On tonight’s Hardball, Matthews described the neoconservative idea of invading Iraq as “facocked.” This is a Yiddish word meaning completely screwed up. One of my non-Jewish wife’s most-useful acquisitions, it seems to be acculturating—following yenta, schlemiel, nudge, and schlep.
I guess this is as close as Matthews can come to touching on his not-so-secret belief that concerns for Israel’s security helped foster the Iraq disaster. Oy.
Howard Stern has been using it for years. Most broadcasters listen to and,in fact, idolize stern, so I'd guess that's where he got it
Yes Phil, we know that your wife is not Jewish, we know. I think it was after that 107th column extolling the greatness of intermarriage and your courage.
Mr. Pearlman, I'm going to tell you something I haven't hitherto told you. I was raised in the Unitarian Church, my mother's church for several generations of her side of the family. My father was raised Presbeterian, but never darkened the door of his church past his teens, so he didn't care. My father was a medical specialist. During his medical training he had a Jewish friend I'll call "Sid K". They became very good friends. And as I was growing up with my three siblings, Sid K was our family doctor, and we had a Chinese Dinner with he and his family of also four kids about once every three months. I went to the Bar Mitzvah of Sid K's youngest son.
I'm not sure which son it was, but one of Sid K's sons got involved with a non-Jewish woman, and Sid K threatened to renounce him if he married her. I remember being a little put off when I heard about that.
You know… like… What? This man who was my family doctor and who we had dinner with every few months, didn't approve of us non-Jewish women as a spouse for his son? It was sort of my introduction to the Jewish world.
Sid K's son went ahead and married the non-Jewish woman, and I guess the marriage was cursed. They separated and not long afterwards she was murdered (not by her husband but by a friend of hers).
Sid K's other two sons both became Rabbis and live in Israel, which Sid K and his wife spend as much time in as is allowed for Canadian residency for tax purposes.
I had one really big blow-out with Sid K when I was younger, and had read what, in the Bible, is called the "Old Testament" a few times through. I made the mistake of mentioning to him that according to Jewish history, the Jews ethinically cleansed themselves a few times, banishing all the non-Jewish wives and half-breed children out into the desert, where their chances of survival were nil.
Sid K said "Those were barbaric times!"
Okay, but what makes anybody think humans are any less barbaric today?