The Joys of Yiddish Quotes

“The great rabbis did not “create” Halakha: what the rabbis did was to codify and clarify the legal teachings, adapting them to changing social conditions. “The Rabbinic Halakha,” writes Judah Goldin, “protected legislation from inflexibility and society from fundamentalism”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“Centuries before Sigmund Freud published his Interpretation of Dreams (1900), the Jews had a saying: “In sleep, it is not the man who sins—but his dream.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“when the overwhelming majority of Europeans were illiterate, it would have been hard to find a Jewish male over the age of five who could not read. Virtually every Jewish boy had to learn Hebrew.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“The shadkhn was impressing the young woman with the boundless virtues of a female and ended: “And to look at, she’s a regular picture!” The young man could not wait for his blind date. But when he accosted the shadkhn the next day, his voice was frosty: “Her eyes are crossed, her nose is crooked, and when she smiles one side of her mouth goes down—” “Just a minute,” interrupted the shadkhn. “Is it my fault you don’t like Picasso?”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“Sholem Aleichem defined a shadkhn as “a dealer in livestock.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“Mr. Abraham, driven to desperation by the endless delays of the tailor who was making him a pair of trousers, finally cried, “Tailor, in the name of Heaven, it has already taken you six weeks!” “So?” “So, you ask? Six weeks for a pair of pants? Reboyne Shel Oylem! It took God only six days to create the universe!” “Nu,” shrugged the tailor, “look at it….”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“A story in the Talmud relates that after the Israelites had safely crossed the Red Sea,* they sang a song of praise to God, but when the angels sought to join the triumphant paean, God thundered: “You shall not sing while my other children [the Egyptians] are drowning.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“In the Middle Ages, church and secular powers often forbade Jews to trim their beards in any way. Why? To be certain that a Jew could be identified.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“There is a saying, “A patsh fargeyt, a vort bashteyt”—”A slap passes, but a word [that is, an insult] remains.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“Jews participated in the ownership of human beings right up through to the nineteenth century, and biblical texts were quoted by some Civil War–era American rabbis to justify the South’s “peculiar institution.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“The rabbi gets the fees, but it’s the moyl who gets all the tips.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“No one is sure how and when the Star of David first came into use as a symbol of Jewry. The first Zionist Congress adopted it in 1897.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“It has been said that the basic principle of Jewish ethics lies in the idea of mandatory mitzvas. Said Eleazar ben Simeon: “The world is judged by the majority of its people [and] an individual by the majority of his deeds. Happy is he who performs a good deed: that may tip the scale for him and the world [italics mine].” Israel Zangwill called the mitzvas the Jews’ “sacred sociology.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“Mr. Samuel Goldwyn once remarked, during a dinner table argument about psychiatry: “Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“Since God is the King of kings, all men, whether princes or paupers, are His servants. Hence, the rabbis taught that no man should serve another,* for all are servants of God alone. A sign in a café in Jerusalem reads: “Self-service. ‘For you are servants unto Me,’ saith the Lord.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“The Talmud expresses this lovely thought: “God found the Jews as one finds grapes in the desert.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“Dr. M. J. Kornblum and Dr. Albert Steinhoff, both obstetricians, share an office. On the door, under their office hours, some lets printed: 24-HOUR SERVICE … WE DELIVER”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“Lendler has come down through the decades to enjoy a place of its own in the distinctive argot of Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens. When you rented rooms from a lendler, you became his tenor. Singing had nothing to do with it.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“There is no truth in the observation that after Robert Briscoe, a Jew, was elected Lord Mayor of Dublin, the Irish began to see leprecohens.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“Two Jewish k’nockers, approaching Honolulu, got into an argument about the correct pronunciation of Hawaii: one was sure it was “Hawaii,” the other positive it was “Havaii.” They made a bet. When they got off the plane, they hurried over to the first native they saw and said, “Aloha! How do you pronounce the name of this island: Hawaii or Havaii?” “Havaii,” said the native. “Thank you.” “You’re velcome,” said the native.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“The play The Kibitzer, by Jo Swerling (1929), made both the title and its star, Edward G. Robinson, famous overnight. The sign on the door read: DR. JOSEPH KIPNIS PSYCHIATRIST DR. ELI LOWITZ PROCTOLOGIST Under this, a kibitzer had written: “Specialists in Odds and Ends.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“Long, long before Freud, the Jews had this saying: “When a son gets married, he divorces his mother.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“FOLK SAYING: “Poverty is no disgrace—which is the only good thing you can say about it.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“PROVERB: “A wise man, looking for a bride, should take an ignoramus along to advise him.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“The Torah, like other ancient law codes, assigns the death penalty to many proscribed behaviors besides murder—including adultery, rape of a betrothed woman, giving insult or injury to one’s parents, witchcraft, male homosexuality, and public profanation of the Sabbath. By the second century C.E., however, the Talmudic rabbis, whose debates and rulings constitute the main body of Halakha, had virtually nullified the death penalty. The Mishnah (the codification of law that forms the core text of the Talmud) states, “A Sanhedrin [governing council] that puts a man to death once in seven years is called destructive. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says: even once in seventy years. Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Tarfon say: had we been in the Sanhedrin none would ever have been put to death” (Makkot 7A). Even in murder cases, the Torah’s requirement of two eyewitnesses for a sentence of death was interpreted by the Talmudic rabbis to make capital punishment highly unlikely: the murderer’s own confession could not be accepted as evidence, and the two eyewitnesses were required also to have warned the criminal beforehand that he would be executed! Justice tempered by mercy thus became the Jewish ideal.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“in converting Jews to Christians you raise the price of pork. —The Merchant of Venice, act III, scene”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“A Bulgarian proverb goes: “When you baptize a Jew, hold him underwater for five minutes.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“FOLK SAYING: “Better to be in Gehenna with a wise man than in Gan Eden [Paradise] with a fool.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“I own a little book written by Jacques-Albin-Simon Collin de Plancy (1793–1887), A Dictionary of Demonology, that has long beguiled me. It catalogs all sorts of spooky spirits, from a Neopolitan pig with the head of a man to Adram-melech, “grand chancellor of hell,” whom the Assyrians worshiped with infant sacrifices and who, learned rabbis said, took the shape of either a mule or a peacock, which runs a gamut of pretty versatile disguises. Amduscias, a grand duke of hell, is shaped like a unicorn—and gives concerts.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated

“The rabbi of Chelm visited the prison, and there he heard all but one of the inmates insist on their innocence. So he came back, held a council of wise men, and recommended that Chelm have two prisons: one for the guilty and another for the innocent.”
― Leo Rosten, The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated