Tag Archives: jewish

Pui Pui: Spitting the words off of your lips

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 55
Occupation: Educational Consultant
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/25/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Hebrew

Main Piece:

What does Pui Pui mean?

“It’s like ‘get the words off your lips,’ kind of a purification thing, but it’s also about spitting. It’s like when you don’t’ want to jinx something, like ‘I hope I start feeling better soon, pui pui pui.’ It’s so the evil eye… to get rid of the evil eye, and it’s an Ashkenazi Jewish thing. Plus there’s hand motion associated with it! You kinda flick your hands like you’re getting rid of something, though all of the old people point their hands instead. I guess it can be spelled ‘ptui ptui’ like spitting, but the real question is how is it spelled in the original Yiddish (laughs)?” 

Context: 

The informant is my mother. She is was raised Conservative Jewish and has an Ashkenazi (Easter European) Jewish background. This information was collected during a family zoom call where we were checking in with each other.

Analysis: When explaining Pui Pui to people who have never heard of it before, I often call it the Jewish “Knock on wood.” My entire family uses it as a replacement to knocking on wood whenever we don’t want to jinx something. Most Jews I’ve met have never heard of this saying, and those who have heard of it have strong ties to Eastern Europe. The combination of the spitting sound and the flicking hand motion are reflective of sympathetic magic practices, and it’s as if miming spitting the words off of your lips will actually prevent them from having been spoken. 

Jewish After-meal Prayer Alterations

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/25/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Hebrew

Main Piece:

I talked to two informants who attended the same Jewish summer camp at two different times. 

How did you alter aspects of prayers at camp?

Informant 1: “We change the words of Birkat Ha’Mazon [the after-meal prayer].”

Informant 2: “Though it’s different from when I was at camp before you.”

 חֲבֵרַי נְבָרֵךְ Chaveirai n’vareich (Let us thank God)

  • Informant 1: N/A
  • Informant 2: Rubber tires never break

יְהִי שֵׁם יְיָ מְבֹרָךְ מֵעַתָּה וְעַד עוֹל Y’hi sheim Adonai m’vorach mei-atah v’ad olam.  (Blessed is the name of God now and forever)

  • Informant 1: N/A
  • Informant 2: Naked swimming is illegal in the state of Idaho 

בִּרְשׁוּת הַחֶבְרָה Birshut chaveirai (With Your permission)

  • Informant 1: Your shoes have arrived
  • Informant 2: Bear shit in your eye

לימשיכו Limshicho (The anointed one)

  • Informant 1: Cream Cheese Balls
  • Informant 2: N/A

Context: 

Informant 1 is my twin sister. She attended this camp during the 2010s. Informant 2 is my mother. She attended this camp during the 70s. This information was collected during a family zoom call where we were checking in with each other.

Analysis: 

In general, Jewish youth assign humorous English phrases to Hebrew ones to try and break up the monotonous prayers they are forced participate in throughout the day. At this camp, Birkat Ha’Mazon is said after breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and saying it three times a day gets very old, very fast. Having silly jokes within the prayer makes it a lot more bearable to complete. When comparing the prayer alterations from Informant 1 to Informant 2, Informant 2’s alterations are far more inappropriate and cruder. This reflects the agenda of the camp administration to crack down on these alterations and make them more appropriate. Their biggest issue with these alterations is that they disrespect concepts involving God. If the administration would have it their way, there would be no alterations at all, but for now, they have settled for “Your shoes have arrived” because it is far better than “Bear shit in your eye.”

Dreydl

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 19, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Biblical hebrew

“So, dreydl. It’s like this Jewish game that you play for the holiday of Hanukkah. And you spin a little top and it lands on one of four things, uh, which is either the letters gimmel, nun, shin, or hey. Uh, on a gimmel you take all of the money that’s in the pot, on a hey you get half of it, on a shin you put some of yours in, and on a nun you get nothing. And you take turns until someone gets all the money. It’s usually played with fake money called gelt, it’s chocolate and it kinda tastes bad, but like that’s the game. The letters…I don’t know what the Hebrew is, but it translates to a great miracle happened there, and there means Jerusalem.”

