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Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe
Syosset, New York
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Nora Ephron, "shrayber" (writer), "mekhaber" (author), producer and
director, passed away on Tuesday, June 26,
2012, from Leukemia. She was the
acclaimed author of the screenplays, "When
Harry Met Sally" and "Silkwood." She was
71.
She wrote, "...I don't think of myself as a Jewish humorist or a Jewish writer in any real way, even though in some way, I think of myself as a Jew. Or as Jewish, but not a Jew; or as a Jew, but not Jewish." You "farshteyn?" (You understand?) I'm confused!
Shown below is the Yiddish Guide to Nora Ephron:
"arumforn" (to travel)
[When asked about having to travel for
chunks of time]
"Well, when I finally went off to do my first
movie, the kids were, I think, 11 and 10, and I thought, well that's more than half their
childhood they've spent basically thinking
I was Barbara Bush...I did the latkes and all
that stuff at the nursery school Passover. So I thought when I left for a bit of time...they'd be fine...But there's no question it would have been better for them if I hadn't gone."
(Source: The Forward)
"farhandlung" (negotiation), 6/29/12
Colin Callender said that his team "can
think of no more fitting tribute to her
[Ephron's] extraordinary writing and
remarkable body of work" than to proceed with plans to produce Ephron's play," The Associated Press reports.
Ephron wrote a play about journalist,
Mike McAlary, who won a Pulitzer Price in
1998 for his coverage of the brutalization of
Abner Louima. Tom Hanks was reported to
be in negotiations to play McAlary in "Lucky
Boy." Hanks starred in "Sleepless in Seattle."
"baytl" (purse)
"Anything is better than carrying a purse...
Before you know it, your purse weighs
twenty pounds and you are in grave danger
of getting bursitis and needing an operation just from carrying it around."
(Source: "I Feel Bad About My Neck And
Other thoughts on Being a Woman")
"get" (divorce)
Ephron was divorced from writer, Dan Greenberg and journalist, Carl
Bernstein. At the time of her death she was married to Nicholas Pilleggi.
Ephron writes about the "D" word. No,
it's not "dumkop" (dumb), or "draikop" (scatterbrain). The "D" word is divorce.
She was married three times, and
writes, "The best divorce is the kind where
there are no children." She wrote about
her second divorce in the novel named, "Heartburn."
"heym" (home)
Ephron grew up in a home where her
parents were anti-religious. She was
raised without any Jewish education by
atheist parents.
"hor" (hair)
According to Ephron, "In the 1950s, only 7
percent of American women dyed their
hair; today there are parts of Manhattan
and Los Angeles where there are no
gray-haired women at all."
"humoristish" (humorous)
Ephron compares Jewish humor in Israel
and New York: She says that Jewish humor--whatever it is--partly comes from
being in a minority. "In my stereotype
of Jews, one thing I love is how funny they
are--how funny at their own expense they
are. You don't see a lot of that in Israel
So I began to wonder whether being in a
majority was bad for their sense of humor."
"fuftsik" (50)
Andy Borowitz says that "Trying to rank artists is a trick business." He considered
Nora Ephron to be one of the 50th funniest
American writers.
"kokhbikher" (cookbooks)
"Just before I moved to New York, two
historic events had occurred. The birth
control pill had been invented, and the
first Julia Child cookbook was published.
As a result, everyone was having sex, and
when the sex was over, you cooked
something."
(Source: "I Feel Bad About My Neck....")
"kaledzh"/"universitet" (college)
Ephron went to Wellesley College, where
she found the Jewish girls to be opinionated and vital and fun and funny
("komish"). She said, "It was definitely an advantage to be Jewish at Wellesley because there were so many Jewish guys at Harvard and Harvard Law School. And a lot of them were under strict orders to date Jewish girls. The Jewish girls at Wellesley and Radcliffe had, I think, a much more active social life than anyone." She graduated in 1962.
"kinder" (children)
"kinderlech" (affectionate term for children)
Carl Bernstein, husband #2, is the father of
her two sons, Jacob and Max.
"kocheffel" (busy-body)
{regarding her doorman]
Ephron's doorman provided a running commentary on everyone who lived in the
building. She wrote, "Whenever I came
home, my boys, my babysitter, my sister
[Delia], my brother-in-law, and even Rosie
[O'Donnell], who painted her apartment
orange, installed walls of shelves for her
extensive collection of Happy Meal Toys,
feuded with her neighbors about her dogs,
fought with the landlord about the fact
that her washing machine was somehow
irrevocably hooked up to the bathroom
drain, and moved out."
