A Yiddish Way of Expressing Derision

A Yiddish linguistic construction puts Mamdani in his place

[Note: A version of this essay appeared in this morning’s edition of American Thinker, and may be seen here.]

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the candidacy, for mayor of New York City, of Zohran Mamdani. I've read about it, and I've even written about it before, both here and in American Thinker.

The prospect of this person running for office and possibly even winning the election is quite disturbing to me, as a Jew and as a native New Yorker (and also as a person who believes in America, its Constitution, and free enterprise, to all of which Mamdani represents antithesis).

But I've come up with a slogan to express my feelings about Mamdani, and I present it here in the hopes that it will catch on.

It's a slogan based on a linguistic construction with roots in Yiddish, and it treats Mamdani with the dismissiveness that he so richly deserves, and at the same time expresses the resilience of the Jewish people and our ability to find humor even in threats to our very survival. Note, however, that I am speaking of normal Jews, and not the mentally-ill, self-hating and self-destructive Jews who are actually supporting Mamdani and the ever-increasingly anti-Jewish Democrat Party.

Yiddish, for those who may not know, is the language of the Ashkenazim, the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe; it's a combination of Hebrew, German, Polish and Russian (and English). Sephardim, the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean and North Africa and of South America have their own language, Ladino, which is largely derived from Hebrew and Romance languages.

How many of you, Jewish or otherwise, have ever used or heard the expression "Fancy-Shmancy," as in, "That place is just too fancy-shmancy for me!"? Strictly speaking, it's not so much Yiddish as Yinglish, an example of how Yiddish has permeated our American vernacular.

(It can also serve as a reminder of how Jewish culture, like the cultures of so many immigrant groups -- so many, but not all! -- has enriched our greater American culture.)

Linguists call this construction "re-duplication," and it's used to express dismissiveness, derision, sarcasm, skepticism and even contempt. Other examples, often with an expository phrase tacked on, would include the classic Jewish one-liner, "Oedipus, Shmoedipus! What does it matter so long as the boy loves his mother?"

Or, one could say, "Transsexual, Shmansexual! Are you telling me a person doesn't know if it's a male or a female?" [Imagine that being said in a Jackie Mason accent.]

So, let me hereby propose to let the word go forth from this time and place: That whenever the name "Mamdani" is uttered, the response shall be "Mamdani, Shmamdani!" And one may feel free to add, "Oy, who needs that paskudnyak, Nu?"

(Paskudnyak denotes a thoroughly reprehensible individual, with absolutely no redeeming qualities. It is one of the very few Yiddish negative words that does not also carry some element of sympathy, warmth or humor. In an illustrated dictionary, the word might be accompanied by a picture of Hitler, Yasser Arafat, or Ilhan Omar. Or Chuck Schumer. Or Mamdani.)

Maybe some enterprising person will print bumperstickers and subway posters; I'd like to see it plastered all over NYC: Mamdani, Shmamdani!

ST