MONTREAL — For the first time in Canadian history, Hebrew has eclipsed Yiddish as a mother tongue for Jews in Canada, as elderly speakers of the European language die off and as the flow of Israeli immigrants continues.

According to a new analysis by the Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies (ACS) of data from the 2006 census, there were 18,550 people in Canada whose first language was Hebrew, compared to 17,255 for Yiddish.

In 2001, the census numbers were 12,435 for Hebrew as a mother tongue and 19,295 for Yiddish.

That represents a 49 per cent increase in people with Hebrew as their mother tongue – including 40 per cent increases each in Montreal and Toronto – between 2001 and 2006, and a 10 per cent drop in people whose first language is Yiddish.

Going back even further, there has been a 20 per cent decline in native Yiddish speakers between 1996 and 2006, said Jack Jedwab, executive director of the ACS.

The obvious reason for Hebrew overtaking Yiddish is the accelerated attrition rate among elderly Yiddish-speaking Jews, Jedwab said, combined with rising immigration from Israel.

“Clearly, as these trends continue, Yiddish will be more part of Jewish folklore” than a meaningful currency in Jewish life, a regrettable if inevitable part of the Jewish future, he said.

“Yiddish will not be an important part of Jewish identity except at some sort of folkloric level, except maybe in chassidic communities,” Jedwab added. “The critical mass is declining.”

He noted that “Yiddish was once the third-most common language in Montreal. Now, in terms of the Jewish community in Canada, we see its inevitable decline, and it’s a deep, deep decline. It’s happening very fast.”

The ACS-crunched numbers reveal that while Montreal in 2006 had about twice as many native Yiddish speakers as Hebrew speakers – 8,545 versus 4,320 – it’s the exception to the rule.

Toronto, by comparison, had 10,245 people with Hebrew as their mother tongue, versus 6,520 for Yiddish.

“Montreal might be the only city in the world like that,” Jedwab said, “except maybe Brooklyn. I haven’t checked.”

The most dramatic, even “shocking,” figure for Jedwab was an almost 10,000 drop in the total number of Yiddish speakers – which encompasses “mother tongue” and “second-language” speakers – over the five years.

For all age cohorts, that figure plummeted from 37,010 to 27,605, or 25 per cent, while Hebrew speakers rose from 63,675 to 67,390. Yiddish speakers in Canada in the 65-and-over age group alone declined precipitously from 19,135 to 13,275 over the cited five-year period.

Jedwab praised educational institutions such as Montreal’s Jewish People’s and Peretz Schools (JPPS) and its affiliate, Bialik High School – one of two mainstream Jewish schools in Canada, along with Bialik Hebrew Day School in Toronto – for incorporating Yiddish into their core curricula.

He also rued the fact that once the current Yiddish-speaking generations die off, many Jews might never be exposed to the the great works of Yiddish literature and culture.

Yet, despite the lack of institutional support, the rich cultural legacy of Yiddish remains an intrinsic part of the North American Jewish sensibility, and even the modern English language, Jedwab said.

“I think the future importance of Yiddish will depend much more on the personal connections to it that are established, because it is simply not on the Jewish community agenda,” he said.

Moreover, Jedwab said, the decline in Yiddish and rise in Hebrew as the lingua franca of the Jewish people is also taking place at a global level, which reflects the success of Zionism in resurrecting the biblical language.

“The current state of Yiddish is part of the shifting patterns of Jewish identity.” Jedwab said.

The huge drop-off in Canada “is shocking, but it is not surprising,” he added.

The ACS study also notes that the rise in Hebrew usage in Canada is part of a growing trend of Israeli immigration to North America that “has never been more significant,” Jedwab said.

“In the first six years of the 21st century, it is already safe to project that the total for the decade 2000 to 2009 will surpass any single decade since 1950,” Jedwab said.

In 2005 and 2006 alone, 13,630 Israelis immigrated to North America.