The Czernowitz Conference
From 30 August to 3 September 1908, "The Conference for the Yiddish Language", also known as "The Czernowitz-Conference" (Yiddish קאָנפֿערענץ פֿאָר דער יודישער שפּראַך, or טשערנאָוויצער קאָנפֿערענץ), took place in the Austro-Hungarian city of Czernowitz, Bukovina (today in southwestern Ukraine). The conference proclaimed Yiddish a modern language with a developing high culture. The organizers of this gathering (Benno Straucher, Nathan Birnbaum, Chaim Zhitlowsky, David Pinski, and Jacob Gordin) expressed a sense of urgency to the delegates that Yiddish as a language and as the binding glue of Jews throughout Eastern Europe needed help. They proclaimed that the status of Yiddish reflected the status of the Jewish people. Thus only by saving the language could the Jews as a people be saved from the onslaught of assimilation. The conference for the first time in history declared Yiddish to be "a national language of the Jewish people."
Read more about this topic: Yiddish Renaissance
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