May Your Eyes Not Move Right--Yiddish Curses for Republican Jews

In an election cycle that is leaving many partisans within the Jewish community swearing from the over-heated rhetoric, it is not surprising that a new web site and Facebook page,
"Yiddish Curses for Republican Jews" has begun applying a Jewish form of humor to the campaign.

The site, whose creators are not known, in its introduction asks:

"Do you have a dad who worships Sheldon Adelson? A sister-in-law who answers everything with the words "but Israel..." even though that isn't a complete sentence and she hasn't left Miami for 30 years? A brother who is convinced that Obama wants to "tax him to death" even when you gently break it to him that he isn't quite as rich as he thinks he is?

As a comic fix, the site offers:

"Well, now you can make your shame and anger known wishing on them just exactly what they deserve."

Taking off from our Eastern European linguistic heritage of expressing outrage cleverly and with humor, the site posts a series of Yiddish curses (In English, of course):

"May you make a fortune, and lose it all in one of Sheldon Adelson's casinos," says one curse.

"May you have a large store, and have it all dismantled by vulture capitalists," says another.

"May you find yourself insisting to a roomful of skeptics that your great-grandmother was "legitimately" raped by Cossacks," wishes a third.

"May your child give his Bar Mitzvah speech on the genius of Ayn Rand," says another.

What exactly is a Yiddish Curse?

Writing in the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, James A. Matisoff defines a Yiddish curses as: Yiddish "expressions that call down death, misfortune, or disease, often specifying a particular body part to be affected.

However, he notes that the curse giver "would usually be appalled if the dire eventuality actually came to pass." Basically, he sees the Yiddish curse as an elegant and creative "way of letting off emotional steam."

And my, is the steam being released. May you not be standing in it!
      
After being cited in one of economist Paul Krugman's columns, the site has drawn hundreds of responses and near a thousand Twitter followers--as readers are invited to submit their own curses, like this one:

"May you spend eternity in a stand-up comedy club at which Mitt Romney is the only performer."

And this one:

"May you attend the Republican convention during a category 5 hurricane, only to find that budget cuts have eliminated FEMA."

Not surprisingly in this competitive season--there's a blog post, by Joseph Hertzlinger that gives Republican responses to some of the curses:

Among others, is this response to the Ayn Rand bar mitzvah speech curse:

"May your child give his Bar Mitzvah speech on the genius of Karl Marx," says the version of the curse for Democrats.

Until November, it looks like curses all around.

Edmon J. Rodman has written about making his own matzah for JTA, Jewish love music for the Jerusalem Post, yiddisheh legerdemain for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, a Bernie Madoff Halloween mask for the Forward, and what really gets stuck in the La Brea Tar Pits for the Los Angeles Times. He has edited several Jewish population studies, and is one of the founders of the Movable Minyan, an over twenty-year-old chavura-size, independent congregation. He once designed a pop-up seder plate. In 2011 Rodman received a First Place Simon Rockower Award for "Excellence in Feature Writing" from the American Jewish Press Association."