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THIS & THAT February 12, 2009
 
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Farshtaist?
Issue:
10.02

 
Important dates

This Month...

Editor's Comment
Michael looks at:
Farewell, Shalom and Adieu

Being Jewish Magazine


see a .pdf copy of the current issue

Features
An Open Letter from Abba to His Family

Enough With The Political Finger-Pointing!

Revisiting the Haggadah

Eddy's Recipe List
Victoria Sponge

Book Review
Unstrung Heroes

The Outspeaker
Encouraging violence is never correct

Batya
Good times and bad times with Batya

Nathan Weissler
What my friendship with Michael Hanna-Fein meant to me


Marjorie Wolfe
An Interview with Paul Reiser

BC's Backlot
The Last Shalom

Lynn Ruth Miller
How we all became part of a bigger story

Mel Yahre
A few words for my friend

Eddy's Thoughts
Don't let life flutter by

The Bear Facts
How I found Michael

 

Do you understand Yiddish was the secret code, therefore I don't farshtaist.
A biseleh maybe here and there, the rest has gone to waste.
Sadly when I hear it now, I only get the gist.
My bobeh spoke it beautifully; but me, I am tsemisht.
So och un vai as I should say, or even oy vai iz mir.
Though my pisk is lacking Yiddish, it's familiar to my ear.
And I'm no Chaim Yonkel, in fact I was shtick naches.
But when it comes Yiddish though, I'm talking out of my toches.
Es iz a shandeh far di kinder that I don't know it better. 
(Though it's really nishkefelecht when one needs to write a letter).
But when it comes to characters there's really no contention.
No other linguist can compete with honorable menshen.
They have nebbishes and nebechels and others without mazel.
Then too shmendriks and shlemiels and let's not forget shlimazels. 

These words are so precise and descriptive to the listener. 
So much better than a pill is to call someone farbissener. 
Or that a brazen woman would be better called chaleria. 
And you'll agree farklempt says more than does hysteria. 
I'm not haken dir a tsheinik and I hope I'm not a kvetch. 
But isn't mieskeit kinder than to call someone a wretch? 
Mitten derinnen, I hear bobbeh say. 
It's nechtiker tog, don't fear. 
To me you're still a maiven. 
Zol zein shah, don't fill my ear. 
Ah lieben ahf dein kepel. 
I don't mean to interrupt. 
But you are speaking narishkeit.
And a gezunt auf dein kop!

Annonymous

 
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