Franken-Coleman Race Marks Integration of Yiddish Word ‘Nebbishy’

by on November 5, 2008 4

This Reuters piece uses the adjective "nebbishy" without quotes or explanation to describe the character in some Al Franken movie project. I grew up with this word. It was then Jewish and defined our difference and exceptionalism– in this case our treasure of speech. Well, the gift is shared. Or in another words, you can't have one Jew run against another Jew for Senate from Minnesota, spending millions of dollars, without knocking down the ghetto walls. Moses Mendelssohn and the other Haskalah/Enlightenment Jews of the 18th century did this in part by translations, of Jewish texts into German, so the Jews would get with the German program. Two-way street.

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
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{ 4 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. anon says:
    November 5, 2008 at 5:51 pm

    This morning on cable TV News I listened to two Gentiles using the Yiddish term for crazy to discuss the Obama spectacle, Interesting, to say the least. They were not talking heads about Israel.

  2. Craig says:
    November 5, 2008 at 5:53 pm

    Despite the fact that I read Leo Rosten's delightful book The Joys of Yiddish many years ago, I had not realized (or had forgotten — Rosten probably mentions it) that the word "nebbish" came from Yiddish. It's rather obvious once it's pointed out, though. But that gives you some idea just how well the word has been absorbed into English. When I think of Yiddish words that have crept into English, the one that comes to mind first is "chutzpah."

  3. anon says:
    November 6, 2008 at 4:38 pm

    At some point an arab word will be part of American culture. I don't mean "sand nigger."

    I hope it comes soon. For the sake of all good Arab-Americans, which is actually not an oxymoron.

  4. JOHN DICKERSON says:
    November 7, 2008 at 4:38 am

    Haji Is what all of our "troopers" (as Petraeus says) use.

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