Why are Yiddish speakers talking about JD Vance and bedbugs?
The ‘vants,’ once ubiquitous among poor Lower East Side residents, appears in a number of humorous Yiddish expressions
J.D. Vance, at the Republican National Convention July 15. Photo by Getty Images
By Chana Pollack July 16, 2024
If J.D. Vance, the Republican party’s freshly nominated vice-presidential candidate, had been chosen for the position in Yiddish, a lot of people would be shaking (and scratching) their heads, given that his last name in Yiddish — vants — means “bedbug.”
Though the phrase “does anyone know the Yiddish for bedbug” is trending online now, some social media Yiddish mavens were leaping on the hilarity of the pun potential as much as two years ago. And even that would hardly be the first time that Vants has been propagating.
The television comedy Mash had a memorable scene about the word in an episode that first aired on Jan. 11, 1977:
The back issues of the Forverts attest to the fact that Yiddish has no lack of descriptive folk sayings about vantses. If you’re underweight, you might be called din vi a vants, as thin as a bedbug. Nice! Or maybe, appropriately for a politician, would be this delight: din vi a tsekvetshte vants, or “we’d like to see you as thin as a squashed bed bug.” One might even want to see that er hot im tsekvetsht vi a vants: He made mincemeat out of him. In less aggressive Yiddish speech (It exists! Truly!) we might describe the politician Vance’s entry to the convention recently to much applause, as geyn vi a vants, or walking slowly.
If you watched or read the nominee Vance’s origin story, you’d know that Vance’s humble beginnings could be described in Yiddish as er iz orem vi a vants, or poor as a bedbug.
Here’s favorite Yiddish folk hero Hersh of Ostropol in dialogue with fellow jester Motke Habad in a brief crack about the Yiddish vants, not to be confused with candidate Vance:
Habad: In the history of the natural world, what’s the worst?
Ostropol: Vantsn. Bedbugs with their pairs of two legs.
Over the years, Vance-vants could be found in over 200 Forverts items. A 1940 medical piece stated, “Doctors Warn There’s a Bug Causing Sleeping Sickness.” The item is credited to the Public Health Services, predecessor to the Centers for Disease Control, that had recently uncovered a new type of pest.
“Everywhere in the world, bedbugs make it impossible to sleep” the article said. “This bug induces sleep rapidly once bitten and it’s not a healthy nap either.” Turns out this particular vants hailed from Texas, was inaugurated as the “kissing bug” and, like some politicos, enjoyed sucking your blood.
As early as the 1920s, Forverts readers would likely have been familiar with the Vance-vants term from tenement living. Overcrowded, shared sleeping quarters, beds and bedding all led to a deep familiarity with vantsn on the Lower East Side. Fortunately, ads for Flit sprays and powders to help eliminate them were published in our pages. “Protect yourself, protect your children,” the ad warned, because “the bedbug’s bite quickly transforms into illness.”
As the buggy Yiddish term now makes its way into our consciousness, here’s a chirpy way to familiarize yourself with vantses, to the tune of a delightful and somewhat oddly ghoulish folk song about dancing Vances-vantses in which vants rhymes with the Yiddish for “dance,” which is tants.
And, if dancing seems like a strange way to behave in this political season, just remember — you only live vants.
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