November 28, 2001
copyright C Prof. George J. Leonard
rough lecture notes only! Canít be understood without my lecture. Use as a guide.
Just a few words survive, not even 100, but theyre part of educated culture
if you donít understand, you're a hick
Jews are so prevalent in the legal profession, medical profession and as professors
that anybody whitecollar now understands some Yiddish, just as they know some French,
have been to Europe, know how to eat sushi, how to drink a latte....
If you donít at least recognize common Yiddish expression youre certainly not a ěprofessional,î
never lived back East, donít read much, may not even be a BA.
please, though, dont run over to the Jewish guy in the office and start trying to
use these words with him, he will wonder why suddenly youre obsessed with him being
Jewish
Chutzpah
see Maus page 85
brass balls. sheer gall --but not quite because it is a positive trait
rules were made to be broken
a divine arrogance
more like a divine rebelliousness
rebellion as a lifestyle
endless guerilla warfare against the whole world
obviously, rests on a cultural attitude born from the situation
laws are nothing but the rules the top guys make up to keep themselves the top guys
and it was true in their world
you cant follow the law if the law is: you jews die
lot of jews instantly understood communism later
that was communist attitude
rebel!
A Nietzschean attitude not a Wasp attitude to law:
The law doesnt exist to be fair: the big guys make the laws to keep them on top and
keep you losing
so jews now don't wait to be seated in the restaurant
suspicious of authority
Jewish chutzpah and Mandarin guai
can't be translated
the 2 peoples had such vastly diff. experiences
chinese homeland
jewish guilt and KVETCHing
kvetching humorous but important! Therapeutic! Think of ěVenting,î perhaps
a kind of commisseration ritual someone called it in a paper
you only do it with someone else
it's exactly what you do at a shrink's
and that's no accident
Freud was Jewish and the whole therapy concept is Jewish
the talking cure
Freud and his first partner Breuer
you have to get it out of you and you'll feel better
look at
MAUS 100 to 104
the mother's death and his guilt
for what???
so he wrote the cartoon about it
then the father, though so hurt by the cartoon, says,
its good you got it outside your system
the Jews pictured anxiety as a kind of poison which you better expel in some way,
or you'll be harmed
kvetch works! Endless venting of anger allowed
this is not ěcomplainingî since nobody is asking for action or protesting fate
to understand the origin, remember: in the original old country situation
the anger could not be dealt with through action
you couldnt attack the Russian cossack who raped your wife and burned your store
it could not be expressed or they'd all get killed
look at 149, the antisem atmosphere they lived in
before the Nazis
in Poland
so you kvetch as a safety valve, like writing angry letters you don't need to send
after you wrote
shmooz is not kvetching
just shooting the breeze, chatting
in last 20 years lawyers destroyed it, turned it into sweet talking a client, chatting
them up,
handholding for later business purposes
Yiddish: what remains:
woody allen jerry seinfeld, j rivers are playing characters from
Jewish popular culture, folklore
Seinfeld plays a kvetch
George is a nebbish
a nudnick
harmless, kind of cute, bunny rabbit loser kind of guy
Kramer is a total meshuganah
a nut, hes off the wall
Elaine is a JAP, a jewish american princess (nothing to do with Japanese, its just
an acronym)
Joan Rivers is a yenta
the older lady whos endlessly scolding and talking and on everyones case
Bette Midler not a yenta
more like a meshuganah
Streisand is a yenta, big time
Allen is playing a shlmeil the poor sadsack everything happens to
lets go back in the shtetl
(the segregated Jewish village)
you know it from Fiddler on the Roof
there you find
the poor little nebbish
nudnick
shmo
shnook
shmendrick
all connote harmlessness, smallness
he shleps around all day
drags himself around
sells shlock , junk
this is his shtick, his racket, his angle
if hes dumber than that, a Homer Simpson maybe
hes a shmuck
SHMUCK is a big concept in Jewish thought
how to avoid being played for a shmuck
everyone fears: am I one?
is shmuck like baka in japanese? A lot like pendejo in Mexican Spanish
a shmucks a klutz, clumsy, cant do anything right
if its worse than that, so that hes ineffectual on top of it
hes a putz
the unerect male member
You putz! is stronger than you shmuck!
he and his friends get together for a
little nosh,
some snacks
you notice in Seinfeld half the show takes place in a coffee shop
Jews talk over food, do business over food
Enjoy! The waiter says when the food is brought
amazing to me
nobody said that after 1965 and then amazingly the gentiles brought it back in the
1980s
the friends kvetch
to each other
and they do jokes, do shtick
they make jokes about the goyim
lust after girls
Monica Lewinsky shes zaftig
juicy
big russian women!
big tochis (tush)
bad words:
kurveh
nafka
both mean whore but kurveh is worse, even more like prostitute, a genuine professional
a nafka could just mean a slut
his mom is a yenta
the famous Jewish Mother
the yenta is a nudge
always nudging him to get married
she loves to shmooz with her neighbors, gossip
she makes a big tsimmis
a big deal
over everything her poor shmuck of a kid does
(actually the little monsters got shpilkes, ants in his pants, cant sit still)
in public, she's always kvelling about her children
As my son, the doctor, said to me,
her children give her naches
the deep joy that only your children bring
And when she kvells, her friends say Mazel Tov! Congratulations!
