Arguments, whether on trivial matters or profound philosophical questions, are a cornerstone of Jewish tradition. Both Reform and Orthodox Jews, despite their differing customs in dress, diet, and prayer, embrace the art of vigorous debate. These discussions can often extend for years, sometimes without a definitive conclusion.
This rich culture of intellectual sparring forms the heart of “The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language,” a brand-new chamber opera from composer Alex Weiser and librettist Ben Kaplan. The production explores the heated disagreements between two dedicated scholars as they fiercely contend over the scope and content of an ambitious Yiddish dictionary.
Scheduled for performances at the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research in Manhattan on September 18 and 21, this opera draws its inspiration from the real-life dynamic between Yudel Mark and Max Weinreich.
Max Weinreich, a towering figure in Yiddish scholarship, was a co-founder of Yivo. This organization, established in Vilna, Poland, in 1925, is dedicated to advancing Yiddish culture. When Weinreich fled the Nazis, relocating to New York, Yivo moved with him.
Following World War II, Yivo embarked on publishing a comprehensive Yiddish dictionary, entrusting its supervision to Yudel Mark (whose name rhymes with “strudel”). Mark, an incredibly meticulous Yiddish scholar and linguist, was determined that his dictionary should encompass every single Yiddish word—all 250,000 of them. To Weinreich’s frustration, this included even hypothetical neologisms that might emerge in the future.
Adding to the tension, Mark chose to disregard the “takones”—a set of rules established by Weinreich and Yivo in 1937 to standardize Yiddish. This was a crucial point, as the language had diverse variations across Europe, where 7 to 8 million Yiddish speakers lived before the war.
Weinreich, known for his commanding presence, was deeply offended by any alteration to established prefixes and spellings. He went so far as to threaten the removal of Yivo’s official logo from the dictionary if his standards weren’t met.
Upon Weinreich’s passing, Mark penned a heartfelt obituary in the Yiddish newspaper, Forverts, where he affectionately called Weinreich his “bar plugta.” This Talmudic term can be loosely translated as “scholarly opponent” or “philosophical sparring partner”—a fitting description, perhaps best modernized as “frenemy.” Their debates, intense enough to overwhelm anyone unaccustomed to such fervent bickering, highlight their deeply contrasting objectives, making the opera both profound and comedic.
“To authentically tell this story,” Kaplan explained during an interview at Yivo’s Chelsea offices, where he and Weiser collaborate, “we had to expose every single heated argument.” He described Mark and Weinreich as being “at times petty, grandiose, or messianic.” Kaplan added, “They would meticulously debate a single diacritic for hours. While it sounds amusing now, for them, it was a matter of immense significance.”
Mark viewed every Yiddish word as a sacred spark, driven by a mission to rescue them all from what he termed “the icy sea of forgetting.” His dedication was notably idealistic. In the opera, Weinreich probes, “How many volumes do you anticipate this dictionary will be?” Mark, to his colleague’s visible dismay, responds, “Only 10 volumes.” He then quickly amends, “Perhaps 12.”
Mark, portrayed with charming exasperation by Jason Weisinger, embodies the quixotic dreamer, a tenor befitting his heroic operatic archetype. Weinreich, played by Gideon Dabi, is the stern disciplinarian baritone. Weiser notes, “Max isn’t truly the villain. Neither character is entirely correct in their approach.”
Presented in English and Yiddish with supertitles, the opera commences in 1953, the year dictionary work began. In a mystical sequence influenced by Tony Kushner (for whom Kaplan once served as an assistant), Yudel Mark receives a profound task from three mezzo-sopranos. These figures, divine personifications of alef (the first letter of the Yiddish alphabet), compel him to “open the graves of Yiddish words and blow in them a breath of life.”
Weiser’s score for the opera features a clarinet, string quintet, and piano. He largely avoided the augmented second, an interval often associated with Jewish music, and “krekhts,” a poignant, sobbing ornamentation found in klezmer and cantorial singing. Weiser explained that many of his admired composers, including Steve Reich and Bang on a Can founders Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe, craft works that delve into Jewish themes without employing a conventionally “Jewish” sound.
Weiser and Kaplan share several biographical parallels: both are 36, were raised in secular Jewish households, and attended liberal arts colleges on the East Coast. Weiser, who now directs public programs at Yivo, grew up near Union Square, studied at Yale (where he took classes with Lang), and earned a master’s from New York University. When he joined Yivo in 2016, he was unfamiliar with the institution, but, he recalled, “my mind exploded” upon immersing himself in Yiddish studies and literature.
His debut album, “and all the days were purple” (2019), saw Weiser transforming Yiddish and English poetry into evocative post-minimalist soundscapes, a work lauded by The New Yorker as a “ravishing song cycle.”
Months into Weiser’s tenure at Yivo, the organization sought an education director. He prompted Kaplan to apply for the position, a natural progression given their friendship, which amusingly began at a Christmas party.
Kaplan, a native of Queens and Long Island, humorously admitted, “I didn’t expect to engage with anything Jewish after my bar mitzvah.” However, a Hebrew Bible as literature class at Williams College sparked a profound realization: “I felt a sense of betrayal—why wasn’t I taught this growing up?” he explained. This led him to fully embrace Jewish studies, adding it as a concentration.
Their previous collaboration, “State of the Jews”—an opera centered on the Zionist writer Theodor Herzl—premiered in 2019. A new inspiration struck Weiser after reading his friend Alec Burko’s Ph.D. thesis, which chronicled post-war academic endeavors to preserve Yiddish. “Alex declared, ‘Our next opera will be about a Yiddish dictionary,’” Kaplan recounted. “My initial reaction was, ‘Leave me alone.’ But then I read Burko’s dissertation, and everything changed.”
The Holocaust tragically claimed the lives of approximately half of the world’s Yiddish speakers. In its aftermath, many Jews, eager to assimilate, began to perceive Yiddish as a painful symbol of past subjugation, or simply as a crude, comical tongue. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, notoriously dismissed it as “a grating, foreign language” and imposed bans on Yiddish theater and newspapers. Kaplan aptly points out that the dictionary’s story extends far beyond mere lexicography.
“It’s a narrative steeped in memory and grief,” he observed, “exploring the delicate balance between what cultural elements can be preserved and what must inevitably be relinquished.”
It’s not a spoiler to reveal that Mark, who passed away in 1975, never finished his magnum opus. Yivo ultimately published four volumes, which regrettably do not extend past the letter ‘alef’ of the Yiddish alphabet. While two additional volumes have since been digitized and made available online, a complete documentation of all Yiddish words remains an unfulfilled endeavor.
For Weiser and Kaplan, “The Great Dictionary” transcends a simple tale of incompletion. Its true essence lies in the dynamic intellectual exchange—the “pilpul” in Yiddish—between Weinreich and Mark. This argumentative tradition, dating back two millennia to the Jewish sages Shammai and Hillel (and perhaps even to Abraham’s earnest plea to God concerning Sodom and Gomorrah), is deeply rooted in Jewish thought. The Mishnah, a third-century compendium of Jewish wisdom, even coined the term “argument for the sake of heaven” (or “machloket l’shem shamayim” in Hebrew) to highlight that scholarly debate is not just tolerated, but actively celebrated.
Yudel Mark, with clear foresight, understood that he would never complete the dictionary. In a letter preserved within Yivo’s extensive archives, he wrote to a colleague, “So we both will not live to see it. What of it?” This reflects a profound acceptance, valuing the process and the pursuit of knowledge over a definitive end.