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LOOK WHO'S TALKING YIDDISH
Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe
Syosset, New York
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LOOK WHO'S TALKING YIDDISH
According to Gerard Silvain and Henri Minczeles ("Yiddishlnd"), "The number of Yiddish speakers today is estimated at barely one million. Enclaves remain where the mame loshn is still spoken and taught: the Yiddish-speaking communities of Paris and New York, Oxford University, the ultra-religious communities in Borough Park, Brooklyn, the Mea Shearim in Jerusalem. It is still spoken by the Litvaks of Tel Aviv and Johannesburg, by the retired couples of Florida and the scattered survivors of the Shoah wherever they are, most of whom are now more than sixty years old, and of course by a few fanatic lovers of the language and Yiddish culture."
Let's examine the newspapers, magazines, and books to see who is talking Yiddish:
l. Yiddish word
2. Who used it?
3. Quote
1. "bisl"
2. Colin Powell
3. "I really do not speak Yiddish. Ah--
maybe a bisl."
1. "spilkes"
2. William (Bill) Safire
3. "Yiddishisms enliven the English
language (a State Department official
on pins and needles reports that 'this
place is on spilkes') and in the American
cuisine, the consumption of bagels has
now passed that of doughnuts, as
ethnic distinctiveness melts into the
American pot."
1. "klutz"
2 William (Bill) Safire
3. "According to Sol [Steinmetz], a
data-bank search shows klutz to be
among the Top 10 Yiddishisms in
English. the others: glitsch, kosher,
bagel, maven, mensch, schlock,
schmooze, tush and chutzpah.
If you don't know those words, you will have difficulty being understood in English. (I'm a langauge maven, occasionally a financial klutz.)
1. "schmear"
2. Faith Popcorn ("Clicking")
3. "But why haven't the bakers Clicked into
the full Bagel Shop range: sesame,
garlic, onion, poppyseed, the new
green-tinted spinach, and the most-
popular 'everything' bagel, so perfect
with a schmear of low-fat vegetable
cream cheese."
1. "schlemazel"
2. Susan Yankowitz ("Night Star)
3. "And if your friend calls you 'schlemazel'
for spilling ink on your exam, are you
aware that's Yiddish for someone born
under an unlucky star?"
1. "goyisha"
2. Wendy Wasserstein
3. "I'm a dramatist and I look for what is
interesting. Conflict is interesting. I
believe in our society there is a conflict
among people about what sort of Jew
they are and how to deal with their
Jewishness--how in all the Woody Allen
movies he always falls in love with the
goyisha girl."
(On a personal note, Marjorie wishes her
a "gezunt vern"--a get well wish; a
speedy recovery.)
1. "putz"
2. Norman Pearlatine (New York Magazine)
3. "If you call someone a putz, you should
know it doesn't just mean a stupid
person."
1. "tsuriktsien zikh" (to retire)
2. Mel Brooks
3. "Do I lift, do I drive, am I bagging
groceries at a very busy supermarket?
No, I sit with a little pencil and if I have
an idea, I write it down. It's light work.
I can do that forever."
1. "klutz"
2. Art Buchwald ("Laid Back in
Washington")
3. "I stepped on a tennis ball this summer
while running for another ball. I
wouldn't mention it except that Time
magazine did a piece on people over 40
who still think they are youngsters when
it comes to sports. They ran a picture of
me in a leg cast (I had a badly sprained
ankle) and they called me a 'klutz,'
which means a klunk who doesn't know
what he's doing."
1. "schmooze"
2. Rabbi Perry Raphael Rank
Midway Jewish Center, Syosset, NY
3. "In short, thou shalt shmooze, perhaps
not during the rabbi's sermon or when
the cantor is singing Hineni, but at
other discreet moments, cast off your
inhibitions and make your neighbor
feel at home." :-)
1. "chutzpah"
2. James P. Pinkerton (Newsday)
3. "Hillary Clinton may have come by way
of Illinois, Arkansas, and Washington,
but she's all the New Yorker she needs
to be: She's mastered chutzpah."
1. "chutzpa"
2. Michael Wolff (New York Magazine)
3. "The stories of his [Steven Brill] financial
ups and downs, his deals, his battles,
his chutzpa, are legion...He is what my
father used to call 'an operator.'"
1. "kineahora"
2. Roz Starr
3. "Ours was a bilingual home. 'Nem the
milk and put it in the refrigerator,'
mother would say, or 'Famacht the door
on your way out.' She believed in
kineahora to ward off the evil eye..."
