nice thoughtful post.

It was dead by then. Jesus spokw aramaic which is why MJ should say that the Hebrew speaking kid was the first in 2000 years, not 1800.

Fascinating.  I'm going to put the Chabon book on my summer reading list.  I've a "thing" for alternate histories, and this seems like an especially interesting one.

On Yiddish, about which I know next to nothing (but should, I suppose), what I find interesting is the contributions it makes to American English (and maybe English-English too, all that stuff about two countries separated by a common language nonetheless).  I don't think there is any language as welcoming to words from other cultures as ours...we sop them up like a sponge, and the language is so much richer for it.  How unlike the French we are in this, though they seem singularly unsuccessful at stopping "le drugstore" from creeping into the language, regardless what the French Academy L'Académie française wants.

Ah, MJ, what a mensch you are.  :-)

aMike

Theodor Herzl rejected the idea of Hebrew as the lanuage of the Jewish state because it was long dead by his time (1860-1904).
He said, "Who among us knows enough Hebrew to ask for a railroad ticket in that language?"
His idea for the language of the Jewish state: German!
(Hey, he didn't know....)

No one in the entire world, other than a few scholars who used Hebrew solely to discuss theology (as priests might use Latin) spoke Hebrew. True, Herzl could not order a railroad ticket in Yiddish, but no one in the whole world could do so in Hebrew while millions could do it in Yiddish. Until Ben Yehuda, there was no Hebrew word for train or ticket or any other modern concept.
And that is why there are more streets in Israel named after Ben Yehuda than any other historical figure.

Alhtough I have many disagreements with MJ , this was indeed a thoughtful posting, although I do take issue with his statements at the end (e.g. "Oslo failed because of Rabin's murder").
It should be pointed out that Stalin did try to establish a Yiddish-speaking "republic" in Birobijan, which is in the what was then the Soviet Far East, but there were never more than a few thousand Jews there, although some were there until at least recently. All attempts to create Jewish homelands outside of Eretz Israel have failed. Had the Zionist movement adopted Herzl's idea of a Jewish state in Uganda (actually Kenya), it never would have gotten off the ground, and even if it had, the Africans would have had a legitimate claim that the Jews were alien colonialists, Rhodesia-style, unlike the situation in Eretz Israel.

My understanding is that Hebrew WAS spoken between the Jews of the different communities in Eretz Israel before Ben-Yehuda and the modern Zionist movement. He moved to Jerusalem and dressed in the traditional manner, in spite of the fact that he was stronly opposed to traditional Jewish observance, all in order to hear Hebrew spoken. In the time of the Mishna, there were still Jews who spoke Hebrew, but interestingly enough, it was the less educated people who spoke it. Rav Yehuda HaNasi is reported in the Talmud to have asked his maidservants what several Hebrew words meant.
The Irish , on receiving independence from Britain in the 1920's tried to revive the Irish language, and they gave Irish words to various things in public life, (e.g. "Prime Minister" is "Tiaosuch" [sp?]).
Only the Jews , AFAIK, have succeeded in restoring their ancient language to daily use.

Most ironic of all, however, is that a young Jewish American novelist like Chabon, one who is well-versed on Jewish subjects and fascinated by Jewish history, finds an imaginary Israel in Alaska more compelling than the real one that was already 15 years old by the time Chabon was born.

I doubt that he doesn't find Israel as compelling. The whole point of alternative history is to tell a story in a world different than our own. You might as well say that Tolkien should have set his story in Europe during WWI. It's fantasy for the sake of fantasy.

I also think his choice of fictional setting would allow him to avoid the "unfortunate" minefield that exists around any and all discussion of the state of Israel, even fictional discussions. Especially fictional discussions. By setting his tale in a fictional state of Israel in Alaska, he can avoid the self-appointed gatekeepers.

But the main point of writing in this genre is to answer one question - What If?

Yiddish was also an official language of the Belorussian SSR.

http://countrystudies.us/belarus/19.htm

No true. Most American Jews can read Hebrew letters and cannot speak a word of Hebrew.
But I am not going to argue an historical fact. Hebrew was dead for about 1800 years and was revived by Ben Yehuda.
FDR was elected 4 times. I'm not going to argue that point either.

MJ,

No true. Most American Jews can read Hebrew letters and cannot speak a word of Hebrew.

We're talking Herzl's contemporaries, right?  It does not support your point to bring present American Jews, three or four generations removed, into the discussion.  We agree, you're not arguing historical fact.

I basically agree with MJ. Israel is a miracle for more than the resurrection of a dead language. My sister, Rachel, made alyia in 1966. Israel was a land and a people really blossuming. There was a lot of excitement. For all the problems, the people worked hard to overcome them. She first tried the Kibbutz life in her idealism but it was not for her. Then she tried the West Bank settlement life in her idealism and for many years it worked. But in the end, the settlement life destroyed her idealism and happiness.

