The lost shtetl, p.41
The Lost Shtetl, page 41
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*Wife of a rabbi.
*Elementary school.
*A judge in a rabbinical court.
*A rabbinical court.
*Yiddish: whore.
*Honorific, like “sir.”
**Yiddish: “Well?” or “So?”
*A braided bread.
*An important part of a prayer service that involves standing and facing Jerusalem.
*A small case affixed to the doorposts of Jewish houses that has a prayer written on parchment inside.
*Scribe who handwrites legal documents and scrolls.
*A bill of divorce.
**The Ark of the Covenant is where the Ten Commandments were kept; the Torah is the first five books of the Old Testament written on a scroll. In a Jewish service the scroll is kept in an “ark.”
***Ritual bath.
*Slaughterhouse.
*Prayer for the dead.
*Hebrew: “Messiah!”
*A “chained woman”: a woman who has not received a divorce from her husband and is therefore forbidden to remarry.
*The central text of Rabbinic Judaism, comprising the “mishna” and the “gemarah,” originating as the oral teachings in ancient Israel.
**The Bible, or Torah.
***Tassels affixed to the garments of religious Jews.
*A child born of a forbidden relationship; i.e., conceived in adultery or incest. The designation brings various restrictions and forbids a mamzer from being counted in a quorum or serving as a judge.
*A long-simmering Sabbath stew.
*Yiddish: Grandmother.
*Rendered fat.
*A spring holiday that celebrates the defeat of Haman and openly encourages inebriation.
*A large fur hat.
*Frederick Cybulski University.
*Moses Ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides, was a twelfth-century Jewish philosopher considered one of the greatest sages of the medieval era; Joseph Karo was a sixteenth-century rabbi who authored the Shulchan Arush, one of the largest compilations of Jewish law in history.
*Jewish circle dance.
**Traditional Ashkenazic Jewish music.
*Chabad is the largest Hasidic movement in the world and the only one that offers outreach to less observant Jews; Chabad Houses are the study and outreach centers worldwide.
*A voivodeship is a Polish province and area of local government.
*Wladyslaw Gomulka (1905–1982) was the first secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party; Witold Pilecki (1901–1948), a co-founder of the Secret Polish Army during World War II, was arrested and executed after the war by the Communist government.
*Tsevi Hirsh Koidanover and Naphtali ha-Kohen Katz were seventeenth-century Eastern European rabbis and Kabbalists.
*Prayer book.
*Triangular cookie filled with preserved fruit, typically served on Purim.
*Polish: administrative.
*Thirteenth-century French Jewish doctor and author.
*Yiddish: “yeshiva boy!”
*Phylacteries; a set of black leather boxes that are wrapped around the arms and forehead during morning prayers.
*Casimir the Great (1310–1370) was a Polish sovereign who introduced a legal code to the kingdom, founded the University of Krakow, and offered protections to Jews.
**Sigismund II Augustus (1520–1572) was the last male of the Jagellonian dynasty of rulers of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
***Eastern European Jewish organization that collected taxes and served as a go-between with local communities and government.
*Yiddish: an evil spirit.
*Shabbetai Zevi was a seventeenth-century Turkish rabbi believed by many Jews to be the Messiah, until he converted to Islam; Jacob Frank was an eighteenth-century Polish Jewish figure (ultimately excommunicated) who preached a mixture of Christianity and Judaism advocating “purification through transgression,” i.e., sexual swinging; the Karaites are a sect of Judaism that rejects the Talmud; Zoroastrianism is one of the oldest Middle Eastern religions.
*Hebrew: literally “evil tongue”; malevolent gossip.
*Rugelach are small, rolled-up pastries; babka is a yeast cake.
*Yiddish: moochers.
*A council that served as a liaison between the Nazis and the Jewish community.
*An internal concentration camp police force, populated by prisoners.
*A post–World War II Polish-manufactured automobile.
*An office-and-retail complex in Warsaw.
*Polish: “My goodness!”
*Yiddish: underpants.
*Yiddish: gossipmongers.
*Polish: bus station.
*German: “Poor dear.”
*Hebrew greeting meaning “Peace be unto you.”
*One of the two houses of parliament.
*Bogdan Chmielnicki (1595–1657) was a Ukrainian revolutionary and notorious anti-Semite who led an uprising that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews.
*Local Jewish administrative body.
*Yiddish: bunkum artist.
*A fast day commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temple.
*Nebuchadnezzar was a Babylonian king who conquered the kingdom of Judah and destroyed Solomon’s Temple in 587 BCE; Titus was the Roman military commander and emperor who captured Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE.
*Populist Crusade in the year 1096 that led to the slaughter of many thousands of Jews living along the Rhine.
**Hellenists are secularized Jews; apikorsim are skeptical or heretical Jews.
***Simon Bar Kokhbar led a revolt against the Romans in 132 CE; Betar was the fortress where he was soundly defeated.
*Hebrew: boycott or excommunication.
*Yiddish: crazy.
*Hebrew: eulogy.
**The Diary of Anne Frank.
*The Scourge of the Swastika.
*A popular cartoon dog.
*Two Polish newspapers: Fakt is a tabloid; Gazeta Wyborcza covers national and international news.
*Yiddish: “old fart.”
*Literally, Polish National Party; a far-right, ultra-nationalist political party.
*Polish: parole officer.
*Polish: bathroom.
**Polish: toilet.
*Yiddish: fool.
*Yiddish: nothing.
*Yiddish: filth, trash.
*Polish: “Can you say ‘cat’?”
**Polish: “Good.”
***Polish: “Pig!”
*Yiddish: “Are you Jewish?”
*Hebrew: charity (literally, “justice”).
*Hebrew: a transgressor who has had a change of heart and begins religious observance again.
*A dense, ring-shaped bread.
*Polish: Law and Order, an ultra-nationalist and populist political party.
Max Gross, The Lost Shtetl
