What Language Does the Sea Speak? Yiddish in Tel Aviv

The translator of the Tanakh into modern Yiddish, the poet Yehoash (Shlomo Blumgarten), came to the land of Israel from New York in 1914 and settled in Rehovoth. He wanted to live in the ancestral land, and being ill with tuberculosis, he wanted to get away from the big city and live in a healthier climate. When the First World War broke out, he was forced to leave the land of Israel but he immortalized his experiences in the book "From New York to Rehovoth and Back". Among other themes, he also discusses the war of languages in the young city of Tel Aviv.