Word: yiddisher
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...days of the Czar, Russian Jews were periodically subject to brutal, bloody pogroms, but they could often escape suffering by fleeing Russia. The Soviet government forbids emigration and plans its persecutions in more subtle ways. Theoretically, Russian Judaism is permitted to preserve its own culture. But all 17 Yiddish theaters in Russia have been closed down, and only six books in Yiddish have been published since 1959-compared with 144 in one year alone for the 236,000 members of the obscure Yakut nation of Siberia...
Taking such a sharp and familiar tone with God would be called chutzpah in Yiddish, but what Leonard Bernstein intended for his Third Symphony was a musical statement of Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead. Bernstein's Kaddish was commissioned for the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 75th anniversary eight years ago, but it was not until three years ago that Lenny was gripped with "this horrible sense of imminent destruction," and finally buckled down to work. Last week Boston finally played its Kaddish...
Everyone does contribute to an exacerbating and profound disharmony; but everyone is such a nut that their trials seem unbelievably aboard. These few days could be taken as a Yiddish parody of No Eric and Jack or The submission: It is Simckes, not Jonesco's. Ma who abouts at her husband, "Zelo! Did I say you could have strawberries? I said farina and you know it. Oh, I see you've disobeyed me and taken off your pants...
Prepared for just such an opening, the Rothschilds had created a communications system of fast coaches and a Yiddish-German cipher to link the family diaspora. Meyer sent Prince William's Hessian thalers to London, where Son Nathan's speculations multiplied them and won the family a small fortune and big reputation. When the British asked Nathan to smuggle gold to Wellington's troops trapped in Portugal during the Napoleonic wars, he shipped the gold straight to France, where Brother Jakob slipped it through the Pyrenees. Nathan found out about Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo before...
Pride & Principle. For the Rothschilds, who still retained some of their Yiddish accents and ghetto ways, money also bought culture, fame and a degree of acceptance. They were celebrated in the writings of Byron and Thackeray; artists such as Ingres painted their women; Balzac and Browning sought out their sumptuous but always kosher tables; Rossini composed music for their parties; Bismarck and British royalty attended them. From Buckinghamshire to Bohemia, the Rothschilds put up marble palaces, acquired vineyards and stables. Breathed Lady Eastlake: "The Medicis were never lodged so in the height of their glory...