"If Yiddish is abandoned, its true adversary, the language of the country, will be victorious and complete assimilation, the destruction of our nation, which our traitors anticipate, will come about. With the destruction of the most important criterion of our nationhood, the language which stamps us with a unique individuality, our nation will lose its soldarity and disintegrate. With its language our people will lose its individual content, its soul, a unique world of spirit and life." - Matisyohu Mieses 1907