WATCH: Trump Surrogate Accuses Jay-Z of Throwing ‘Mazel Tov Cocktails’

Image by YouTube

By Daniel J. Solomon November 7, 2016

Yiddish made its debut in the election last December when Donald Trump mocked rival Hillary Clinton for getting “schlonged” in her primary fight eight years ago with President Barack Obama.

As the campaign enters its final days, the mameloshn has re-emerged after Scottie Nell Hughes, a surrogate for the Republican nominee, mixed up “Molotov cocktails” with “mazel tov cocktails” in a CNN interview.

What is a “mazel tov cocktail” pic.twitter.com/xmTiBnoaia

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)

— Deadspin (@Deadspin) November 7, 2016

“We look at Jay-Z, and…one of his main videos starts off with a crowd throwing mazel tov cocktails at the police,” she said to the network’s Don Lemon, criticizing the hip-hop artist, who appeared at a Clinton rally over the weekend, for violent lyrics in his music.

Little did she realize that she was confusing an improvised explosive device (the molotov cocktail) with the Yiddish word for congratulations (mazel tov).

She acknowledged the mistake on Twitter, where she wrote, “trust me.. I realized at that moment, I should have taken a nap at some point the last 24hrs.”

That didn’t stop people on the social media site from having a laugh at her expense.

@Deadspin The Mazel Tov cocktail is something Shalomland Security has warned us about for years.

— Major Blackentarry (@blackentarry) November 7, 2016

Okay, Google. When I type “Mazel Tov” into your search engine, the second prompted option should not be “mazel tov cocktail.” #facedesk

— Such A Nasty London (@authorclondon) April 9, 2015

No, we have no idea what a “mazel tov cocktail” is.

— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) November 7, 2016

A Mazel Tov Cocktail is any discarded, half-finished drink you can manage to down unseen from the “adult section” of your Bat Mitzvah party.

— Rachel Shukert (@RachelShukert) November 7, 2016

Her screw-up ranks as one of the best Yiddish faux pas — alongside the time former Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann slipped on the term “chutzpah,” or Clinton herself got the pronunciation for “kvell” wrong.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

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. We’re near the end of our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we have a very ambitious goal of $127,000 by April 21.

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

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO