Goethe As Yiddish Scholar Wrote Poem in the Tongue

That Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the greatest poet Germany ever produced, was at one time interested in the Yiddish language is not commonly known. This is of peculiar interest in the light of the fact that Goethe is claimed by the anti-Semites as one of their own.

The fact is that Goethe in his youth studied Yiddish with a converted Jew. In his novel in letters— a kind of linguistic exercise in which the characters carried on a correspondence in different languages— he devoted a section to Yiddish. Goethe mentions this novel in his “Dichtung und Warheit”. A poem in Yiddish, written by the seventeen-year-old genius in celebration of the wedding of his uncle, is preserved in the Frankfurt City Library.

Goethe’s outlook on Yiddish may also be seen in his many comments on that language which are interspersed in his works. The references to Yiddish include such expressions as “The Judensprache has something pathetic in it” and “It is the accent of an unfeminine language”. In a version of the story of Joseph and his brethren, which is commonly ascribed to Goethe, there is evident a marked familiarity with the Jewish Purim Play on the same subject. Among the many unfinished fragments of the exuberant young poet, is also an epic on “Der Ewige Jude”.

Because of Goethe’s interest in Yiddish and his little-known Yiddish writings, he has been included in the Lexicon of Yiddish Literature, edited by Zalman Reizen.