opinion
Six Jewish Words No Journalist
Can Live Without
BY ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL
hilip Roth’s character Alexander Portnoy
captured the insecurity of second-generation
immigrants in two priceless sentences.

“I was asked by the teacher one day to identify
a picture of what I knew perfectly well my mother
referred to as a ‘spatula,’” Portnoy complains. “But
for the life of me I could not think of the word in
English.” The joke is about a child of immigrants whose
parents mix vocabulary from the Old Country into
their everyday English, and pity the kid who has
to figure out which is which. My parents weren’t
immigrants, but I feel his pain. When I was grow-
ing up the few Yiddish words that sprinkled their
vocabulary had essentially entered the English
dictionary. I developed my “Jewish” vocabulary
later in life, after time spent in Israel, classrooms,
synagogues and in a series of Jewish workspaces.

I’m Portnoy with a difference: I know which
words are Yiddish and Hebrew, but I can’t think of
the words in English that do as good a job.

This comes up in my work at a Jewish media
company. Journalism has its own specialized
vocabulary, with talk of “ledes” and “nut grafs,”
“sigs” and “kickers.” But there are also Jewish
words for which there are no satisfactory substi-
tutes in the newsroom.

Consider “nafke minah,” a Talmudic phrase that
means something like, “What is the practical dif-
ference?” It’s a useful tool for examining in what
ways the thing you are writing about is fresh or
different from some other thing, or if it advances a
developing story. It’s a close cousin of “hiddush”
(or “chidush,“ not to be confused with kiddush),
Hebrew for a fresh insight. If something doesn’t
pass the nafke minah or hiddush test, it may not
be news.

Similarly, “tachlis” (“tachlit” in Modern Hebrew)
is indispensable in describing the main or opera-
tive point of something. Think of “brass tacks” or
“bottom line” in English. I want to use the word
whenever I am reading a story with a meandering
opening and am restless to get to the main point,
or if I suspect a source is dancing around a sub-
ject. It’s the difference between an organization
saying “It is our goal to actualize new modalities
for young Jews to engage in lasting relationships”
and “We are a dating app.”
“Pshat” (rhymes with spot) is the plain meaning
of something, stripped of “drash” (rhymes with
“wash”), or interpretation. It’s essentially the who,
what, where and when without the why. Reporters
18 APRIL 14, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
can be itchy to get to the interpretation of a news
event; editors can be cranky in demanding that
they first stick to the facts. Just give me the pshat.

(Not that I am allergic to drash: It is also the role of
journalists to interpret an event or phenomenon
for the reader, once they have lined up the facts.)
“Nisht ahin nisht aher” is a Yiddish phrase my
father used, meaning “neither here nor there,” or
maybe, “neither fish nor fowl.” To me it describes
a piece of writing that doesn’t know yet what it
wants to be. Is this a profile of a bagel-maker or
a story about the inexplicable popularity of the
cinnamon raisin variety?
I polled my colleagues for the Jewish vocabu-
lary they either use only in Jewish settings, or wish
they could use outside the bubble. There were
the untranslatable usual suspects like “davka”
and “mamash” and “stam” and that Swiss Army
knife of interjections, “nu.”
Which is not to suggest that my colleagues share
a vocabulary or frames of reference, Jewish or
otherwise. Hebrew Union College’s Sarah Bunin
Benor studies the language of contemporary
American Jews and has written about the ways
their vocabulary tracks with their Jewish biog-
raphies: the older Jews steeped in Yiddishisms,
younger Jews who have brought more Hebrew
into the Jewish-English vocabulary, devout Jews
who speak a Hebrew/Yiddish/Aramaic patois
known as Yeshivish. There are proud Jews who
have very little “Jewish” in their language and
“insiders,” like me, who slip in and out of different
Jewish skins depending on their audience.

And Benor’s latest project, tracking historical
and living Jewish languages, demonstrates the
linguistic diversity of the Jews beyond Ashkenazi
Europe. (Benor’s side project, the indispensable
Jewish-English Lexicon, introduced me to the
Ladino gesundheit: “Bivas, kreskas, enfloreskas!”
[“Live, grow, thrive!”])
Because of that variety of experiences and influ-
ences, I am hesitant to inflict my Jewish vocabulary
on my colleagues – or, for that matter, on our read-
ers. It is a challenge for anyone working in ethnic or
specialized media: How much jargon do you use?
In our case, do we use or need to explain words
like shul, shiva, haredi or havurah? Is too much
untranslated and unexplained specialty language
just one more barrier to readers accessing not just
our Jewish news sites but Jewish life as a whole?
Or, if you get too “explainy,” do you sacrifice
your own credibility — and perhaps come off as
patronizing to your readers?
The trick is hitting on a vocabulary that flatters
the intelligence of readers without leaving them
behind or on the outside — which, I might add,
should probably be the guiding principle of any
journalism enterprise, and any Jewish organiza-
tion or institution that wants to remain relevant.

Otherwise, bishvil ma litroakh? JE
Andrew Silow- Carroll is editor-in-chief of The New
York Jewish Week and senior editor of the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency.

Or Hiltch/Flickr Commons
P