Glinert Shilhav
Language in Society 20, 59-86. Printed in the United States of America Holy land, holy language: A study of an Ultraorthodox Jewish ideology LEWIS GLINERT Department ofNear and Middle Eastern Studies School of Oriental & African Studies University of London YOSSEPH SHILHAV Department of Geography Bar llan University ABSTRACT This study explores the correlation between notions of language and ter ritory in the ideology of a present-day Ultraorthodox Jewish group, the Hasidim of Satmar, in the context of Jewish Ultraorthodoxy (Haredism) in general. This involves the present-day role of Yiddish vis-a-viS He brew. particularly in Israel. We first address the relative sanctity of a space that accommodates a closed Haredi lifestyle and of a language in which it is expressed, then contrast this with the absolute sanctity of the land of Israel and the language of Scripture both in their intensional (positive) and in their extensional (negative) dimensions, and finallyex amine the quasi-absolute sanctity with which the Yiddish language and Jewish habitat of Eastern Europe have been invested. Our conclusion is that three such cases of a parallel between linguistic and territorial ideology point to an intrinsic link. Indeed, the correlation of language and territory on the plane of quasi-absolute sanctity betokens an ongo ing, active ideological tie, rather than a set of worn, petrified values evoking mere lip-service. These notions of quasi-sanctity find many ech oes in reality: in the use of Yiddish and in the creation of a surrogate Eastern European lifestyle in the Haredi "ghettos." (Cultural geography, sociolinguistics, Judaism, Hasidism, religion, Israel, sociology of lan guage, Yiddish, sacred land, Hebrew, territory) ,This study addresses the ideology of a present-day Jewish Ultraorthodox l ,grouP.
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