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Farvos nisht?

15 years ago
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by froylein
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froylein

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26 Comments

  • But isn’t Rat’s Yiddish (Yinglish, actually, since he’s using Yidish in an English sentence) ungrammatical? A “shmulky” is a sad sack or a loser, and “shlumperdik” is an adjective meaning sloppy or unkempt, right?, So if Rat wanted to call Pig a sloppy loser, shouldn’t he have said “Stop being a shlumperdik shmulky”? (Especially since the indefinite article “a” seems to modify the whole phrase.)

    Just asking.

    But it is funny.

  • Seeing a yiddish joke on Jewlicious might be vindicating, but seeing a FUNNY yiddish joke would have been nicer…

  • I was thinking maybe Jewlicious could offer weekly Yiddish lessons to its readers. I think it would be a big draw. I know I, for one, would be interested. Of course, it would have to fit into the general Jewlicious POV.

    So here’s a possible first Yiddish vocab list for Jewlicious:

    1) galus: Diaspora

    2) shvach: weak

    3) shvaertzes un a yid: it is difficult to be a Jew outside of Israel

    4) alter kacker: old fart. Most Diaspora Jews are very old, or may as well be.

    5) shtetl: a small town in destroyed Jewish Europe. Alternatively, the mindset of how Diaspora Jews think.

    6) Der Khurban: what happens in the Diaspora.

    7) Shiksas: who Diaspora Jewish men marry instead of Jewish women.

    8) Shteig: to study, the only thing weakling Diaspora Jews are good for.

    9) zitsfleish: the ability to avoid manual labor or a suntan.

    10) rachmunes: what a Diaspora Jew needs in order to survive to beg for another day without being killed.

  • I prefer contemporary Arabic for the real good insults that make the other driver pull over.

  • Oy Vey – DK wrote:
    shvaertzes un a yid: it is difficult to be a Jew
    – – – – – – – –
    This is the worst transliteration evah – and given the connotations of the word “shvartze” it’s borderline inflammatory.

    Correct usage:

    (Es is) shver zu zein a yid.

    (It is) hard to be a Jew.

  • OK, today’s comic is just silly. Who would call anybody a “schmendrick nudnik”?

    And would klopping be permitted on Shabbos?

  • Ephraim, it’s obviously not correct Yiddish but just an overload of Yiddishisms.

    Klopping might be allowed on Shabbos if the individual klop doesn’t last longer than 20 seconds – analogous to how many Chasidim press lift (elevator) keys on Shabbos. (I’m not kidding you.)

  • What?

    I’ve never heard of such a thing. I don’t see any way that’s not assur.

    I mean, seriously. If that’s the case, why not talk on the phone so long as you don’t make the connection for longer than 20 seconds?

    Shtuyot. Or, in the spirit of the thread, narrischkeit.

  • Does anybody know how to say “stepmother” in Yiddish or Hebrew? I’ve asked this before and the answer was “shivga”. My children’s stepmother forces them to call her “Ima”, which they refuse to do out of respect for the fact that I am their Ima in ANY language. They are not allowed to call her by her first name as that is not considered “respectful”. Funny that they find the word “shivga” as unacceptable in X’s house when words terms “goyim” and “public school kids” are used frequently with derision.

  • Ephraim, something tells me I hang out with Chasidim more than you do… There are many who claim using the internet is not technically writing and ok as long as the computer was already switched on before Shabbos.

    Chutzpah, try machesheyfe. 😉
    Seriously though, “stepmother” is “shtifmame”. “Shviger” would be an “in-law” anything.

  • You’re right. I tend to hang with the Mitnagdim.

    Are you actually telling me the Chasidim you know use the Internet on Shabbes? I don’t believe it.

    Do they watch TV on Shabbes too if it was turned on before sundown on Friday?

    Who are these Chasidim, anyway? Which sect? Followers of the Moderner Rebbe, perhaps?

  • Not sharing any names here, but they belong to Satmar, Ger, Beltz, and Vishnitz, and indeed, a large portion, even some rabbis, use the internet on Shabbos. Officially, they don’t own TV sets (and many actually don’t), so they use the internet for TV input as well.

    Consider it like this, you chose to be Orthodox. They were born into it and try to make it work for themselves, so if they find a loophole, they’re thrilled, and if that loophole gets a bit wider from wiggling, who are they to complain? You’ll even find ones that justify drug abuse by claiming it’s not explicitly forbidden in the Torah.

  • Chassidishe rabbaim, noch? Gevalt.

    Well, I know what I’m going to be asking my Mitnagdish rabbi friends this Shabbes, let me tell you.

    If these guys just decided to give themselves eine kleine heter for this stuff, fine, we all cut corners. But I’d like to see a tshuva from any rabbi, Chassidishe or not, that says using the Internet on Shabbes is muttar.

    I’ll believe it when I see it.

    So, what, next you’re going to tell me that surfing Internet porn on Shabbes is OK because the Torah doesn’t explicitly forbid it?

  • Thanks for the info but I didn’t get the joke…does Machesheyfe mean bitch?

  • Almost, Chutzpah, it means “witch”.

    Ephraim, porn is not ok, but there’s also a large share of frum porn out there. A couple of years ago, somebody started a trading network for frum hubbies to trade nude pics of their wives. I highly doubt that can be squeezed through any loophole. The rabbis I know are well-respected in their respective communities. Still, bear in mind, this is not Ultramontanist Catholicism. What your rabbinical friends deem to be right can be deemed wrong by others, but either would still be in line with halacha. I’ve seen that a lot of teaching that is done is coined by biased interpretations rather than actually gauging matters from different points of view. Some Chabadnik I used to talk to once even went as far as to claim that Jewish studying had never involved debates and even arguing against the interpretations of the sages. That’s just factually wrong. But still, he got indoctrinated enough to believe this shtuss by somebody who was put in a position of being a multiplicator of “knowledge”.

  • Seriously, can you direct me to a published tshuva by any rabbi calling himslef Orthodox, Chassidishe or not, that claims that using the Internet on Shabbes is OK? Like I said, I’llbelieve it when I see it.

    It’s a well accepted principle in halacha that one should not do something that isn’t “Shabbesdich” even if it is perfectly acceptable, such as browsing in a bookstore on Shabbat without buying anything, since it could give people the impression that you are shopping on Shabbat. I don’t see how this is any different.

  • Ephraim, I’m not justifying this, but this is actual practice. And in those circles they do not publish anything of that sort that I know of (their approach to teaching is oral; the plethora of “halachic essays” you find on the internets seem to be written by people with different backgrounds – clearly ones that did essay writing at school – and different intentions, i.e. not to wiggle the loopholes they find wider than they are); it’s more a matter of asking the right questions in the right manner to get the right answers.