On beauty, usefulness, and holiness: attitudes towards languages in the Habad community

ABSTRACT

This paper studies one ultra-Orthodox group – Habad community, exploring its members’ attitudes towards four languages: Hebrew, Loshen Koydesh (LK), English, and Yiddish, and focusing on usage, affection for the language, ascribed importance, and holiness. Research questions were: (1) What are the attitudes of Habad members towards these languages? (2) Are there individual differences according to gender and/or age in the attitudes towards these languages within the group? One hundred forty-eight questionnaires were distributed to members of the community, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 participants. Attitudes towards the four languages revealed significant differences, showing, by and large, a preference for Hebrew, LK, and English over Yiddish in all dimensions, yet yielding a range of specific gender and age differences reflecting the sociocultural milieu’s influence on the development of these perceptions. Habad’s unique features came forth in its members’ linguistic choices and attitudes, providing further evidence of language as both reflecting and directing issues of identity, belongingness, ideology, and intergroup relations.

KEYWORDS:

• Language attitudes
• identity
• Habad
• ultra-Orthodox
• gender

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. This term, used both as an in-group and out-group reference literally means fearful. It refers to fear of the Lord in the verse ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble (i.e., Haredim) at his word’ (Isaiah 66, 5).

2. A caveat is in place here. Traditionally, this was the setting, and it remained in place after the establishment of the state of Israel, with large numbers of Haredi men spending most of their time studying and their wives functioning as the main breadwinners of the family. In recent years, however, at least amongst some sectors of the Haredi community, more men have entered the workforce due to a worsening economic situation and now split their time between holy studies and work (see, e.g. Caplan and Shtadler 2012).

3. Suspicious attitudes towards outsiders, researchers in particular, is an issue that concerns all those involved in the study of the Haredi community (see, e.g. El-Or 1992; Tannenbaum and Abugov 2010; Shpiegel 2011). Despite these inherent limitations, however, the participants were highly cooperative, contributing to the validity of the study.