiddish authors and thinkers as David Pinski, Shalom Asch, Benno Straucher, Chaim and David Zhitlowsky, Isaac Leib Peretz, Hersch Dovid Nomberg, Abraham Reisin, Esther Frumkin and Jacob Gordin. Under discussion were all kinds of issues connected to Yiddish, including the need for rules of Yiddish grammar, Yiddish journalism, literature and theater, a Yiddish translation of the Bible and educational and didactic questions. The question most hotly debated was whether Yiddish could be defined as the Jewish national language – at a time language was seen as one of the defining characteristics of nationhood. Hebrew was not the only other contender to the title; Ladino was also taken into account. In the end Yiddish was declared a national Jewish language – rather than the only one. Today this seems strange, but at the time Yiddish was the Mamma Loshen (native tongue) of more Jews than any other language.
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