Tag Archives: jewish

Game: Afikomen Game

Nationality: White, Jewish, Spanish, Greek, French
Age: 28
Occupation: GraduateStudent, Instructor
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 18 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Hebrew, Ladino, Spanish, Fench

The Afikomen Game

The informant couldn’t remember what Afikomen means or whether the word is in Yiddish or Hebrew.

This is a children’s game that’s played during Passover. The informant explains that during Passover there is a service called a Seder. The ceremony comes with a book that spells out all the rituals and what order their supposed to go. The informant says that the service generally lasts about two hours. However there are people who try to finish it in one hour. The informant has lead Seder’s before and they tend to three hours long. At some point during the Seder the person leading the prayer breaks off a piece of matzo (explain) and usually hides it somewhere in the house. All the children get up and race through the house to find the Afikomen. However finds it first gets a prize usually money. It’s usually money because children are not allowed to eat sweets during Passover.

The informant in Passover most of the events and rituals are directly related to the history of the holiday or the Commandments. The Afikomen game is not related to holiday at all. According to the informant the game was created to help the children get through the Seder without disrupting it. She explained that the Seder lasts for hours and Passover has certain dietary restrictions, bread and candy are off limits. Basically the holiday isn’t very kid friendly. The informant says that some Rabbis try to justify its existence by saying that it symbolizes the search for freedom but it only exists to keep the children from getting bored

My informant says the game is not that important in itself but it is important it is related to Passover.

The informant mentioned that Passover is a ritualized holiday; every aspect has some historical or religious significance. I think it is interesting that a holiday as old and sacred as Passover has this completely unrelated game attached to it. Even though it was not originally part of the traditions it is still important enough that people try to justify its existence. Maybe being a useful way to keep children quiet during the ceremony outweighs the fact that has no symbolic significance.

 

 

 

Proverb: Hebrew proverb

Nationality: Israel
Age: 40
Occupation: Sociology Professor
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 27, 2013
Primary Language: Hebrew
Language: English

Note: The informant is from Jerusalem

Hebrew Proverb

Proverb:

Note: Hebrew is written from right to left

Transliteration: Hatzava Tzoed Al Keyvato

Translation: The army marches on its stomach

My informant doesn’t remember where exactly he heard the proverb but he does mention that the military is a prominent part of daily life in Israel so military sayings are common. According to my informant the proverb basically means that ideas can’t sustain themselves until they become real. According him ideas need “food”, they need to link themselves to material before they become important. An example he uses to explain this is Leonardo da Vinci and his models of machines; perpetual motion machine, manufacturing machines, etc. According my informant these machines were revolutionary in hindsight but not important at the time because they served no practical purpose at the time. Those concepts became useful later when fossil fuel and independent workers became commonplace. As opposed to the Renaissance which had other energy sources and serfs.  According to him the proverb isn’t very important to him, he just knows it.

I looked up this proverb and apparently its a quote from Napoleon Bonaparte. Makes sense considering how military-centric Israel is. Although the informant stated that this proverb isn’t very important to him he still it connected to his profession. The da Vinci analogy is not directly connected to the proverb it is just something he used to explain it better. He says that the proverb is a military proverb but he applies it to the nature of scientific progress, which he is teaching a class on. It’s the same proverb but the informant took it out of its “original” context and gave it a different meaning.

Kissing The Mezuzah

Nationality: United States
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/12/13
Primary Language: English

The informant is from Malibu, California and grew up in a Jewish household. She was the president of “Malijew”, her high school’s Jewish club.

This tradition was taught to the informant by her mother when she was very young. The informant grew up in a Jewish household and her mother was of particularly strong faith. Before explaining the tradition as a whole, the informant first described what a mezuzah is. It is a metal tube with Hebrew prayers inscribed on it and it also usually contains a scroll of Holy prayers. These prayers are inscribed by designated scribes and are not considered holy or authentic if they are written by anyone else. The literal Hebrew translation of mezuzah is “doorpost”. This is because they are hung on top of or on the side of a door frame. The informant was always told that this was to protect the house from evil and also to be reminded to obey the instructions of the holy verses contained in the mezuzah.

Beyond hanging the mezuzah, the informant also always makes sure to touch the mezuzah and then kiss her fingers whenever she enters or exits a room with one hung on the door. When asked why she does this, the informant said “because it says so in the Torah”. While it is true that the Torah commands, the act of kissing the mezuzah seems to be a calming act. Though it may be a small, simple thing, it is a way of acknowledging one’s faith throughout the day and keeping God in one’s thoughts. The use was obviously first disseminated through the institution of the Jewish religion, but it is spread today mostly through familial lines.

