Did you grow up in a household where “they” spoke Yiddish so you wouldn’t/couldn’t know what they were gossiping about? As you approached the room, did you hear, “Sha! The kinder!”
Not sure many of us were sat down and given Yiddish lessons by our bubbes and zaydahs but we all left home knowing those important and familiar words and expressions that to this day take us home and make us chuckle!
Though we are losing the classic Borscht Belt comics who entertained our parents and grandparents and introduced us to the Yiddish Stage, hearing and seeing them can warm our heart, take us to the smell of chicken soup and brisket and bring us to places of warmth and love.
Couldn’t resist sharing this classic Jackie Mason shtick:
There may be those among you who support including Spanish in our national language. I for one am 110% against this! We must preserve the exclusivity and above all, the purity of the English language.
To all the shlemiels, shlemazels, nebbishes, nudniks, klutzes, putzes, zhlubs, shmoes, shmucks, nogoodniks, and momzers that are out there pushing Spanish, I just want to say that I, for one, believe that English and only English deserves linguistic prominence in our American culture. To tell the truth, it makes me so farklempt, I’m fit to plotz. This whole Spanish schmeer gets me broyges, specially when I hear these erstwhile mavens and luftmenschen kvetching about needing to learn Spanish. What chutzpah!
These shmegeges can tout their shlock about the cultural and linguistic diversity of our country, but I, for one, am not buying their shtick. It’s all so much dreck, as far as I’m concerned. I exhort you all to be menshen about this and stand up to their fardrayte arguments and meshugganah, farshtunkene assertions. It wouldn’t be kosher to do anything else.
Remember, when all is said and done, we have English and they’ve got bubkes! The whole myseh is a pain in my tuchas!
As a Baby Boomer Bubbe who still feels 18 but has four grand kids to prove this is the 21 Century, Sandra writes to leave a legacy for the next generations. Her belief that these precious kids need to know their cultural and family’s past in order for them to live their future is all the muse she needs!
She has a Master’s Degree in Psychology and Cross Cultural studies, has written a family history, personal memoir and is completing her first novel.
Her grandmother’s journey to America and life is her source for her deep belief and love for Judaism.
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