Yiddishkeit

English

Alternative forms

• yiddishkayt, yidishkayt, yidishkeyt

Etymology

From Yiddish ייִדישקייט (yidishkeyt).

Noun

Yiddishkeit (uncountable)

1. Jewishness; the Jewish way of life, particularly Ashkenazi and Yiddish culture.
   • 1892, Israel Zangwill, chapter 12, in The Grandchildren of the Ghetto‎^[1], London: J.M. Dent, page 175:

     Wait! my Ezekiel will be Bar-mitzvah in a few years; then you shall see what I will do for that Shool. You shall see what an example of Yiddishkeit I will give to a link generation.

   • 1969, Chaim Potok, The Promise, New York: Anchor Books, 2005, Chapter Six,

     “In America, everything is called Yiddishkeit,” Rav Kalman said. “A Jew travels to synagogue on Shabbos in his car, that is called Yiddishkeit. A Jew eats ham but gives money to philanthropy, that is called Yiddishkeit. A Jew prays three times a year but is a member of a synagogue, that is called Yiddishkeit. Judaism”—he pronounced the word in English, contemptuously: Joo-dah-eeism—“everything in America calls itself Judaism.”

   • 2000, Curt Leviant (translator), “The Shochet’s Wife” in More Stories from My Father’s Court by Isaac Bashevis Singer (1956), New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 17,^[2]

     He wants a loose girl, a bareheaded piece who doesn’t keep Yiddishkeit.

Translations

Translations

• German: Jüdischkeit (de) f
• Hebrew: יִידִישְׁקַיְיט m (yidishkayt)
• Yiddish: ייִדישקייט f (yidishkeyt)