Note: The letters are:

נ – nun

ג – gimmel

ה – hey

ש – shin.

The Hebrew phrase is נס גדול היה שם, which is pronounced as “Nes gadol hahah sham.” It means what he said it means. 

The Golem of Prague

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, Ca
Performance Date: 4/19/21
Primary Language: English

“Okay, so there was some Rabbi in Prague in like, fucking not this time but like the 1600s or some shit probably? Uh, and you know people in eastern Europe weren’t super fond of Jews all the time right, so he was like “I gotta protect my people,” so he built this giant like clay dude and he speaks the name of God in it’s mouth, and you know, ‘cause that’s how…that’s how robots work. And so the Golem came to life and he just kind of like helped out all the Jews in Prague doing like basic tasks and chores. Uh, until like…there’s different versions of the story, but I think one of the versions is he just straight up murdered a child, so the rabbi was like “Oh we gotta get rid of this dude” and so now he doesn’t exist anymore.”

Note: There are many versions of this myth. In the one I grew up hearing, the golem had the Hebrew word for truth inscribed on it’s forehead and was made to go to sleep by changing the word to the Hebrew word for death. Universally though, the golem went on a murderous rampage and was permanently put down and laid to rest in the attic of a temple, which you can still visit today. I do think this story says a lot about the behavior of the Jewish people through history — we have to help ourselves, but not at the cost of doing harm. 

Splitting the Baby

Nationality: American
Age: 28
Occupation: General Litigation Lawyer
Residence: Hollywood, California
Performance Date: March 20, 2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece

Informant: “So there’s an old Jewish thing where two women go up to King Solomon and both of them claim that a child is theirs. So King Solomon says “let’s split this baby in half and give half to each claiming mother.” The first woman agrees, but the second woman would rather give up the whole child than have it split in half. King Solomon realizes that the second woman is the real mother of the child. The idea is that you use something crazy to bring out the truth. You use this crazy scenario to bring out the truth. So that’s the real story. But attorneys use it as a way to say the judge was not well versed on the topic and came up with a compromise that he believed was fair, but in reality hurts the actual “good person” in the case. Basically we use it as a way to say the judge came up with an unfair compromise. So we actually use that phrase incorrectly, but that’s just how we say it.”

Background

My informant is a General Litigation Lawyer at a major corporate law firm based in Century City, California. He has been working in his field for over five years. My informant uses this phrase often, and only to other lawyers.

Context

This phrase is used in a professional context, but not professionally. One lawyer may say this to another as a way to refer to a court ruling as unfair. The phrase is used in settlement or mediation and it is something either the lawyer tells his client or to another lawyer. This phrase is not used in written official statements, as it is considered unprofessional.

My Thoughts 

I had never heard this saying before, but I found it interesting that lawyers knowingly use this phrase wrong. They are fully aware of how the phrase is supposed to be used, but they still modify it and use it in a way that suits their needs. This is a good example of how the meaning of a piece of folklore can change to accommodate certain groups of people, and in this case, lawyers. Originally, this phrase was used to express an outrageous method that yielded accurate results, but lawyers use it as a way to express an unfair compromise on the part of the judge. Lawyers have adopted this phrase into their occupational folk group and modified it to fit their needs. This suggests that, if someone outside of this folk group were to hear lawyers use this phrase, one would misunderstand what is being communicated with the phrase because it is being used incorrectly. Thus, one would not understand the use of the phrase from the outside looking in.

For further reading about occupational folklore, see Robert McCarl’s chapter in Elliot Oring’s Folk Groups And Folklore Genres: An Introduction titled “Occupational Folklore.”

Source:

McCarl, Robert. “Chapter 4: Occupational Folklore.” Folk Groups And Folklore Genres: An Introduction, edited by Elliott Oring, Utah State UP, 1986, pp. 71-90.