"megillah" (the whole works; the complete
details)
a "gantse megillah" is "a big deal."
"When someone says, 'Oh, you're a woman
writer' or 'You're a woman director' then
you kind of say, 'Really? Is that what you
think I am? Don't I make movies?" But
Ephron is not bothered that she calls people on it. "I'm not that interested in
making--as a Jew would say--a megillah
out of it."
Menopause
"Ich dark es vi a lock in kop."
(I need it like a hole in the head.)
Ephron writes, "But then, along came
menopause. And with it, my mustache
changed: It was no longer dormant, incipient, and threatening; it was now just
plain there."
"Nitl" (Christmas) according to Naday Ben- Ami Ephron celebrated Christmas; she loves Christmas. She always went to school on the Jewish holidays "because my mother said, 'What are you going to do if you stay at home?'"
"nogl" (finger nail)
Ephron writes, "And then one day, like
mushrooms, a trillion nail places appeared
in Manhattan. Suddenly, there were more
nail places than there were liquor stores,
or Kinko's, or opticians, or dry cleaners, or locksmiths, and there are way more of all
of those in Manhattan than you can ever
understand."
"rozhinke" (raisin)
Ephron covered the 1967 nuptials of Pres.
Johnson's daughter, Lynda Bird. She wrote,
"And, by the way, there are 1,511 raisins in
the wedding cake."
(Source: New York Post, 6/28/12)
"sheyn" (pretty)
Ephron describes the word "maintenance":
"You know what maintenance is, I'm sure.
Maintenance is what they mean when they
say, 'After a certain point, it's just patch,
patch, patch. Maintenance is what you have
to do just so you can walk out the door
knowing that if you go to the market and
bump into a guy who once rejected you,
you won't have to hide behind a stack of
canned food."
"shloftsimer" (bedroom)
According to Ephron, "Your child's room.
Do not under any circumstances leave your
child's room as is. Your child's room is not a shrine. It's not going to the Smithsonian.
Turn it into a den, a gym, a guest room, or
(if you already have all three), a room for
wrapping Christmas presents. Do this as soon as possible. Leaving your child's room
as is may encourage your child to return.
You do not want this." (2006 advice)
"skhires" (salary)
During Ephron's first day working for The
Post, she was sent to the Coney Island
Aquariu;m to write about two hooded
seals who were supposed to mate...and had
refused to. Her salary: $98 a week.
"stanik" (brassiere)
"I started with a 28 AA bra. I don't think
they made them any smaller in those days,
although I gather that now you can buy
bras for five-year-olds that don't have any
cups whatsoever in them; trainer bras
they're called. My first brassierre came from Robinson's Department Store in
Beverly Hills. I went there alone, shaking,
positive they would look me over and
smile and tell me to come back next year."
[Note: She later bought a Mark Eden Bust
Developer and slept on her back for four
years!) "Genug iz genug!" (Enough is
enough) on this topic!
(Source: "A Few Words about Breasts")
"tate"/mame" (parents)
Ephron writes, "Parenting meant playing
Mozart CDs while you were pregnant,
doing without the epidural and breast-
feeding your child until it was old enough
to unbutton your blouse."
"Yizroel" (Israel)
Ephron visited Israel during the 1973 Yom
Kippur War.
'yung froy' (young woman)
[about her internship in the JFK White
House]:
"...I am probably the only young woman
who ever worked in the Kennedy White
House that the president did not make a
pass at. Perhaps it was my permanent wave,
which was a truly unfortunate mistake.
Perhaps it was my wardrobe, which mostly
consisted of multicolored Dynel dresses
that looked like distilled Velveeta cheese.
Perhaps it's because I'm Jewish. Don't
laugh; think about it--think about that long
list of women JFK slept with. Were any of
them Jewish? I don't think so."
(Source: " Feel Bad About My Neck and
other thoughts on being a woman")
FYI: In another article, Ephron stated,
"The truth is, he did have an affair with a
Jewish person, a couple of times"
--------------------------------------------
Marjorie Wolfe suggests reading "Stars of
David - Prominent Jews Talk About Being
Jewish" by Abigail Pogrebin.
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