Every Goy's Guide to Richler:
Yiddish phrases & Jewish cultural references in
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
Don't you hate reading a book in which you can't understand many of the words?
Well, I do, so I compiled this list of terms from Duddy Kravitz and
asked various friends for translations (thanks especially to Colan and
Sheridan Schwartz). Please write if you can translate some of the missing
ones.
I've also compiled a similar list for
An Equal Music by Vikram Seth.
- azoi
- like this, like so; often used to mean "really?" or "is that so?"
- B.T.O.
- (Big Time Operator)
- chazer-fleish
- pork
- chazers
- pigs
- chorine
- chorus girl
- chuzpah
- nerve, gall, incredible guts
- dreck
- crap, excrement, cheap or worthless things (vulgar or semi-vulgar)
- fershtunkene tuchus-head
- stinking ass-head
- gevalt
- a cry of fear, astonishment, amazement; a cry for help; a desperate expression of protest
- goniff
- thief, crook, untrustworthy person
- gottze dank
- Thank God
- goyim
- non-Jew (masculine, plural)
- goyishe
- non-Jewish (adj.)
- haftorah
- assigned reading from the Torah for that week, esp. referring to the ceremony in which a boy coming of age reads it as part of his Bar Mitzvah
- ho'mat
- unknown
- kaddish
- Jewish prayer for the dead
- kaduchus
- nothing (also spelt 'kadoches')
- katchka
- duck (n.)
- kazatchka
- A Russian or Ukranian dance
- kiddush
- Jewish prayer on Erev Shabbat
- kismet
- fate; destiny
- kishkas
- stomach, intestines (also a grain-filled sausage)
- mamzer
- bastard
- mazel tov
- congratulations
- mensch
- a person or human being; usually used to mean a decent or honorable person
- Oneg Shabbat
- Friday evening religious ceremony for welcoming Sabbath
- pisher
- pisser - sometimes used to mean small child (esp. boy)
- pusherke
- someone pushy and competitive (pejorative)
You're a born pusherke. A little Jew-boy on the make. Guys
like you make me sick and ashamed.
— Duddy's uncle
- schmaltz
- fat (n.) or grease, esp. chicken fat
- schmo
- a hapless, clumsy, unlucky jerk
- schnorrer
- beggar, cheapskate, bum, or bargain hunter
- Schnorrer's Day
- beggar's day
- schnoz
- nose
- schonzola
- slang for nose (esp. a very large nose); sometimes used to refer to entertainer Jimmy Durante, who had a large nose
- schoss
- shoot
- shiksa
- non-Jewish woman (esp. blonde)
- shnook
- a timid, meek, passive or unassertive person
- shtunk
- a stinker, nasty person, jerk or mean person; a big mess
- shul
- synagogue
- tuchusleckers
- ass licker
- ver gerharget
- literally: be killed — used as a curse to mean "you should get killed"
- yeshiva
- religious school
- Y.M.H.A.
- Young Man's Hebrew Association (Jewish analogue of Y.M.C.A.,
created because that organization only accepted Christians)
- yoshka
- diminutive of Yeshua (Hebrew for Joshua, or Jesus)
- zeyda
- grandfather
alumni
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