City Of Fire Trilogy 1 - Dreamland (73 page)

A
RBEITER
Z
EITUNG:
Yiddish.
The leading radical Yiddish-language rival to
The Jewish Daily Forward
—for a while.

AUS:
Yiddish.
Out.

BABA:
Yiddish.
The neighborhood witch. A folk healer.

BALEBOOST(EH):
Yiddish.
An excellent homemaker, or bossy woman

BEGGERIN:
Yiddish.
Beggars, or layabouts.

BES MIDRASH:
Yiddish.
The “house of study,” attached to the synagogue, where boys study for their
bar mitzvah,
and where Jewish men of all ages go to learn
Torah
and
Talmud.

BHOYS:
Irish.
Boys, or more accurately, good old boys. The old gang.

BLIND PIG:
Bowery.
A back-alley bar, usually illegal. Also known as a
blind tiger.

BLINTZ:
Yiddish.
A rolled-up pancake, rather like a crepe, usually filled with cottage cheese and smothered in sour cream.

BLOCK-AND-FALL JOINT:
Bowery.
A bar featuring bad or doctored liquor, where patrons will “get a shock, walk a block, and fall down.”

BOOLY DOGS:
Bowery.
The police.

BOYCHIK:
Yiddish.
A boy. Used both affectionately and derisively.

BRAIN TICKLER:
Bowery.
An assassin.

BUBELEH:
Yiddish.
Literally, “little grandma,” it is a term of affection used for “darling,” “honey,” “sweetheart,” or “dear child,” between family members or close friends.

BUBKES:
Yiddish.
Beans, and also “A whole lot of nothing!”

BULLY:
Bowery.
A homemade blackjack, usually consisting of a lump of lead tied up in a kerchief.

BUMMERKEHS:
Yiddish.
Bums, tramps. Also slatternly women.

BUNCO:
Bowery.
To scam one into something, the occupation of a “bunco artist,” or con man.

CAP:
Bowery.
One’s name.

CHACHEM:
Yiddish.
Literally a clever or wise person, but usually used sarcastically. Its closest equivalents might be “wiseguy” or “bub.”

CHALLAH:
Yiddish.
A soft, braided egg bread, with a glazed crust.

C
HASIR
M
ARK:
Yiddish.
The “pig market” on Hester Street. So called because it was said that one could buy anything
but
a pig there.

CHUM TOW:
Chinese.
The small headrest on which opium users recline.

COCKROACH BOSS:
Bowery.
Usually the owner of a small garment shop, or a subcontractor.

COVE:
Bowery.
A man.

DOW:
Chinese.
In this context, an opium pipe bowl.

DOWNSTAIRSIKEHS:
Yiddish.
The downstairs neighbors.

DRECK:
Yiddish.
Garbage, crap.

DRESSKE:
Yiddish.
A dress.

DYBBUK:
Yiddish.
A demon, or demonically possessed person.

EKEL:
Yiddish.
A stinker; a repulsive person.

FABRENTE MAYDLAKH:
Yiddish.
The “fiery girls,” who led The Uprising of the Twenty Thousand with their passionate speeches and undaunted courage.

FARPOTSHKET:
Yiddish.
Messed-up, sloppy. All bollixed up.

FARSHTINKENER:
Yiddish.
Stinking.

FINIFF:
Bowery.
A five-dollar bill.

FLATS:
Bowery.
A sucker—or, as Asbury puts it, “A man not acquainted with the tricks of rogues.”

FLOG:
Bowery.
To malign.

FONFER:
Yiddish.
Literally, one who talks through his nose. A double-talker, a fake or braggart. A cheat.

F
OOK
Y
UEN:
Chinese.
“Fountain of Happiness.” One of the most popular types of opium in New York at the turn of the century.

GAONIM:
Yiddish.
Refers to learned rabbis or heads of Talmudic academies. Literally (from the Hebrew), it means “geniuses,” and is sometimes used sarcastically.

G
EMARA:
Aramaic.
Literally, “to learn.” One of the two main parts of the
Talmud,
it is a learned commentary on the other part, the
Mishnah
—and thereby an interpretation of the interpretation of the first five books of the Bible. Compiled in Palestinian and Babylonian academies between the second and fifth centuries a.d., it is largely in Aramaic, although it also contains considerable amounts of Hebrew.

GEVALT:
Yiddish.
An exclamation of disbelief or exaggeration, usually
“Oy gevalt.”

GIRLCHIKS:
Yiddish.
Girls—used either sarcastically or as an endearment.

GOLD MEINE:
Yiddish.
“My gold,” or “my golden one.”

G
OLD
P
LATED
H
OLIES:
Political reformers.

GOLDINEH MEDINA:
Yiddish.
Literally, the “golden country,” and widely used as a euphemism for America. Its alternative meaning, though, is “a fool’s paradise.”

GOLEM:
Yiddish.
A sort of Frankenstein’s monster, invented by learned rabbis—according to legend—to shield the Jewish community from anti-Semitic onslaughts. As such, it also means a simpleton, a clod, or a slow-moving person.

GOO-GOOS:
Political reformers—a derisive contraction of “good government” types.

GOOHS:
Bowery.
Prostitutes.

GONIFF:
Yiddish.
A thief.

GORNISHT MIT GORNISHT:
Yiddish.
“Nothing with nothing.” Worthless.

G
OTTENYU:
Yiddish.
“Dear God!”

GOYIM:
Yiddish.
Gentiles, or all non-Jews.

