When I stayed With My Friend Josh’s Uncle House By The River
‘I am not!’ I shouted at his stupid face.
‘You are too,’ he said,
‘I don’t know why you say this, and put me in teh same basket as Mel Gibson and the BNP!’
‘I don’t want you at my uncles house any more. And what’s more you’re wrong!’
‘Wrong about what?’ I said.
‘Fyn a kargn gvir in fet bok genist men ersht nukhn toyt!’ He said to me.
‘What the shit does that mean?’ I asked, some spittle coming out of my mouth unintentonaly.
‘You are a fat rich man who loves goats and will soon die!’ he said. ‘It’s yiddish curse!’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘kan moren din tisse i håret ditt og så ta deg til frisør!’
‘Huh?’ he said.
‘It is norske insult: may your mother pee in your hair and then take you to the barber!’ I said.
He ponderd on that.
‘Zalts im in di oygen, feffer im in di noz.’ he said, handily translating it for me: ‘I could throw pepper up your anuss and watch salt come out of your nose!’
I tried not to laugh and the pressure hurt my dinkge. ‘kan skjegget ditt dekke din lester uansett hvor kort det er!’ I said.
‘And what does that mean, you anti semite!’
‘May your beard cover your penis no matter how short it is! Butwait a minute Josh – why you call me an anti semite? I am your freind!’
‘You said Jews were not funny!’
‘No, I said you were not funny!’
Rivka Jacobs
Schmurgen’s Story Number Two
Another very funny story, Schmurgen.
I tell you, it reminds me of some of those American burlesque routines of the early 1900s, in New York City; this kind of thing was really big in the popular culture of NYC at the time — sketches, jokes, and stories about new immigrants and their mixing up the languages and the subsequent misunderstandings.
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