Bubba Mainza
This means, “a grandma story”.
A cute phrase– but Jewish families are very code to their elders, and often tell stories about them. It makes sense then, that there would be an actual Yiddish phrase for these types of stories.
Monthly Archives: May 2012
Jewish Girlfriend
I had a wonderful girlfriend from New York city, Zelda, but she’s always complaining about something. She’s a wonderful girl, but one morning she wakes up and goes, ‘Oy vey! Oy vey!’ And I go, ‘Zelda, what’s wrong?’ And she says, ‘How am I supposed to know yet, I’m just waking up!
This is said in a Jewish accent–it’s because Jews always complain.
Actually, Jews do complain (at least form my experience). It’s a cultural thing– even Passover is basically long nights complaining about the Egyptians. It’s a way of separating oneself from this part of Jewish culture– diverging from the ‘complainers’, so to speak, and showing the rest of the world that you’re in on the joke.
The Mezuzah Joke
“A man who has finally made it in business treats himself to a new Lamborghini. After buying it, he feels guilty so he goes to the Orthodox Rabbi and asks for a mezuzah for the Lamborghini.
“You want a mezuzah for what?” the Rabbi asks.
“It’s a Lamborghini,”
“What’s a Lamborghini?” asks the Rabbi.
“A sports car.”
“What? That’s blasphemy!” the Rabbi shouts. “You want a mezuzah for a sports car? Go to the Conservatives!”
Well, the man is disappointed, but goes to the Conservative Rabbi and asks for a mezuzah.
“You want a mezuzah for what?” the Rabbi asks.
“For my Lamborghini”, the man replies.
“What’s a Lamborghini?” asks the Rabbi.
“A car, a sports car.”
“What kind of sports car?” asks the Rabbi.
“Italian.”
“What? That is blasphemy!” the Rabbi shouts. “You want a mezuzah for a Goyishe car? Go to the Reform!”
Again, the man feels guilty and disappointed, but goes to the Reform Rabbi.
“Rabbi,” he asks, “I’d like a mezuzah for my Lamborghini.”
“You have a Lamborghini?” asks the Rabbi.
“You know what it is?” says the man.
“Of course! It’s a fantastic Italian sports car. What’s a mezuzah?”
This is funny because reformed Jews don’t do anything!
THe person that told me this was basically an agnostic Jew, so I think it is a way of coping with a part form past traditions. It is a humorous acknowledgement of the fact that many reformed Jews are very uninformed about actual Jewish religions and traditions- almost metafolklore, this is. Also, it is dealing with the acknowledgement of the ‘rich Jew’ stereotype with the man having the Lamborghini to begin with.
New Years Day, first person to walk through the door
New Years Day. The first person to cross your threshold (walk through your door) had to have dark hair. So my father had black hair, and New Tears Eve after midnight he had to walk through twenty fucking apartments because not many Irish people had black hair. And it had to be a man not a woman.
That was a sign of good luck. Anybody else that came in, you weren’t gonna have a good year.
Since more English people have black hair, or the Irish people that do have black hair are the black Irish, I think that it might be a sign of welcoming guests/foreigners. Or perhaps a preventative magic because the English would have had black hair. Or, simply the fact that black hair is rare, and so it entails rare things (good things) for the rest of the year.
A window open at death
When someone was dying at home, you always had to have a window open so that their soul could leave, even in the dead of winter.
If the window was closed, the soul would be tormented. And then somebody in the house could get sick from what they had. When their soul left, it took the sickness with them.
I’m going to go with a naturalistic explanation on this one. I think that at death, especially in Ireland, the whole family would have gathered around them. With this many people in places that typically wouldn’t have ventilation, perhaps opening a window actually did blow away bacteria in the air and keep family members breathing relatively fresh air.