Image by COURTESY OF SIMON & SCHUSTER

Oy gevalt, Yiddish is dying. It’s listed in the Encyclopedia of The World’s Endangered Languages, which means that an entire generation is at risk of not knowing such phrases as nosh, shmear, pitsel and shayna maidel. Indeed, where would we be as a people without some good bagels and shmear? Unless bubbes, zaidies and alter kochers (grumpy old men) keep teaching us Yiddish words, they might be lost to the dreck (garbage) forever.

Image by COURTESY OF SIMON & SCHUSTER

Leave it to Grammy Award-winning art director and graphic designer Janet Perr to help bring Yiddish back into vogue, first with the quirky book “Yiddish for Dogs,” and now with her new book, “Yiddish for Babies: A Language Primer for Your Little Pitsel.” The picture book teaches 29 Yiddish words with entertaining pictures of babies in various states of “Yiddish”: playing with a dreidel, letting out a geshrei (scream) and looking ongepotchket (gaudy) decked out with excessive amounts of jewelry.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The book’s aim is to help babies understand their parents when they start yelling things like, “Stop kvetching, dinner will be ready soon,” which the book reads next to a mother with a hot pot in her hand.

The book also teaches babies to look and act just like their bubbe in Boca. “Nu? Did you hear we’re having a playdate later?” one baby says to another on an outdated flamingo-colored rotary phone. “Yay,” the other baby responds, through a key-lime phone.

But the book is not just for babies. One of the last pages teaches parents the phrase yiddisher kop (smart person). So they can kvell: “Baby’s on her way to Harvard. She’s a real *yiddisher kop.”

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount