QUOTE (Tova @ Mar 3 2008, 10:25 AM)

Is Yiddishkeit supposed to mean Judaism or frumkeit?
It certainly doesn't mean "Judaism".
Years ago, the word "Yiddishkeit" was often used to mean the Yiddish language and Ashkenazi culture and idiosyncracies.
Most people outside Yiddishist circles use the word today as a rough equivalent of "frumkeit". (although "frumkeit" can sometimes have more of a "machmir" connotation than "yiddishkeit")
I don't know what the initial meaning of the term was, and who hijacked whose word.
My gut feeling is that the word was coined up by Yiddishists to distinguish Jewish quasi-religious and non-religious culture from Judaism ("Yiddentum") and the term was later hijacked by Haredim to mean the opposite of its original meaning, the same way zionists hijacked the term "self-hating Jew" which originally was a word used by Reform people to describe observant Jews as self-flagellating, and reversed it to mean "Jewish anti-semite".