Have you ever wandered through Hollywood feeling farschimmelt over the mamaloshen?
Thanks to Hollywood insider Noë Gold, you no longer have to. In his Yiddish Glossary for Goyim: the Power Shmoozer’s Guide to Hollywood, Gold offers about 100 important Yiddish words that non-Jews (and Jews) should know for getting around the entertainment industry.
Between the half-dozen descriptors for male anatomy plus all the uncharitable ways of describing someone down on their luck (with useful distinctions between schlemiel, schlemazel and schmendrick), Yiddish Glossary is filled with words some of us may have already heard, but can’t quite use, or translate, properly.
A child of Holocaust survivors, Gold has been an editor at the Hollywood Reporter, a contributor to Variety and a staff writer at Paramount Pictures, among other Hollywood accolades. So we take his tips on good authority.
And for those not in Hollywood, well, now you can finally find out what your grandparents have been saying about you all these years.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
