מענדעלע

I would like to recount two anecdotes which bear on the social position of Galitsianer in the eyes of Warsaw Jews.

[1] I heard the following tale in Israel in 1959, at the time of a major influx of Jews from Roumania, with consequent friction between the newly-arrived immigrants and the more established residents.

Yankel, walking down the street, sees his friend Chaim sitting in the middle of the gutter, apparently playing with mud. Astonished, Yankel asks: "Chaim, what are you doing in the street playing with mud?" Chaim replies: "I'm making a statue of a Galitsianer". "And why are you making statue of a Galitsianer?" "Because, Yankel, I don't have enough mud to make a Roumainer".

[2] The second story is factual. My late father had two brothers, Nissan and Abram, who had emigrated from Warsaw to Palestine in the mid 1930's. Disagreement over a joint business venture led to complete estrangement of Nissan and Abram, who did not speak to each other for over 30 years. When my father,attempting to effect a reconciliation between the two feuding brothers after so many years, sought to determine the basis for the conflict, he was told by Abram: "Don't blame Nissan. It's all the fault of his wife, that Galitsianer!"

Gaston L Schmir

One of the authors quoted by Leonard Prager in his brilliant essay denied the notion that a significant portion of Galitsianers are "advokatishe doktoyrim". It may or may not be true, but in any case their legacy is alive and well. What would one hear walking in the US courtroom (nisht far keynem gedakht)? Avade yidish!

Let's look into a professional journal published by Association of Trial Lawyers of America:

Title: Oy dude. (Yiddish humor as applied to the law) Author: Conrad Teitell Source: Trial, May 1992 28 n5 p90(2). Abstract: A short glossary of much-used Yiddish words and their definitions are given.

Apparently the demand for information was not met, because in the very next issue the journal returns to the topic:

Title: Plain Yiddish for lawyers and judges. Author: Ralph Slovenko Source: Trial, June 1992 28 n6 p86(3). Abstract: A tongue-in-cheek account of possible uses of Yiddish in legal documents is given, along with a 23-word glossary of useful Yiddish words and their English definitions. It is maintained that by using Yiddish words, for example 'chutzpah,' the judge or lawyer may be able to express in one word a concept which would require more words in English.

The scholarly series was crowned with a study by Alex Kozinski and Eugene Volokh published in the Yale Law Journal:

Title: Lawsuit, shmawsuit. Author: Alex Kozinski and Eugene Volokh Source: Yale Law Journal, Nov 1993 103 n2 p463-467. Abstract: Yiddish words have become more common in the courtroom since the beginning of the 1970s. A LEXIS word search reveals words like chutzpah and kosher have increased in usage but have also come to mean a variety of things in the courtroom. Sociological implications of Yiddish in the court are pondered. Subjects: Judicial opinions - Terminology Yiddish language - Usage

Kozinski and Volokh write:

" ... Yiddish is quickly supplanting Latin as the spice in American legal argot. As recently as 1970, the Second Circuit not only felt the need to define "bagels"; it misdefined them, calling them "hard rolls shaped like doughnuts."(2) All right-thinking people know good bagels are rather soft.(3) We've come a long way since then. The first reported use of "chutzpah" was in 1972, in an opinion of the Georgia Court of Appeals.(4)"

"Other Yiddish words have had tougher sledding. Variations on "kibitz" have appeared in ten cases,(6) "maven" in four,(7) "klutz" in three.(8) "Schlemiel" (also spelled "shlemiel") comes up five times, but one is in a quote from testimony, which doesn't count, one is in the name of a book and two are descriptions of Woody Allen's screen persona.(9) The only bona fide use was, believe it or not, in another Georgia opinion (and not by the same judge, either).(10) "Schlimazel" is nowhere to be seen, even when spelled as "schlimazl," "shlimazel," "shlimazl," "schlemazl," "shlemazel," "schlemazel," or "shlemazl." "Schmooze" appears only once, in--you guessed it--a Georgia cases.(11) Unfortunately, the judiciary of that great state stumbled this time, both misusing the word and misspelling it as "schmoose." We concede that Webster's permits this spelling,(12) but what do they know from Yiddish?(13)"

"Yiddish has also begun to appear in defamation cases. A 1972 New York case concluded that calling the food at a restaurant "ground-up schmutz" wasn't actionable because it was only opinion.(21)"

"Where all this will go from here is hard to say. "Chutzpah" is firmly ensconced, and, we're happy to say, usually spelled right. Ch's are always better than mere H's, and the h at the end gives it just the right touch. "Kosher," "kibitz," and maybe "maven" and "klutz" are looking good. The "sch" words are iffier, but we think they've got a future. Others, like "nudnik" and "meshugge," haven't made a dent, though they deserve better."

Selected references:

(11) MCG Dev. Corp. v. Bick Realty Co., 230 S.E.2d 26, 27 (Ga. Ct. App. 1977). The opinion starts with, "The right to amend is as broad as the Atlantic Ocean and as saving as the power of salvation," a nifty line, even if mere English. Georgia also brings us "tsoriss," Banks v. State, 209 S.E.2d 252, 253 (Ga. Ct. App. 1974) (describing "appellant's tsoriss"), "shammes," State v. Koon, 211 S.E.2d 924, 925 (Ga. Ct. App. 1975), and "gut gezacht," Whitner v. Georgia State Univ., 228 S.E.2d 200 (Ga. Ct. App. 1976). All four of these come from Judge Clark, the same one who first used "chutzpah." See also United States v. Cangiano, 491 F.2d 906, 915 (2d Cir. 1974) (Oakes, J., dissenting) ("schlock"); United States v. Scott, 757 F. Supp. 972, 976 (E.D. Wis. 1991) ("no-goodnik"); United States v. Mayersohn, 335 F. Supp. 1339, 1354 (E.D.N.Y. 1971) ("tzimmes"); Lerner v. Brin, 608 So. 2d 519, 519 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1992) ("rachmones"); State v. Stephens, 466 N.W.2d 781, 790 (Neb. 1991) (Shanahan, J., dissenting) ("Better the majority should worry about its umfarshtendenish of Rule 404(2), not Stephens' chutzpah."); cf. David Margolick, At the Bar, N.Y. Times, June 26, 1992, at B8 (motion using the word "dreck" arouses judge's ire). (12) Webster's Third New International Dictionary 2030 (Philip B. Gove et al. eds., 1981). (13) Note 1, supra, notwithstanding, there's the' right way of doing these things and then there's the wrong way. (14) The same happens to be true of "putz" and of "mensch." We'd much rathe be named "mensch" than "schmuck." Oddly, though, a search for NAME(SCHMUCK) found 59 cases and NAME(MENSCH) found only 43 cases. Perhaps this is because there are more schmucks than mensches in the world; but wouldn't the real schmucks change their names so as to better fool people, and real mensches change theirs out of modesty? Besides, the true schmuck-mensch ratio is much higher than 59 to 43. (15) 489 U.S. 705 (1989). (16) Another little surprise: searching for "goy" revealed dozens of people named "Goy." How come? Why would a Jew be named Goy? And why would a goy call himself a goy? Cf. Gentile v. State Bar, 111 S. Ct. 2720 (1991). Go figure. (17) 153 Cal. Rptr. 624, 628 n.2 (Ct. App. 1979) (Thompson, J.).

Iosif Vaisman Chapel Hill - Czernowitz