Yiddish in Israel?? Oxymoron?

I'm pretty much pushed/required to take Yiddish over the summer by my department. I'm willing go with it to avoid another class with undergraduates and to stay with my friend who just wants this out of the way. The department said, "Do it at YIVO in New York, or go to Tel Aviv, but we like YIVO because A) We really trust it and B) You can get research done!" After talking to another friend who did research and study at YIVO last summer, I am deciding against it. She told me that she literally had no time to do her research because the course was full-time. So, if it's going to be a full-time thing, I might as well go to Israel and use my free time to see my family and friends, right? It's my logic.

But Yiddish in Israel? It would be very weird to speak a galut language in the Holy Land. I know that the haredim do speak it in Mea She'arim because they believe that Hebrew is a holy language and should not be spoke on the streets. As a Zionist, I think that Hebrew should be spoken and understood to some extent by many Jews, wherever they can, in the synagogue or on the streets. Given my lack of practice in Hebrew this year, it would be an upside to go back to Israel and speak it again on a daily basis outside of my Yiddish classes. I doubt that my progress will be a different than if I go to YIVO. You step out of the classroom, there isn't any Yiddish on the streets to unconciously learn from.

I told some of my Israeli friends that I might be back but they question why am I not studying Hebrew anymore. I explained that American Jews spoke Yiddish but not Hebrew so therefore I must study Yiddish. (They keep complimenting how great my Hebrew writing skills are...)

After a semester of Yiddish, I still don't feel that bond. I think it's cool but I'm not crazy about it enough to really devote myself to it passionately as I do with Hebrew. Maybe it's another sign that I've been in Israel too long. But at least I know that it can be a marketable skill if I move to Israel if things don't work out here in the US at all.

Those settler riots are scaring me, to be honest. It's so shameful to see fellow Jews commit acts of violence on others. But I do hope that things will quell after the February election. And to even harm Jerusalem's security, the city that they want to protect and defend fiercely.