Wex

Oy gevalt!

Thanks to its frequent coupling with oy, gevalt (sometimes transliterated as gevald, which reflects Yiddish spelling rather than pronunciation) is among the most popular words in Yiddish. Oy gevalt can mean anything from “Heavens above” to “Oh, damn,” “Fantastic,” “Far freakin’ out,” or “I’m about to reach a climax,” and is probably second only to oy vey as the Yiddish phrase...

Wex

Bringing in the mendls

While most Jewish Week readers are probably familiar with the term minyen, the quorum of ten traditionally male Jews required for the recitation of certain prayers and the performance of certain rituals, I’m willing to bet that considerably fewer are acquainted with a fantastic but much rarer Yiddish term for a minyen and a half–of eggs rather than people, but a minyen and a half nonetheless. In the...

Wex

Jews and dogs

Hitsl and hintshleger, which both mean “dogcatcher,” are among the most offensive words in a language not usually well-disposed to dogs. Dogs and Jews enjoyed a symbiotic relationship in the old country; the dogs were the predators and Jews were their prey. Although Yiddish is far from canine-positive, the dogcatcher gets such bad press because he was also the dog killer, and is generally portrayed as...

Wex

Yiddish is not politically correct

Despite, or perhaps because of the number of Yiddish-speakers who use walkers, canes, and wheelchairs, Yiddish has remained stubbornly resistant to efforts to empower the disabled. My father, who had only one leg, saw no irony in screaming kalyekeh or loomer (“cripple”) at cars with disabled stickers on their windows or with using the same words, along with hoyker (“hunchback”–it usually applied...

Wex

Driving in Yiddish – Part 2

Three of the most common and effective epithets hurled at the competition by Yiddish-speaking drivers are yold, shmendrik, and kuneh-leml. Yold (often pronounced yolt when it’s meant to be emphatic), which now means primarily “sap, sucker, dupe” and once in a while, “yokel, rube, hick,” comes from the Hebrew and originally meant “well-born boy, scion of a wealthy family,” whence it developed...