Sybil Terres Gilmar writes from Philadelphia: “Recently, as part of my work as a docent at Mikveh Israel, the oldest continuous congregation in Philadelphia (since 1740), I came across the word ‘duchening’ in conjunction with an early 19th-century chair adorned with hands indicating the priestly blessing. In trying to research the origin of the word, I came across information that it derives from dukhan, the platform in the Temple from which the priests blessed the people, but a recent Israeli visitor said that it was from a Hebrew verb meaning ‘to stand.’ What do you think? Is it a noun? A verb? From Hebrew? From Yiddish?”Read More
At the end of last week’s column about the traditional use of Hebrew characters to write Jewish languages, like Yiddish and Ladino, I promised that this week’s column would deal with the opposite development — namely, the growing tendency in America to write Yiddish in Latin characters. More and more, one finds Yiddish written that way in books and articles, and on the Internet.Read More
From Dennis Gottfried comes this query: “Since European Jews used the Hebrew alphabet to write Judeo-German or Yiddish, and Spanish Jews used it to write Judeo-Spanish or Ladino, I wonder whether other Jewish populations in the history of the Diaspora — ones speaking Persian or Arabic, for example — did the same thing.”Read More
From down under in Melbourne, Australia, Lauren Wiener writes: “Could you please explain how ‘Nusach Sfard’ came to be the Nusach of some Ashkenazi Jews and why the family name Ashkenazi exists mostly among Sephardic Jews?”Read More
I suppose it is late in the day to plunge into the argument over J Street, the “pro-Israel” Political Action Committee — as it likes to call itself — whose repeated criticism of Israeli government policies and actions has many supporters of Israel up in arms. Still, with the organization’s first annual conference in Washington the week of October 25, I find it hard to resist.Read More