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"GENUG IZ GENUG"*
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*"Genug iz genug" is a Yiddish expression for "enough is enough."
Jewish mama, Rivka,
tottered into a lawyer's office and told him she wanted a divorce.
"A divorce?" asked the shocked lawyer.
"Tell me, how old are you?"
"Ninety--this July," answered Rivka.
"And how old is your husband?"
"He's ninety-two."
"And how long have you been married?" he
asked in disbelief.
"September will be seventy years."
"And children?"
"Four. Gorgeous."
"Why would you want a divorce now?"
"Because," said Rivka..."enough is enough"
(Source: "Yiddishe Mamas - The Truth
About The Jewish Mother" by Marnie
Winston-Macauley)
"Genug," according to the "Dictionary of
Jewish Words" by Eisenberg and Scolnic,
is Yiddish for ENOUGH. Often used in the
expression "Genug es genug!" (Enough is
enough!) Their example: "When she got
home from the Bas Mitzvah, she talked my
head off and described every detail until I
had to tell her 'genug!'"
Then there's the story of the little old man
who approached his boss timidly.
"Mr. Shlepper, can I have tomorrow off?
It's my golden anniversary and we're having
a big party at Carlyle On the Green,
Bethpage State Park, Farmingdale, New
York."
"By God!" snarled Shlepper, "Genug es
genug! Will I have to put up with this
chutzpah every fifty years?"
The expression, "enough is enough" can be
found very frequently in newspapers and
magazines.
Senator Barack Obama recently said, "Enough!" Mr. Obama said, interrupting
a
speech in Norfolk, Virginia, on eduation to address the latest controversy
in the heated
presidential campaign. "I don't care what
they say about me, but I love this country
too much to let them take over another
election with lies and phony outrage and
Swift Boat politics. Enough is enough."
He also told a ballpark packed with 11,000
people, "At this defining moment [Sept. 2008], we have the chance to
finally stand up and say, enough is enough."
ww.treehugger.com contained an article
titled, "Monster Homes: Enough is Enough." Lloyd Alter stated that
Boulder,
Colorado, is forcing people to pay extra for
a home over 3,000 square feet Atlantic
Beach and Minneapolis are restricting houses to half the square footage of
the
lot... "Home Entertainment Centers" used to
be a TV set and a video recorder, said
John R. Nolan. "Now it's an entire room."
And "TheDoctor" wrote the following
email to hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com:
Genuz iz Genug
Dear George, Dick and John:
Please tell your friends to stay out of my
pocketbook. I can no longer afford to bail
them out. They are simply going to have to
pull themselves up by their boot straps.
John, I know Fannie and her friend Freddie
have given you over $12.5 millions in the
last nine years so maybe you can sell off a
few of those houses and help them out of
this mess.
See I already have my hands full at the
moment. Thanks to George and his friends
I'm paying $4/gal + for gas. Dick's got
some more of my funds tied up in this
project called Iraq. In fact, if I were you
guys, I would check with them. I hear they
have an $80 billion surplus.
Not to mention, the increase in grocery
prices, the declining purchasing power of
the American family since you've taken
office and the record foreclosures that
have my house values dropping daily.
Your pals have done a lot of damage as of
late. My 401k, my mutual funds, they've all
taken a beaten thanks to your buddies. I
can't even begin to tell you what they've
done to inflation.
Again, I'm sorry I can't help out this time.
But you can tell them I gave at work when
my job told me I had to re-locate due to
cost saves. I gave when the realtor knocked
on my door at home and told me my house
was only worth 3/4 of what I paid for it,
and oh and George I continue to give to
your friends weekly at the local BP.
So to you and your pals, good luck. I have
no more to give.
Respectfully,
Your Tax Paying Middle-Class American
And, finally, Leslea Newman, author of "Heather Has Two Mommies," writes about
growing up in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.
She wrote, "No seder would ever be complete without my grandmother's famous
matzo ball soup. I'd ask her how
many carrots to put in, how much celery.
"Enough" was her stock reply. "But how do
you know how much is enough?" I'd press
her. "When you're old enough to know,
you'll know" she'd say, adding a bissl salt."
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