Yiddish Sayings Mama Never Taught You [Paperback]

Marvin S. Zuckerman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 28, 2009

"A cute and charming addition to Yiddish folklore." -I.B. Singer,Nobel Prize, 1978 "Juicy, savory, spicy." -Henry MillerThe Yiddish sayings in this book have been praised by such world-acclaimed writers as Henry Miller and Isaac Bashevis Singer. They should equally delight all who can appreciate the coarse, wry humor of the turn-of-the-century European shtetl, which gave rise to so much of American humor as well. Some may be offended by their sexuality and lewdness, but they expose the basic humanity of a lost Jewish culture. For too long eydlkayt - refinement - has drawn a curtain over the smutty side of the shtetl. Enjoyable folklore, funny sayings you'll find yourself using in quite modern situations.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Marvin Zuckerman, college Dean Emeritus and Professor of English and Yiddish, and Gershon Weltman, a principal in a defense R&D company, and a Lecturer in the UCLA School of Engineering and Applied Science, have known each other since their childhood in the co-ops of the Bronx; they created this rendition from a rare, authentic, manuscript given to them by an older Yiddishist, AÐuta Reich, who brought it with her from Poland.

Product Details

• Paperback: 120 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse; Bilingual edition (April 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1440140162
• ISBN-13: 978-1440140167
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,267,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good humor never gets old!, December 12, 2009

By 

M. Sharkansky (ISRAEL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Yiddish Sayings Mama Never Taught You (Paperback)

It's funny, it has insight, it is sarcastic and above all, it is real! These little dirty jokes are as funny today as they were 150 yr ago and they are pronounced in a great language for humor: Yiddish, the language that condensed the best of German, Russian, Hebrew and Polish to become as expressive, powerfull, and rich as no other European language is. Each proverb is a diamond you would like to hold in a hand against the sun and enjoy the playfull sparkles and joyfull rays it emanates.
On course, one must be familiar to an extent with the Yiddish or its composing languages to fully appreciate these sayings, and if one is, he will fall again in love with this language!
The two other notes about the book is that the Yiddish original was reproduced by photocopy and not re-typing, so it is not that clear, and that the transliteration is done for some reasons by using the Southern Yiddish dialect (of South Ukraina, Moldavia and Romania) and not the standard literary Nothern dialect (of Latvia, Poland, Belorussia) which was the dialect of Mendele Moicher-Sforim and Sholom Aleichem immortal writings.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars boring, December 16, 2009

By 

Arthur Abramowitz - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Yiddish Sayings Mama Never Taught You (Paperback)

Boring. And don't bother me anymore with this crap. I ordered. I paid. You can assume everything was satisfactory BECAUSE you did not hear from me. If anything DOES prove unsatisfactory, you will hear from me soon enough!!!