SHIYE (SHIKL, JOSHUA) FISHMAN

SHIYE (SHIKL, JOSHUA) FISHMAN (July 18, 1926-March 1, 2015)

            The brother of Rokhl Fishman, he was born in Philadelphia.  He received a secular Jewish and a general education.  He was professor of sociology, psychology, and humanities at universities in Philadelphia, New York, and California.  He took up leading positions in Jewish and general education and research institutes.  He was a contributor and a director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and for research on the role of foreign languages in America.  He composed an important work on the rise and fall of the Yiddish language in the United States.  From his youth he was active in Jewish cultural life.  He was cofounder of the Y. L. Perets youth club, among other institutions, in Philadelphia.  For many years he worked with YIVO and received from it first prize in a scholarly essay contest.  He wrote a long work for YIVO, entitled Amerikaner yidntum vi an obyekt far sotsyaler forshung (American Judaism as an object for social research).  He was the author of important studies of Jewish education, cultural issues, and language problems.  He cofounded and co-edited the publication for youth, Yugntruf (Call to youth), in Philadelphia (1943).  He contributed articles, reviews of books, and fragments of his major work, “Yidish un andere shprakhn in amerike” (Yiddish and other languages in America), in: Tsukunft (Future), Tog (Day), Tog-morgn-zhurnal (Day-morning journal), Idisher kemfer (Jewish fighter), Yivo-bleter (Pages from YIVO), Bleter far yidisher dertsiung (Pages for Jewish education), and Afn shvel (At the threshold), among others, in New York.  He contributed to the jubilee volume honoring Max Weinreich: For Max Weinreich on His Seventieth Birthday: Studies in Jewish Languages, Literature, and Society (The Hague: Mouton, 1964), pp. 44-57.  From 1960 he was associated with Yeshiva University.  He gave important speeches in Yiddish and English at scholarly conferences. 

            From 1966 he was dean of the Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology and Sociology at Yeshiva University in New York.  Aside for numerous essays in the field of his specialty, he published many research articles on Yiddish language in Yiddish periodicals: bilingualism in Jewish schools (Bleter far yidisher dertsiung [Pages for Jewish education] in New York, April 1951); ethnic languages in America (Tsukunft [Future] in New York, 1963); the Jewish environment and the international academic environment (in M. Shtarkman, ed., Khesed leavrom [Grace to Abraham], Los Angeles, 1970); the sociology of Yiddish in America, 1960-1970, and thereafter (Di goldene keyt [The golden chain] in Tel Aviv 75, 1972); what can the function of Yiddish in Israel be? (Idisher kemfer [Jewish fighter] in New York, April 1974); Jerusalem “World Conference for Yiddish and Yiddish Culture” (Yidishe shprakh [Yiddish language] in New York, 1976, 35: 1-3, 16-31); and is there hope still for Yiddish in America (Davke [Necessarily] in Buenos Aires, 82: 1981, pp. 62-74); among others.  He also conducted considerable research on Yiddish for English-language publications and a bit in Hebrew as well.  He translated, with Shlomo Nobel, Max Weinreich’s Geshikhte fun der yidisher shprakh (History of the Yiddish language) (Chicago, 1980).  In book form: Never Say Die: A Thousand Years of Yiddish in Jewish Life and Letters (The Hague: Mouton, 1981).  He died in the Bronx.

Sources: Yankev Glatshteyn, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (August 23, 1960); Sh. Izban, in Der amerikaner (New York) (October 5, 1960); M. Sh. Shklarski, in Kultur un dertsiung (New York) (January 1961); Khane Miler, in Yugntruf (New York) (June 1965); A. Glants, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (April 17, 1966).

Khayim Leyb Fuks

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), cols. 443-44.]

(N.B. For a fuller bibliography of J. Fishman’s numerous writings, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Fishman#cite_note-Hult-1 [JAF].)