A revolutionary language: Khayim Shloyme Kazdan’s “international Yiddishism” and the language of the Jewish worker

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This study examines the language ideology of Bundist and Yiddish pedagogue Khayim Shloyme Kazdan (1883–1979) between the First and Second World Wars as a form of linguistic-based Jewish nationalism but also anti-intellectualism, by examining his writings on what he termed “international Yiddishism” and what he viewed as a “Yiddish revolution.” It traces his work during his affiliation with the Kultur-lige in Kiev from 1918 to 1920 and the Tsentrale yidishe shul organizatsye (Central Jewish School Organisation, TSYSHO) from 1921 to 1940, as well as his relationship with other Yiddishist intellectuals in Poland during this period. Kazdan understood international Yiddishism as representing the language and culture of the Jewish worker, who he felt was capable of cultivating and standardising the language if given the proper tools, in order to raise the status of the language and culture and ultimately regenerate the Jewish proletariat and prepare them for the time of the international proletariat. This study argues that Kazdan persisted in championing what he ultimately termed “international Yiddishism,” as the main tool in the creation of a new Jewish identity intended to prepare children of the Jewish working class for the international proletariat, but also to instil a sense of historical-national consciousness as part of a new Jewish identity, thus connecting the traditional Jewish past to a secular and modern Jewish future. Ultimately, Kazdan's understanding of a Yiddish revolution and his ideology of international Yiddishism provided a unique role for the Yiddish-speaking Jewish worker in the standardisation and dissemination of Yiddish language and culture by placing them back in the hands of the working masses.