A tremendously common word that all east coast people understand
shes the Jewish Mother
actually in charge of the whole mitzpoche
the family
the power in the family
her shelves are full of cutesy little porcelain chotchkes
ungetpotche
all jammed together
so much stuff
you could plotz!
fall over, drop in your tracks
if shes conservative or orthodox she has a little mezzuzah nailed up
on her door jamb, she kisses her fingers and touches it when she goes in or out
she belongs to
hadassah the womans group
affiliated with
bnai brith
United Jewish Appeal, the UJA
Now, what breaks Mammilas heart?
Her son is chasing after a shiksa
woody allens character endlessly chases shiksas
like Diane Keaton
wants to shtup one
he has no brains, the shmuck, he thinks with his putz
with his shvontz
the shiksa is a
big concept: shes a trophy wife
Asians dont seem to qualify, I never heard my wife called a shiksa
I think the idea is the real trophy wife must look physically, like
the gentile bossís daughter
you drive up with her in your corvette
(Jews supposedly like vettes, the way Italians were said to like Caddies)
blonde hair looks great in a black corvette, my friend Jeff said to me quite seriously
thats why he wanted a shiksa
you drive up and the goyisher bastard parking your car turns purple
thats part of the fun
and why Asians arent real shiksas?
however
shiksa has strong overtones of
femme fatale
Marilyn Monroe was the ultimate shiksa
but theres a sense she will ruin the Nice Jewish Boys life
King Kong chasing that blonde, losing his good thing back on the island, the shmuck
in contrast to her no good son,
what makes mamila happy?
her husband is a very haimischer guy, a real homebody, family man
TV dads on sitcoms are always haimishcher
Cosby in his sweater permanently in the living room
Chevy Chase in the Vacation movies: greatest joy is to travel with your kids or spend
holidays at home
(My friend Jeff became a doctor, married his shiksa, and theyve been married 34 years)
the Yiddishe poppa, the Jewish father
when theyre little he cant resist kissing the kids faces, their little punims!
As Dr Evil says of Mini Me, Look at that little punim! I cant be mad at him!
gets tears in his eyes when he says it,
the poppa cries easily
when he meets his sons he and they kiss on the cheek no matter how old they are
but in Jewish culture being haimischer
that makes him a mensch
a Real Man
theres no praise for machismo
strength isnt physical violence
but having the self control to ultimately win
But! at work this guy is totally different than the henpecked guy he is at home
its almost schizophrenic
hes expected to be
UTTERLY DIFFERENT
the macher, the deal maker, he kicks ass
in his field, hes the mayvin, the expert
a real tummler tumult maker, going after business
and if you get in his way, hes a shtarker, a killer
thats admired
because its all for the kids, the family, its because hes so haimisher that he got
great at his job and he will kill anybody that gets in his familys way
its for your family
he has to fight all the goniffs trying to steal his familys money
maybe he works in hollywood or the rag trade
garment business
a lot of his designers are faygelehs
gays (affectionate word, means little birds, but politically incorrect)
hes a sentimental liberal democrat
80 percent of jews went for gore over bush
only the blacks voted more for clinton (93 percent?)
and hes proud he hires
schwartzehs, blacks (its not a bad word!)
when he was a kid he was in the Movement
he still gets all sentimental remembering the Black Jewish partnership during those
years
he has to live in a
cockamamy world
its crazy
the business drives him meshugganah
everybody in its a bit meshugge
everythings farblondjet
screwed up,
its a mishegoss
a mess
the momsas are trying to break his balls
those bastards
if he doesnt fight
its kaddish for him
the prayers for the dead
--And those words are almost all the Yiddish that survives. Thats it.
youll notice the values those words imply:
almost all the terms deal with
+home
+sex
+and whos being made a fool of
compared to whos a success
the precision of the language shows
the culture took great interest in thinking about the
character types of losers, like putzes
and character types of winners, like machers
as it studied what led to success
or should I say survival?
buried under it all is the once realistic fear which helps give the tremendous drive
its not that you wont make money if youre not successful
but that you will actually die -- be killed
you succeed to be sure you and your children simply donít get KILLED
as the wasps are obsessed with self sufficiency
the Jews have been obsessed simply with the battle not to get killed
to survive their countless, numerous, potent enemies
thats the great imperative
to LIVE
Theres no afterlife and there never was, not even in the Bible
This life is the paradise, this is what God gives you because he loves you as a father
Despite all the centuries of suffering, theyve never lost their belief that this
life here on this earth is all the heaven anyone needs:
The great Jewish drinking toast is L chaim!
To Life!
