Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 118 December 9, 1992 1) Shikse/sheygets (H. Davidson) 2) Shikse/sheygets (Hershel Bershady) 3) Tsatske/chatchke (Vicki Fromkin) 4) Tsatske/chatchke (Elye/t Gertel) 5) Tsatske/chatchke (Noyekh Miller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 08 Dec 92 14:31 PST From: IBIDHAD%UCLAMVS.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: Shikse/sheygets (1) After Henry Kissinger married his second wife, a gentile, I remember that she introduced herself as Henry's "shikseh" (2) If you read Shalom Alekhem or even look in the dictionaries, you will see that a shegets is a boy who act s like gentile and not a boy who looks like one. H. Davidson 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 8 Dec 92 21:24:43 EST From: hbershad@sas.upenn.edu Subject: shiksas, shaygets and other nice th[D[Dings My first year in college I bought a tweed jacket and chino pants. Also, of course, blue button down shirt. I was then taller than anyone in my family (5'10"), had blondish hair, hazel eyes and an athletic build. (Rememberance of things past) When I came home dressed this way my aunt said I looked like a shaygets. I remember being definitely pleased (I didn't say thank you, as I recall) but the thought that went through my mind was that now I'd be able to fulfill the command in one of my uncle's ditties, which went: In di Torah shteht geschrieben/ af a shiksa mus min liegen/yum-ti-di-tum-tum, yum...etc. So shiksas were certainly desirable. Incidentally, Italian boys were never called shaygets by us. Lokshn, or Tilainisher is what we called them. I don't know what Italian girls were called -- not shiksas (although when I thought of certain of them several Gottenues would go through my mind). I also am not sure whether Germans were called Doytch or whether this was reserved for German Jews. Same with Poles. Polakim? (plural) but did this refer to Polish JEWS or Poles? I don't find anything pejorative in a LOT of the usage of the terms, but of course sometimes there is. There were also several gentiles identified by my grandparents and parents as "guhtter goyim," bolibutishi, as opposed to the shkutsim or chilairlyas or shikerers of which there also many. Ellen's account squares with my own experience. Hershel Bershady 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 08 Dec 92 19:18 PST From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Tsatske/chatchke Discussing a number of the topics being discussed on Mendele with friends the other evening a few comments -- Everyone agreed that the term "a goyishe kup" was pejorative. Always meant someone not very bright, particularly when it was used in relation to a Jew. Re tsatske & Chatchke, I was told that I remembered wrong (which wouldn't be the first time and certainly won't be the last). And now that I think about it, they were right -- chatchke was not used in my family and it sounds now like an American term meaning toy or little something or other. One would never either devotedly or sarcastically refer to a young girl or woman as a 'chatchkele' but certainly would say "Oi is she a tsastkele' meaning either someone wonderful or awful depending on the paralinguistic intonation. Vicki Fromkin 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 08 Dec 1992 19:29:13 -0800 (PST) From: EGERTEL@FULLERTON.EDU Subject: tsatske(le)/tshatshke Mir dakht zikh az Elen Prints iz dokh gerekht nor vi vayt kh'gedenk bay uns in der heym hot men (zer oft mit a sarkastishn ton) oykh af a mantsbil gezogt: "Ober iz dos a tsatskele!" oder "Er iz yene tsatke/le!" [taytsh: vos far an oysvorf/paskudnyak...]. Un nokh eyn batayt far tsatske/le: az ikh bin gegangen in Talmed-Toyre hot men ale mol moyre gehat az der rov vet uns khapn un uns geben a "vareme" tsatske/le. Vos meynt dos? Far uns "kheyder-yinglekh" iz a tsatske/le geven a makhtiker knip af der bak! Ir megt mikh gloybn az dos hot geshmartst! Un mer oft iz es geven (emes!) a "friendly, affectionate greeting!" Nu, s'iz dokh nisht geven keyn vunder az mir hobn shtendik antlofn az mir hobn im gezen kumen! A mol hot er oykh a aza tsatske/le uns gegebn kedey tsu zogn, "A gutn tog tsu dir, du kleyner yungatsh du!" Tshatshke iz poshet a bilike nishtl, a "knickknack." Elen hot es got bashraybt. Un vos shayekh "shikse/sheygets/goya/goy/orl/orelte" un azoy vayter vil ikh nokh nisht araynshpringen. Bay uns hot es shlekhte, (a mol) gute un oykh neytrale taytshn. A quick recap: Ellen Prince's "tsatske/le" explanation rings true with the slight slant that in our family you could also indicate a male as being a "tsatske/le" but it usually meant a scoundrel or conniver of some sort whether male or female. Also the powerful pinch on the cheek that our rabbi at Talmud- Torah used to give us kids as a (usually) affectionate (!) greeting was called a "tsatske" or "tsatskele" Maybe because he would often call us "tsatskele" when he did it (if my memory serves me well and I may be a little off on what he called us (what term of endearment he used) when he applied the pinch? Ellen's description of "tshatshke" was right on. I'll stay out of the goy/shikse/sheygets etc. fray for the moment except to say that the term has negative, neutral, and positive connotations in my meshpokhe depending on how it's used. An old friend of my mother's (also from the Galician shtetl of Brody) once said (I guess she meant it as a compliment; I was 17 at the time & my blond locks of childhood had long since gone dark brown) "Oy zey nor, er zet oys a gantsn sheygets; r'hot afile di noz fun a sheygets. I think I thanked her especially since I was sure trying to blend in (to the hippy scene anyway) at the time. Then about twenty years later at a Hebrew class at Oxford a young Jewish woman from South Africa in an exercise in which we were supposed to describe each other in Hebrew said of me, "Yesh lo af yehudi!" Well, for some reason or other, (by then I had developed my theory that there's no such thing as "looking Jewish" certainly not when it comes to biological features) I did anything but thank her! As a matter of fact, I called her a racist (maybe not the right epithet...). I suppose at my age I should have been more charitable or explained calmly (which is what I set out to do) why such a remark is so offensive. Anyway I think my point is proved by my somehow having both "di noz fun a sheygets" and an "af yehudi!" Nor ikh farfor in Boyberik... Zayt gezunt un hot a shtarke noz! Elyet Hersh Gertl (Elliot Hersch Gertel) 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 09 Dec 1992 From: nmiller@trincc Subject: Tsatske/chatchke In the light of the above discussion, here without comment a fragment from a piece in the latest issue of Der Bay, Vol 2 No 10, edited by Fishl Kutner. The piece is entitled "Farvos Got Hot Khava [Eve] Gemakht: A Komishe Biblishe Stsene". The author is Edvard M. Goldman, a composer of biblical and liturgical music. Got: Odom, vakht zikh oyf. Haynt veln mir shisn tsvey hozn mit eyn shos. Ikh vel ale khayes bafeln, zet zoln forbaygeyn far undz, du zolst zey banomenen. Un, as zey, marshirn forbay, kenstu efsher a froy, a tsatskele [plaything], gefinen. Noyekh ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.118