noun
Meaning 1
Jewishness; the Jewish way of life, particularly Ashkenazi and Yiddish culture.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: uncountable
Examples
- 1969, Chaim Potok, The Promise, New York: Anchor Books, 2005, Chapter Six, “In America, everything is called Yiddishkeit,” Rav Kalman said. “A Jew travels to synagogue on Shabbos in his car, that is called Yiddishkeit. A Jew eats ham but gives money to philanthropy, that is called Yiddishkeit. A Jew prays three times a year but is a member of a synagogue, that is called Yiddishkeit. Judaism”—he pronounced the word in English, contemptuously: Joo-dah-eeism—“everything in America calls itself Judaism.”
- 2000, Curt Leviant (translator), “The Shochet’s Wife” in More Stories from My Father’s Court by Isaac Bashevis Singer (1956), New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 17, He wants a loose girl, a bareheaded piece who doesn’t keep Yiddishkeit.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: goyishkeit