Saturday, July 14, 2007
Apron strings

This is the Macmillan team at the LABCI conference in Sao Paulo which I mentioned yesterday.

You can read more about the day and see a video of the opening ceremony (uploaded on youtube acrobatically by Emma Shercliff (centre of the photo) on their blog. What it doesn't explain is why they are all wearing aprons. It might be in defiance of a project we intiated a couple of years ago known as apron strings. The idea was (and is) that businesses such as Macmillan Brazil should cut the apron strings from the UK and set off on their own adventures. We've made good progress but it seems that there must still be some resdiual affection for the mother ship.

In jolly old England last week the unions at the Royal Mail Group held a further one-day strike, thus confirming the sense of Amazon's decision to cease using them for the delivery of parcels. However, the clever people at Publishing News used this as an opportunity to launch their new and excellent digital version. It's an ill wind...

I've been asked by a friend to help with a glossary of Yiddish terms. Can anyone help with the spellings of these words, better (and funnier) definitions, and corrections to howlers. Thanks so much.

Afikomen – apiece of matzoh hidden during the Seder for children to find

Auf ruf – a blessing on a prospective bride and groom before the wedding day

B’racha (plural b’rachot) - a blessing

Beth Din – Rabbinical court

Bimah – a platform in a synagogue on which the Torah is read

Bris – a circumcision ceremony

Broigus – angry/a row or grudge

Bubeleh – my little one, darling

Challah – plaited white bread

Channukah – eight-day festival of lights in December

Charoset – mixture of apples, nuts, spices and sweet wine, symbolising the mortar with which Jewish slaves built the houses of their captors.

Chuppah – a canopy under which wedding vows are taken

Cossackski – a kicking dance with arms crossed and legs bent, derived from the great friends of Jews, the Cossacks.

Frummer – a religious person

Goyisher – a non-Jew

Haggadah (plural Haggadot) – the story of the Jews’ exodus from Egypt, read aloud at Seder

Halachah – Jewish law

Hametz – food containing yeast, which must be removed from the house before Passover begins

Hillel sandwich – a little piece of horseradish between pieces of matzoh

K’nayn hora tu-tu-tu – expression said superstitiously to ward off the evil eye: please God

Kadimah – summer camp

Ketubah – a legal marriage document

Kiddush cup – cup for wine used during the blessings recited on the Sabbath and festivals

Kippah (plural kippot) – skullcap worn by observant male jews, and some female rabbis

Klezmer – folk music from Eastern Europe

Kvetch – to complain or moan

Leo Baeck – London’s rabbinical college

Mah Nishtanah – the beginning of the Four Questions asked during the Seder

Maror – horseradish, symbolising the bitterness of life under slavery

Matzoh – thin sheets of unleavened bread

Matzoh-kneidl or matzoh balls: dumplings for chicken soup

Megillah – a complicated palaver

Mensch – a decent person, a good egg

Meshuggener – a mad person

Milchedik – food classified as dairy by Kosher laws

Minyan – the ten male Jews required for religious services

Mitzvah – a good deed, and a religious obligation

Nu? – So? Well? And?

Pesach – Passover: at which Jews commemorate their ancestors’ escape from slavery in Egypt

Rebbitzin – rabbi’s wife

Schlemiel – a clumsy, foolish or unlucky person

Schlep – to haul or move laboriously

Schloompy – frumpy, drippy, droopy

Schmendrick – a particularly puny schlemiel

Schmooze – to chat, or chat up

Schmuck – a stupid idiot

Schmutters – rags, clothes

Schnorrer – a scrounger

Schtick – a routine

Schtum - quiet

Schtuppable - fuckable

Seder – a ceremonial feast, with prayers, on the first and second nights of Passover.

Shabbat – the Sabbath

Shiva – a period of mourning

Shul – a synagogue

Tallith – a prayer shawl

Tchotckes – a little silly plaything

Tefillin – leather boxes with straps containing biblical passages, used by Orthodox men for prayer

Tochus – a bottom

Torah – the five books of Moses

Yahrzeit – the anniversary of a death

Yeshiva – rabbinical college; cf. Yentl

Zaftig – juicy, sexy

 

#    |  Comments [2]  | 
7/14/2007 9:04:01 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Richard, not one of these terms but another that I spent a lot of time trying to gte right with a friend of mine for his autobiography.

"In the summer when the nightclub closed down Ned Harvey’s band would play the Catskill Mountains. We played the Hotel Brickman, a glorified Kochalain, a Yiddish word for a collection of sprawling bungalows, that seemed to have been thrown together – far from fancy. The band lived in a drafty wooden building with two bathrooms that were shared by about thirty of us. The Brickman is now an ashram run by Siddha Yoga Dham of America Foundation, the hotel closed down in the 1970s when New York’s Jewish community found other places to vacation. Back then when people would enquire at what age the Brickman took children their proud boast was, “If the kid breathes we'll take it.”

Kochalain - originally I think it was a summer dwelling with cooking privilages - literally 'cook by yourself'
Richard Havers
7/31/2007 2:30:12 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
wow good , information , here got more info about this on this website http://www.deepsun.info/aprons/index.html

thanks
Chris