Philologos
By Philologos
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Culture In a Familiar Hand
From Dennis Gottfried comes this query: “Since European Jews used the Hebrew alphabet to write Judeo-German or Yiddish, and Spanish Jews used it to write Judeo-Spanish or Ladino, I wonder whether other Jewish populations in the history of the Diaspora — ones speaking Persian or Arabic, for example — did the same thing.” They did….
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Culture When in Rome (Don’t Call Yourself Roman)
From down under in Melbourne, Australia, Lauren Wiener writes: “Could you please explain how ‘Nusach Sfard’ came to be the Nusach of some Ashkenazi Jews and why the family name Ashkenazi exists mostly among Sephardic Jews?” Let’s take part two of the question first. Although on first thought it may seem illogical that Sephardic Jews…
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Culture The Cons of Pro and Caring More
I suppose it is late in the day to plunge into the argument over J Street, the “pro-Israel” Political Action Committee — as it likes to call itself — whose repeated criticism of Israeli government policies and actions has many supporters of Israel up in arms. Still, with the organization’s first annual conference in Washington…
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Culture Clearing up the Meshugas for Maureen Dowd and William Safire
Rashi Fein writes from Boston: “In a column in the New York Times on September 30, Maureen Dowd writes that the late William Safire chastised her for her spelling of ‘meshugas’ in the sentence, ‘Cheney & Co. had shoehorned all their meshugas about Saddam’s W.M.D. into Colin Powell’s U.N. speech.’ According to Safire, ‘mishegoss’ would…
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Culture Not Abel To Hear Cain’s Words
Just what did Cain say to Abel before killing him? Every time we read the first portion of Genesis all over again on the holiday of Simchat Torah, I’m sure many of you ask yourselves the same question. English Bible readers may traditionally have asked it too, but not quite with the same sense of…
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Culture Why We Don’t Say Shanath Tovath
James A. Goldman writes from Brooklyn: “In this holiday season, I have noticed increasingly that one sees printed ‘Shana Tova’ instead of what I remember as ‘Shanah Tovah,’ even though the latter is more in keeping with the Hebrew orthography, which has a heh at the end of each word. I have also seen the…
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Culture The Great War: A Letter From the Front Deciphered
Forward reader Leonard Nelson has presented me with a challenge. “Attached to my e-mail,” he writes, “is a photograph and note from my father sent to his family while serving in the Russian army in World War I. The note is written in a cursive Yiddish that I cannot read. I would appreciate any assistance…
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Culture Fronting and Assimilating to a Gut Yontif
The onset of 5770 on Friday night September 18 posed a problem in Jewish etiquette. Normally, at the end of a kabbalat Shabbat, or Sabbath eve service, the members of the congregation turn to each other, shake hands (or hug and kiss, as is the custom in some synagogues in the United States today), and…
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