A Rhetorical Conversation Jewish Discourse In Modern Yiddish Literature 1st Edition Jordan D Finkin by Jordan D. Finkin 9780271078144, 0271078146 instant download after payment.

This book is about Jewish language. The fact that Jews speak and write in distinctive ways is well known. (The journalist Mike Royko called it "Hebonics.") These forms of expression actually draw from many sources and have been employed in popular culture from Henry Roth's Call It Sleep to the novels of Saul Bellow to contemporary television. What has received less attention is what allowed these modern forms to flow from a rich body of Yiddish literature. This book fills that gap by exploring the language of modern Yiddish literature, addressing emblematically why Jews answer a question with a question. Through a series of case studies, A Rhetorical Conversationexplores various distinctive aspects of Yiddish literature to explain the nature and importance of Jewish discourse: the way of speaking, writing, arguing, and thinking developed by Yiddish culture based on prolonged and intimate contact with traditional texts.