Zamenhof and Religion

He made a language and a religion.

This post is appropriate for today, because as I type this shabbat is approaching; I have a challah rising in the kitchen. It is also my 300th post, and since Esperanto is the most popular subject with the readers of my blog,[1] it’s fitting that the 300th should be about Zamenhof.

I’ve noted before that Zamenhof was involved in the early Zionist movement, although he was skeptical that a Jewish state could be created in Palestine. But let us be clear, despite the mistaken assumptions of George Macloskie, Zamenhof was not a Roman Catholic,[2] but a Jew. Yet, his own involvement in Judaism seems to have had a bit of complexity to it.

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Professor Teaches Esperanto at Start of Peripatetic Career

Esperanto: It's all the rage!

The Salt Lake Herald devoted an entire column to Esperanto in its October 8, 1906 edition,[1] noting that the language “is all the rage just now with linguists and students of ethnology the world over.” I’m not sure why it would be the rage with students of ethnology[2] (or even that it were), though it certainly garnered a lot of interest among linguists and other sorts of language experts. Their article cited two professors, with apparently nothing in common but Esperanto. In the early period, Esperanto did have a great deal of popularity among academics.

The article starts by mentioning that, George Wise, a University of Utah professor would be leading a group in the study of Esperanto. After a lengthy description of Esperanto, a sample, and a translation, we get to another professor, George Macloskie of Princeton University.[3] I’ll excerpt that too, since it makes a surprising (and inaccurate) claim.

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You can follow my blog on Twitter (@impofthediverse) or on Facebook. If you like this post, share it with your friends. If you have a comment just for me, e-mail me at impofthediverse@gmail.com.

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