In her mind, the settlers were the one's who exhibited that pioneering spirit that caused her to make alyia in the first place. Initially, it was true but as the settlements grew in number and size the inevitable bumping up against sullen Palestinians. Their pain took away her joy.

What's interesting is of about 2 dozen relatives in the west bank settlements not one will move back to Israel proper if the settlements are disbanded. They have no real interest in living in a "plain and ordinary society". They have visions of many places they could live but not Israel or the US.

Ahab,

If Israel had no enemies, upon which white whale would you fire your heart full of irrational and all-consuming hate?

Stepping back from the ethnic imperatives of Zionism and looking at Israel in slightly more objective terms, the country's place in the Middle East is essentially as an enclave predominately composed of Europeans and their descendants in a sea of Arabs, kind of a European colony without a formal overseas master.

Whether that model is ultimately sustainable, even with strong military and economic support from the US, seems more problematic by the day.

In retrospect, even if one accepts as valid the idea of nation creation based on ethnic identity, selection of an already populated area for the enterprise seems somewhat counterintuitive, unless one has a uniquely addled view of reality or no conscience, which may amount to the same thing.

Moving Israel to some other location encounters the same difficulties, even if of lesser magnitude. The indigenous populations of Alaska or Oklahoma, for example, might not be completely sanguine about such a development. Are small wrongs, in other words, any less pernicious than large wrongs?

An alternative solution, one I'm confident will be excoriated, is for the international community to guarantee a Universal Right of Return for all Israeli citizens so they may freely return to the counties of their forbearers.

MJ is on to something here.  There is a growing trend among young progressive American Jews to turn away from the messy realities of Israel and towards an idealized Yiddish cultural past.  There are some positive elements to this trend - namely the neo-klezmer movement and the literature such as Chabons, but on the whole it is neither good for Israel or Diaspora Jewry for progressive Jews to leave the Diaspora-Israel relationship in the hands of the Orthodox and right-wing Zionists.

The antithesis of L'Académie française, see Leo Rosten's The Joys of Yinglish (first edition was The Joys of Yiddish).

There are several theories on how the Unitarians fit into this. Jews that like bacon is far too simplistic, and they've moved beyond the definition of a Unitarian as one who believes in the unity of God, the brotherhood of man, and the neighborhood of Boston.

While they tried, the Unitarian Klan never made it because they couldn't find a carpenter to build a question mark to burn on someone's lawn. You'd think they would have learned from trying to build a burning Star of David. Nevertheless, Unitarian Jihad may be returning to the Liberal Church Militant.

Some years ago, the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine had a letter entitled "A Case Report of Extreme Hypernatremia in a Young Woman of Mediterranean Origin." Further reading, in what for some strange reason was an April issue, was the pathology report on Lot's Wife.

We are told that the disorder was punishment for looking at Sodom and Gomorrah. It's fairly well understood what the practices were in Sodom, but Gomorrah has remained a mystery, until Canada, in its wisdom, defined Gomorrahy.

Thanks, Zionista. I understand your point. Shabbat Shalom, MJ

Not aware of any concentration camps, pograms or second-class citizenship status based on Jewish heritage currently in force or anticipated in Europe at the moment. Please share.

Characterizing Israel and Judea as the native land of those of Jewish heritage seems more a statement of faith than of fact. Not that there's anything inherently 'wrong' in that, just that it's not germane in the real world.

Aaah, I guess I should have realized you were a Unitarian, Howard. I know a Unitarian joke.

When the Unitarian religion arose, St. Peter found he had to add a new sign at the pearly gates. One sign reads, "To Heaven," another says "To Hell," and the one added for the Unitarians says, "To The Discussion About Heaven and Hell."

Leo Rosten also wrote the excellent book, "Religions in America." It's sure to be quite out of date by now, but offered a chapter on each of the religions and sects prevalent at the time it was written (60s, I think) with descriptions of the beliefs, liturgy and so on.

Know your enemy well, for in the end that is who you become. ~~Old Chinese Proverb

stone him

MJ, I side with Zionista on this one. Hebrew certainly wasn't a language in which one could order a falafel in 1890, but Biblically literate Jews did understand the language and the grammar. An old family friend used to tell an anecdote about an American Jewish intellectual who visited his family in Israel in the '50s and asked him: "Ayeh avicha?" ("Pray, where is thy father?") instead of "Efoh aba shelcha?" He was speaking the Biblical Hebrew he knew, as a Jewish intellectual. It was a dead language like Latin was a dead language in t