Kazuo Ueda (born 1943) is a Japanese linguist and scholar. He is Japan's leading Yiddishist.

Ueda graduated from Kōchi University and received a master's degree in German literature from the University of Tokyo. While studying German-language Jewish writer Franz Kafka in graduate school, he learned of Yiddish. He said it fascinated him because reading it felt like solving a puzzle. He was mostly self-taught, with some aid from Japan's limited Jewish community and multiple visits to Israel. One of two scholars to introduce the study of Yiddish to Japan, Ueda published the first Japanese examination of Yiddish grammar and literature in 1970, the first Japanese book on Yiddish in 1985, and the first Japanese dictionary on Yiddish in 2010. His Yiddish dictionary was the first in a non-European language, besides Hebrew. Ueda also worked on Ladino, as a scholar of Kafka, and on Jewish studies. Beginning in 1969 and until he retired in 2012, Ueda was a German studies professor at Ehime, Kōchi, and Fukuoka University.

Early life and education

Kazuo Ueda was born in 1943 in Osaka and grew up in the Kyoto Prefecture. He graduated from Kōchi University. He then received a master's degree in German literature from the University of Tokyo. He learned of Yiddish while studying German-language Jewish writer Franz Kafka in graduate school, with sources differing on whether it was from reading his diaries or literature, or from a lecturer, , offhandedly mentioning that Kafka was interested in Yiddish theater. He began studying Biblical Hebrew in 1967 while attending the university and then he spent four years learning Modern Hebrew at the Jewish Community of Japan. He often came to Japan's only synagogue for assistance but mostly taught himself, by reading Yiddish newspapers and literature. Marvin Tokayer, then the only rabbi in Japan, recalled that Ueda called him from a payphone in 1969 and, after being surprised that he knew Yiddish, Tokayer asked to meet with him. He recalled that Ueda read the Yiddish publication Jewish Morning Journal while riding the Tokyo subway, often asked him questions about Yiddish vocabulary and listened to tapes of him singing Yiddish lullabies, with Tokayer saying that he had taught himself a "very respectable" amount of Yiddish. Ueda credits his interest in Yiddish to its uniqueness and because reading it felt like solving a puzzle.

In July 1971, Ueda came to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on a one-year grant from the Israeli government to learn more about Yiddish. He focused on his Hebrew by attending an ulpan given by the university and also attended Yiddish clubs in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Ueda visited Israel multiple times, including another stay at the Hebrew University from 1983 to 1984, and for a time he lived in the Yiddish-speaking Haredi neighborhood Mea Shearim. Yiddish scholar Yechiel Szeintuch later recalled Ueda saying that studying Yiddish was similar to an onion, in that it had layers, and so to understand Yiddish he had to understand Hebrew, Hassidim, and other similar topics. Ueda also studied at the Uriel Weinreich summer course at Columbia University in 1975. Career Ueda began teaching at the German department of Ehime University in Matsuyama in 1969. He was one of two scholars to introduce the study of Yiddish to Japan, alongside linguist , who learned Yiddish c. 1970 while in Bonn. Ueda is Japan's leading Yiddishist and was the only Japanese extensively working on Yiddish linguistics for some time. Before Ueda began his work, Yiddish's presence in Japan was limited to translations of translations of Yiddish literature. Ueda's first work on Yiddish, a 1970 journal article on Yiddish grammar, was the first Japanese examination of Yiddish grammar and literature. For a time Ueda was a professor of German at Kōchi University. His works often compared Yiddish and German. One 1980 work that did so faced criticism as too brief and simplistic by Yiddish scholar David L. Gold, albeit with Gold allowing that his examination was somewhat unfair as he did not speak Japanese.

Ueda's Idisshugo bunpoo nyuumon / Arajnfir in der jidišer gramatik, a primer on Yiddish grammar, was published by in 1985. It was the first Japanese book on Yiddish. Syndicated freely online at the Northern California Jewish Bulletin. It is 267 pages long and includes standard features of grammar books, an introduction to the history of Yiddish, and brief directions to resources and institutions which focus on Yiddish. The book follows YIVO's 1926 orthography while noting Soviet practices. It does not include reader exercises. Stanley Dubinsky and Paul Wexler reviewed it as valuable and competent. They identified its target audience as Japanese specialists in German, the same as Ueda's background, while noting that it does not compare the two as in Ueda's prior work and that it did account for the language's complexity for learners. They had minor criticisms of its discussion of Yiddish grammar sometimes being unnecessarily vague, not in-depth enough, and forgetting exceptions or minor elements; for instance, it transliterates but never defines rabbi and rebbe. While crediting its history of Yiddish for being the first in Japanese, they found that it contained some inaccuracies and outdated theories. Masato Satoo, Daigaku Syorin's president, stated that the company would continue to publish works on Yiddish in an effort to eliminate what he called a Japanese prejudice towards only learning "'great' Western European languages". The book had 2,000 copies printed, which Ueda credited to Japanese interest in learning foreign languages.

