Mordkhe_Schaechter Itsye Mordkhe Schaechter (; December 1, 1927-February 15, 2007) was a leading Yiddish linguist, as well as a writer and educator who spent a lifetime studying, standardizing and teaching the language. Dr. Schaechter, whose passion for Yiddish dated to his boyhood in Romania, dedicated his life to reclaiming Yiddish as a living language for the descendants of its first speakers, the Ashkenazic Jewry of central and eastern Europe.