GOYISHE:
Yiddish.
Refers to gentile things, and also to alleged attributes of
goyim.
These could be both good and bad, as in
“goyishe kop”
or “gentile brains” (poor) and
“goyishe mazel”
or “gentile luck” (good)—and as opposed to
“yiddishe kop”
(good) and
“yiddishe mazel”
(bad).

GREENIE:
Short for “greenhorn”—new, unassimilated American.

GROUND SWEAT:
Bowery.
A grave.

HACKUM:
Bowery.
A slasher, a bravado.

HAIMISHE:
Yiddish.
Homey, warm, unpretentious.

HERTZALLE MEINE:
Yiddish.
“My heart.”

HIGHBINDERS:
Bowery.
Chinese.

HOKKING YOUR CHAINIK:
Yiddish.
Literally “striking a teakettle,” it means to “pull your chain” or otherwise annoy one.

H
OLIES:
Political reformers.

HORSE’S NECK:
A ginger ale with a lemon peel.

IDEA POT:
Bowery.
Head, or brain.

JINGLERS:
Bowery.
Money, particularly coins.

JURY-CHECKER:
Bowery.
A typical, Tammany make-work job. Jury-checkers were hired by the city to check up on citizens who had got out of jury duty, and make sure their excuses were valid. Al Smith worked for a time as a jury-checker.

KALLEH:
Yiddish.
A young bride, or married woman. Also a daughter-in-law.

KEROSENE CIRCUIT:
A circuit of cheap theaters showing popular plays and vaudeville-like variety shows.

KIBBITZ:
Yiddish.
To interfere in, or give one’s uninvited, expert commentary on a subject.

KINDERLE:
Yiddish.
Child, kid.

KNAYDL:
Yiddish.
“Dumpling.” Usually an affectionate term for children, though sometimes used derisively.

KNISH:
Yiddish.
A dumpling, usually filled with groats
(kasha),
cheese, potatoes, or other treats.

KOCHLEFFL:
Yiddish.
Literally, the long wooden cooking spoon used to stir a pot, but also a live wire; an activist and organizer.

KOLYIKA:
Yiddish.
A crippled, sickly, or stupid person—but in this case, a misfit; in Leo Rosten’s words, “An inept performer: a singer off-key, a pianist who hits wrong notes, a waiter who spills the soup.” Also written as
kalikeh.

KRAAL:
Afrikaans.
An enclosure for livestock, or a rural village with a stockade.

KURVEH:
Yiddish.
A prostitute.

LANDSMAN:
Yiddish.
A countryman. Or more specifically, someone from the same province, region, city, or
shtetl
back home. Jewish immigrants to America often formed
landsman’s
clubs, to provide members with insurance, financial aid, burial sites—and a social life.

LATKE:
Yiddish.
A potato pancake; served anytime, but especially to commemorate the
Chanukkah
holiday.

L
I
Y
UEN:
Chinese.
“Fountain of Beauty.” A leading type of opium in New York at the turn of the century.

LOAFERIN:
Yiddish.
Loafers, no-accounts.

LOBBYGOW:
Bowery.
Someone who hangs around hotel lobbies, looking for the chance to run errands, procure women or liquor, and the like.

LOCH IN KOP:
Yiddish.
Hole in the head.

LOMDIM:
Yiddish.
“Learned men”—sometimes used sarcastically.

LUFTMENSCH:
Yiddish.
Literally, “air man.” Can refer to a dreamer or an impractical person, a man with his head in the clouds—but in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century ghetto and
shtetl,
meant a man without an occupation; one who could not or would not make a living.

LUSHROLLER:
Bowery.
A thug who specializes in robbing drunks.

MABS:
Bowery.
Prostitutes.

MACHER:
Yiddish.
A powerful person, a big man—and usually one who throws his weight around. Known to be used derisively.

MAMA GAB:
Yiddish.
From
momme loschen,
or “mother tongue.” That is to say, “Yiddish.”

MAMALEH:
Yiddish.
Literally, “little mother,” this is used as an endearment for female friends and family members of all ages and positions.

MASKILIM:
Yiddish.
Literally, “the enlightened ones.” Originally applied to adherents of the eighteenth-century Jewish enlightment, the
Haskala
—but often used sarcastically.

MAZEL:
Yiddish.
Luck.

MEIN BEN YOCHID:
Yiddish.
My only son.

METSIEH:
Yiddish.
A bargain or find. Often used ironically.

MEZUZAH:
Hebrew.
A small, usually oblong container, fastened to the right of the doorjamb, on the front of Jewish homes. Inside are printed verses from Deuteronomy 6:4–9, 11:13–21, beginning with “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one.” It consecrates the home, and observant Jews touch their fingers to their lips and then to the
mezuzah
when they enter or leave.

MIESSE MESHINAH:
Yiddish.
A bad fate.

MIKVAH:
Yiddish.
A ritual bathhouse for women.

MINCHA:
Yiddish.
The daily late-afternoon prayer service in Judaism.

MIR HAT GETRAUMT:
German.
“A dream came to me.”

MISHNAH:
Hebrew.
Literally “to study, to teach,” it is the “Oral Law,” the first part of the
Talmud,
the collective interpretation of the
Torah,
or “Written Law.” Compiled over seven hundred years by the sages, scribes, and rabbis of Israel beginning in the fifth century b.c., it is a grand collection of ethical teachings, opinions, court decisions and, in Leo Rosten’s description, “anecdotes, aphorisms, thumbnail biographies, philosophical treatises, and tiresome hair-splittings.”