Ueda also worked extensively on compiling and translating into German four Yiddish plays that Kafka saw and commented on in his diary. This effort made the plays widely accessible. His works often compared Yiddish and German. Ueda attributed an increased interest in Yiddish among Japanese to its significance in Jewish American literature. The Japanese Association for Yiddish Studies was founded in 1988 by Ueda, comparative literature professor , and German assistant professor Kurahei Ogino, and in 1992 it had about 20 members. Ueda professed an interest in teaching a course on Yiddish. In 1995, he published a parallel text book chrestomathy for Japanese learners which included three short stories by Yiddish writers Avrom Reyzen, I. L. Peretz, and Sholem Aleichem, and he also coauthored two Japanese-Yiddish phrasebooks with American Yiddishist Troim Katz Handler. Handler recalled that she had never spoke or met with Ueda and that she only communicated with him through her Yiddish typewriter. He also published a bilingual glossary. Ueda later lived on Kyushu and was a professor at the German department of Fukuoka University. Ueda also worked on the Sephardic language Ladino, writing two works on it after compiling a vocabulary list of Aki Yerushalayim; he said this effort was part of his broader work on Jewish languages. Ueda also worked on Jewish studies, publishing multiple books on it, including his 1986 book The Jews and his 1996 book Yiddish Culture: The Spiritual Heritage of Eastern European Jews.

Magnum opus and retirement

Ueda compiled and edited the unidirectional Japanese-Yiddish dictionary Idisshugo Jiten, which was published by Daigaku Syorin in 2010. It was the first of its kind and the first Yiddish dictionary in a non-European language, besides Hebrew. Ueda considers it his magnum opus. It is 1,302 pages long and has over 28,000 entries. He was aided by Yiddish scholars Holger Nath and Boris Kotlerman. Kotlerman said that he worked on thousands of words, particularly Slavisms, and that Nath focused on Germanisms, with Ueda also being aided by Japanese assistants fluent in Russian and English. Linguist Ross Perlin said that translating Yiddish and Japanese must have been challenging and called it "serious but accessible". He found the dictionary's merits to include the use of YIVO's orthography and friendly transliteration-style, appropriate examples largely taken from Sovetish Heymland, and markings for words that are Slavisms, Germanisms, and Hebraisms. Perlin also applauded the use of entries from Uriel Weinreich's well-regarded Yiddish dictionary, while noting that Ueda's work had surpassed Weinreich's in length.

As of 2012, the dictionary cost ¥60,000, which was then over $770. Japanese Yiddishist praised the dictionary, except for its price, and Tokayer joked that he would buy it used. The publisher declined to provide details on its sales but said they were likely tiny, with the book's target audience of Japanese Yiddishists not being large. Ueda said he wrote it because he enjoyed learning about Yiddish, saying that he did not expect it to spur new interest in Yiddish. Ueda said that he felt the dictionary was cheap considering that it took 20 years of labor and associated health costs. His wife Kazuko said that he worked on it constantly. Before it was completed, he began showing signs of Parkinson's disease. Kazuko blamed his work on the dictionary for aggravating it, and Ueda's doctors said the work may have shortened his life. In March 2012, he retired from Fukuoka University, and as of April 2012, he struggled to speak or walk. In an interview with NPR, Ueda said that he did not regret working on the dictionary, which he pats before going to bed.

Legacy

Jack Halpern, a Yiddish-speaking linguist living in Japan, praised Ueda but described the reaction of Jews who learn of his work as befuddlement, and in 1971 Ueda recalled that many Israelis he met were surprised about his interest in Yiddish. He described this as regrettable and theorized it was possibly because Yiddish "reflects the tragic history of the Jews". In 1984, he recalled his disappointment at the reaction of many Israelis and reiterated his theory. However, he said he had come to understand the reaction, while maintaining the value of Yiddish and its literature. In 2012, Sadan estimated that there were less than 20 Japanese fluent in Yiddish, while noting that a larger number had some fluency. Rebecca White of the Yiddish Book Center noted that Ueda's works were the most notable Japanese works on Yiddish culture. At the time she wrote, the center had not been able to acquire his dictionary but it had acquired his 1970 journal article on Yiddish grammar, his 1985 primer on Yiddish grammar, and his parallel text book. Japanese Yiddish scholar Yuu Nishimura credited Ueda's achievements, alongside those of Nishi and the research of others, with making Yiddish more accessible in Japan and spurring an increased interest in Jewish history.

Partial bibliography The following partial bibliography is not complete. It includes all of Ueda's works on Yiddish published before 1990, and some other works.

Books

Ueda, Kazuo (1985). Idisshugo bunpoo nyuumon / Arajnfir in der jidišer gramatik [Introduction to Yiddish Grammar]. Tokyo: . — (1986). Yudaya-jin [The Jews]. Tokyo: Kodansha. — (1993). Idisshugo kiso 6000 go [6000 Yiddish Words for Daily Life]. Tokyo: . —; Handler, Troim Katz (1995). Idisshugo kaiwa renshuu-choo [Conversations: Japanese-English-Yiddish]. Tokyo: . — (1996). イディッシュ文化─東欧ユダヤ人のこころの遺産 [Yiddish Culture: The Spiritual Heritage of Eastern European Jews]. Tokyo: Sanseido. — (1999). [1500 Basic Words of Judeo-Spanish]. Tokyo: . —; Handler, Troim Katz (2000). [Dialogues for Students of Yiddish in Japan]. — (2002). [Collection of Vocabulary of Judeo-Spanish]. Fukuoka University. —; Nath, Holger; Kotlerman, Boris (2010). Idisshugo Jiten [Yiddish-Japanese Dictionary]. Tokyo: . .

Journal articles and chapters Ueda, Kazuo (February 1970). "Idisshugo bunpoo gairyaku" [Yiddish Grammar in Brief]. Ehime Daigaku Kyokobu kiyo [Memoirs of the Faculty of General Education, Ehime University] (2). Matsuyama: 111–151 — (1970). "Idisshugo gairyaku" [Yiddish in Brief]. Yudaya isuraeru kenkyuu [Study of Judaism and Israel] (7). Tokyo: 26–31