1. "patshke"
2. Judge Judy Sheindlin
3. "The pay is good. I get someone to
patshke with my face and I look good."
1. "tsuris"
2. Deborah Orin ("Inside Washington")
3. "What's in it for New York if Hillary
Clinton becomes the Empire State's
next senator? Most likely, nothing but
tsuris. Which, for visiting Arkanans who
don't know Yiddish, means a whole lot
of trouble."
1. "schlep"
2. Rod Dreher (New York Post)
3. "If you lived in Cobble Hill and wanted
to taste the burned-to-a-crisp goodness
of Starbucks coffee, you used to have to
schlep to B'klyn Heights. Not anymore.
Starbucks is about to hoist its oh-so-
familiar standard on the south side of
Atlantic Ave."
1. "chutzpah"
2. BiJan
3. "I have the chutzpah and the power to
show orange and yellow and violet."
1. "bumikers"
2. Arnold Fine (The Jewish Press)
3. "Only 'bumikers' wear lipstick."
1. "mishegoss"
2. Erik Himmelsbach (Los Angeles City Beat)
3. He wrote that the corned beef in Brent's
deli was high quality but that the
dignified restaurant was "missing the
mishegoss associated with the deli
experience."
1. "ongepatchket"
2. Henry A. Ford (The New Yorker)
3. "Do not put yourself in a situation in
which you have to explain to the
realtor that 'ongepatchket' is Yiddish
for 'fussy.'"
1. "epl"
2. Ellen Shulman Baker (Jewish astronaut)
3. [Baker told her mother, Claire Shulman,
that she was studying Yiddish]
"I learned epl," she said. "What's that
in English?" her mother asked. "Apple,"
the kid said.
1. "nishdugedacht"
2. Tim Boxer
3. "He was born in SBN--South Bronx
nishdugedacht."
1. "nochis"
2. Rabbi Moshe Waldks (Jewish humorist)
3. "I've been doing Jewish humor gigs
around the country for years. And more
and more it becomes less and less
possible to make references to Jewish
terms and Jewish heritage. The audience
just doesn't get it. I talk about Jewish
nochis, Jewish pride, and they think I
mean Jewish nachos, some kind of Jewish
Tex-Mex food."
1. "emmeseh"
2. Jackie Mason
3. "When a Jew looks at a girl who is
stunning, he says, 'Ooh, this is the
emmeseh!' It's when you're out of
control because something is so great.
Emmeseh mans the ultimate, but it
doesn't have to be sex. It could be a car,
a pair of shoes, a pastrami sandwich.
Whatever is the best."
1. "kvell"
2. Lawrence Van Gelder
[Review of "Oy," Rich Orloff's comedy]
3. "From some of these sketches you could
kvell. Take, for instance, 'a Trolley
Names Tsuris,' which begins with the
revelation that some Jews in show
business changed their names, and
proceeds with a production of a variation
of the play that Brooklyn Williamsburg
wrote when he became famous as
Tennessee Williams."
1. "schlepping"
2. Amy LaRocca (New York Magazine)
3. "Women who love heels are used to the
pain: the schlepping of the emergency
sneakers, the back aches, the bunions,
the lectures from feminists and doctors
alike."
1. "shmateh"
2. Leo Lieberman
3. "A shmateh is what your husband's
second wife wears."
1. "vilder"
2. Shalom Goldman
3. "I was the vilder kind, the wildchildl,
always being thrown out of class. How
did I get from the faschlechta (badly
behaved) school where they were
throwing things out the windows to
being a college professor at Dartmouth?
There must be some explanation."
1. "yentas"
2. Michael Lewittes (New York Post)
3. "Like yentas in the winter, the economy
is also heading south, which is why so
many people are out of work."
1. "haimish"
2. Sylvia Weber (Lake Worth resident)
3. "This computer has spell check, so when
I finished a letter, the spell checker
brought up the word haimish, and
suggested changing it to chainsaw."
1. "shtarker"
2. Clyde Haberman (New York Times)
3. "Former Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato
of New York learned his lesson during
his 1998 re-election campaign when he
tried to be a shtarker, a big shot, before
a Jewish audience."
1. "Oyez"/"Oy Vey!"
2. Maureen Dowd, (New York Times)
3. "Oyez! Oyez! Oy Vey! This Is One Nutty
Election."
1. "chuppa"
2. Molly Katz ("Jewish As a Second
Language")
3. "You can have a Jewish wedding without
a chuppa but not without a Viennese
Table.
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