Yiddish @ Sydney

Just in case you've been under a rock, or are one of those who refuse to participate in "low culture", the Coen brothers (No Country for Old Men) will write and direct the film adaptation of Michael Chabon's murder mystery, The Yiddish Policemen's Union for Columbia Pictures.

What? You haven't read it yet? Seriously? Well, then, I bet you haven't read his Pulitzer Prize winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay either.

By the way, it is not an "anti-Zionist" book as purported in the Iranian (yes, Iran) press. Alternate Universe (AU for aca/fans), yes, but not anti-Zionist.

Listening to YidCore still? Good.

Then perhaps you should also look -- if this is your shtik -- to SoCalled, a Yiddish hiphop artist (his newest album is reviewed in The Cleveland Jewish News). His myspace is interesting (not so much with the visuals, but the music, is quite good). I like "These are the Good Old Days" but you all realized my taste on Thursday in class.

Here is another review of SoCalled.

Also in music news, two hasidic rappers are creating controversy with their new album that features songs by Madonna and 50 Cent -- in Yiddish. Don't believe me? The article has clips but they don't seem to work for me, so I tracked down the CD. Here's a link to the CD. Madonna's "La Isla Bonita" is track #5; 50 Cent's "In da Club" is track #3. Track #8 isn't half bad, either -- a bit strong on the accent ;)

While I'm on a roll: a peek at a bar mitsve rap

Finally! I received a copy of The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon. Normally I'd recommend that you read reviews before a book. Unfortunately, many of them out there now have a HUGE spoiler (including the Australian reviews), I'd suggest you not touch that literary section, but rather go out to your local book store and get a copy for yourself.

My own reading has been hampered by a tenacious migraine, but I can tell you that it's funny, it's a crime story in the noir tradition and it's very Yiddish. The sentence structure is often Yiddish, the slang and the blessings/curses are Yiddish (although they cuss "in American") and the culture is well-researched. It is an alternate history, so if you like you fiction to have its facts 100% accurate -- well, then you'd miss the point.

The inspiration for the book came from a small book in the Dover Say It In ... series, the Yiddish one, written by Uriel and Beatrice Weinreich. Students will know the Weinreich name, as Max (Uriel's father) was one of the founders of YIVO, Uriel is that genius linguist who wrote College Yiddish when he was just out of his teens, and Beatrice -- Uriel's wife -- is a folklorist who studied folktales, in particular the Elijah cycles. Chabon, upon purchasing the booklet, wrote an essay wondering where on earth one would use the phrases provided.

And now, we know where -- in Sitka, Alaska.

Later there will be a "cheat sheet" here so you'll know your beans* from your goat turds.**

*a bean is באָב (pronounced, "bob" or "bub" and in plural "beb" -- the similarity may be where the phrase "he doesn't know from a hill of beans" gets confused with the phrase below)

*a goat turd is באָבקע (pronounced "bobke" or "bubke"), so Sam Spade doesn't know from goat turds. Beans, he knows.

Apparently, in a recent episode of The Sopranos, one of the characters used the word tsores (Yiddish for troubles, worries, woes; in a more Polish-Yiddish accent "tsuris") and sparked a debate about the extent to which Yiddish has entered the American vernacular.

An NBC anchor, Brian Williams, remarked about the usage, and wrote about it here in his guest entry in the Slate blog. In it he asks:

Where did "tsoris" come from during Christopher's impromptu stairwell AA after-meeting? I was rocked by it. Was I alone?

The Forward remarked:

Some on staff, arguing that tsoris — Yiddish for “trouble” — has entered the American vernacular, found the use of the word unremarkable; others maintained that it was worthy of note. Williams sided with the second camp.

The resident Sopranos fan at the Forward hadn't even noticed the utterance, but then again, being a Jewish New Yorker, it might not have tickled his radar.

So, being curious, I've tossed a question out to a friend, who is also a native New Yorker (she's a good Italian-Irish mix), but has little problem understanding me when I toss in Yiddish expressions.

It seems to me, that a New York character, no matter what their ethnicity, would have no qualms about using tsores: it's less shocking than hearing a character from Kansas who mumbles "Christo" to sniff out demonic presences, suddenly chirp "mazl tov".