JEWISH CULTURE
Nu? I'm talking to you!
You don't have to be Jewish to appreciate a good bagel and schmear or how to shmooze and kvetch. Compliments of Jewcy.com, here's a primer on Yiddish basics that'll have you kibbitzing in no time! If you're looking for more than basic slang, check out Kolel's great Yiddish and Hebrew classes.
BUPKES (BUB-kiss) n. Zero, a whole lot of nothing
"I gave my life to you kids, cooking and cleaning - everything you could want - and what thanks do I get? Do you call? Do you write? I get bubkes!"
CHUPA (HU-pa) n. Jewish wedding canopy
"I told him I wouldn't sleep with him unless we got engaged. - no chupa, no shtoopa. P.S., check out the ring!"
CHUTZPAH (HUTZ-pah)
n. Colossal nerve
"You have a lot of chutzpah asking me out and then wanting to go dutch!"
DRECK (dreck)
n. Garbage, junk
"Did you see that dress she's wearing? She thinks it looks good, but anyone with two eyes can see it's dreck!"
FAKAKTA (fuh-KAK-ta)
adj. Crappy
"I love a good menorah lighting ceremony, but I hate cleaning up the fakakta wax afterwards."
KIBITZ (KI-bitz)
v. To chitchat; discuss informally. To look on and offer unwanted, usually meddlesome advice to others.
"Those yentas, all they do is sit on the park bench and kibitz about everybody's business."
KVETCH (K-vetch)
v. To complain, to gripe, to bemoan one's fate.
"There's always something wrong with my Uncle Sidney. Yesterday it was his back, today it's his bum leg - kvetch, kvetch, kvetch!"
MESHUGENNAH (ma-SHUH-guh-nah) adj. Crazy
"Esther is meshuggenah over taht nbbish she met on J-Date!"
MENSCH (MEN-sh)
n. A decent person.
"He always remembers to send his mother flowers for her birthday. What a mensch!"
NU (noo)
exp. So? Well?
"Nu? Did you hear that my grandson got accepted to Harvard Medical School?"
OY GEVALT: (OY-geh-VAHLT)
exp. An exclamation of disbelief or exaggeration.
"I send my Sheldon to an Ivy League college for fours years, and he goes to work for a not-for-profit theater. Oy gevalt!"
PISHER (PISH-er)
n. Adorable little stinker.
"That baby in the JEWCY tee shirt is the cutest little pisher since baby Moses showed up on the bank of the Nile."
SHMATTA (SHMAH-ta)
n. A rag.
"You're not actually going to wear that shmatta to the theater, are you?"
SHMUTZ (sh-mutz)
n. A dirty mess.
"The minute the baby got his hands on the bagel with a schmear, he got shmutz all over his face!" 