Notation:

To some extent, mezuzahs have been a point of contention. This is because they are often left nailed to the doorway after the Jewish owner moves out. When a new owner moves in, they often keep the mezuzah, regardless of their faith. Some owners reportedly kiss it even though they are not Jewish, which has caused some controversy with the Jewish community. The informant recalls going to  a friend’s new apartment in New York City and kissing his mezuzah before entering. Her friend was not Jewish and asked her why she did that, having never seen the tradition take place. As far as the informant knows, he has not taken it down. Kissing the mezuzah is not just a cultural or regional tradition; it is seen as a sacred, religious act. People hold these acts dearly and can take it personally if they feel they are being robbed of them.

Farmer, Ann. “In Mezuzas, a Custom Inherited by Gentiles.” New York Times. September (2010): n. page. Print. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/18/nyregion/18mezuzahs.html?_r=1&>.

“Don’t be a chazzer!”

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/24/13
Primary Language: English

The informant describes what the meaning of the Jewish phrase with Yiddish origins “don’t be a chazzer” means today.  The informant recalls his mother always telling him to not be chazzer growing up.

A chazzer is someone who is being rather cheap and taking advantage of the system. For example, if you go to a restaurant and you are taking all of their free bread into your purse.  Or someone is giving you something for a good price and you insist on getting it for lower.

Chazzer appears to be a Jewish word for someone who is being cheap and greedy.  It is interesting that this word is of Jewish origins because if one were to think of typical Jewish stereotypes this word would fit rather well with those.  This word has been widely used in published work such as the movie Scarface when Al Pacino asks, “Do you know what a chazzer is Frank? That’s a pig, that don’t fly straight. Neither do you Frank.”  See citation of movie:  Scarface. Dir. Brian Palma. Perf. Al Pacino. 1983. DVD.

Joke about Jewish Mothers

Nationality: Jewish-American
Age: 97
Occupation: Retired teacher
Residence: Santa Barbara, California
Performance Date: March 14, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Yiddish

Cultural background:

My informant was born in 1915 in New York City, to immigrant parents—her mother was an Austrian-Jewish immigrant, and her father was a Russian-Jewish immigrant. Describing her childhood, she states that “at that time, New York City had a density that was closer—or more—than that of China. There were so many people jammed together in these old tenement houses—you had a whole floor of people in your apartment, who shared one bathroom. None of them even had windows, except on skylights, or looking out on someone else’s tenement window. So, it was just a very crowded condition. For the most part, people got along very well because they all came more or less from the same place, they were all poor, but, you know, though you didn’t have much, you didn’t think of yourself as poor. . . . Life was spent on the street because the apartments were crowded, dark, and very uninviting. So, we used to spend our time on the street playing hopscotch, jump rope. The little boys were always playing ball in the street. Everything was street-oriented. . . .

“I remember going to school. At that time, I only spoke Yiddish at home, and my mother took me to the teacher, and the teacher said, when did she come from Europe? And my mother said very indignantly, ‘she was born here!’ I’m a citizen! And, I was speaking only Yiddish at home, but I did not struggle with English; I caught onto it very quickly. The classrooms were so crowded that they didn’t have enough seats for everybody. But everybody there was hungry to get educated, and at that time, of course, the emphasis on higher education was only for the boys. Everybody wanted their sons to be doctors or accountants or lawyers. But the girls would wind up being in the factories at sewing machines. The highest honor was to be a teacher. In two years you could become a teacher, and then you would be one of the elite.”

Joke about Jewish Mothers:

“There was a baby carriage with two boys in it. And somebody says, ‘Oh, how wonderful these boys are! What’s their ages?’ And their mother said, ‘The two year old is the doctor and the three year old is the teacher.”

When I asked my informant what it means, she replied, “She had it mapped out, what they were going to be. It’s a joke about Jewish mothers.”

Indeed, Jewish parents are stereotypically overprotective of their children. While this quality is certainly not unique to Jewish culture, Jewish culture does place strong importance upon family values. Parents usually plan carefully for their children, hoping that their children will one day be more successful than they have been. This joke certainly reflects concern for the future; most parents do not map out their toddlers’ career trajectories. Perhaps, Jewish culture is, in part, so oriented toward children because Jews lived as minorities for centuries, preserving their traditions only by teaching younger generations.