Mar 13, 2025
Washington, DC. United States President Donald J. Trump has shocked Yiddish linguists with a storm of executive orders, claiming expansive power over Yiddish orthography to an extent not exercised by any governmental authority since the 1930s.
He began by announcing the immediate implementation of Northeastern (Litvish) Yiddish gendering of nouns, stating that Yiddish would only have binary masculine (“der”) and feminine (“di”) nouns, and that including the neutral “dos” was just woke nonsense. Trump claimed that such measures were all about preparing Yiddish to confront the current times, referring to his slogan: “Make America greyt again.”
Trump also implied that every single recent job loss in Yiddishland was carried out by Elon Musk with his approval, and that these measures would mean tremendous savings for the U.S. Treasury because, as everyone knows, Yiddish knowledge is the biggest determinant of a high salary. Musk has introduced a slew of other purportedly cost-cutting measures, such as getting rid of final letters, spelling all loshn-koydesh words and all non-loshn-koydesh words according to modern Hebrew spelling, and only recognizing Slavic words derived from Russian.
Echoing this new approach, Vice President JD Vance announced at the Munich Security Conference that Yiddish will now be considered a Slavic language, creating a dramatic shift in the historic alliances with the Medem Bibliotheque (Paris) and Yiddish Summer Weimar.
To support the new “golden age” of Yiddish in the arts, President Trump has declared himself Artistic Director of KlezKanada. While some Yiddishists continue to be incredulous about all these actions even as they unfold, then Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned that this declaration “is a real thing,” and is linked to the country’s rich, dense, and sweet bagel supply.
Trump additionally claimed responsibility for the publication of an English translation of Chaim Grade’s Sons and Daughters, citing it as evidence of his ability to make deals. Nevertheless, some critics expressed concerns that the 2025 Manifesto proposes making Sholem Asch’s The Nazarene required reading in schools and - perhaps more significantly - supplemental school programs. Trump has even gone so far as to threaten to pull funding from (and send to Siberia) anyone who does not add this material to their curricula.
No mention of other Jewish languages was made in the executive order declaring Yiddish the official language of the Jewish people. The AP was barred from the press conference where these changes were announced after a reporter questioned, “What about Ladino?”
