How to Talk Jewish

By Jackie Mason

Book Overview

Jackie Mason has built his Tony Award-winning career out of the culture and language of Jewish people, so who better to instruct the unindoctrinated in the joys of Yiddish? How to Talk Jewish, a guide to 100 Yiddish words, phrases, and expressions, includes pronunciations, definitions, and examples of usage, along with Jackie's incomparable wit. Is your blind date haimish? Uh oh. A zhlub, worse. A doctor? The naches are almost inexpressible! Jackie Mason brings all the vivacity, spunk, and chutzpah of Yiddish to the tongues of the less fortunate. Don't be a meshugenner, buy it already!

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312054459
• ISBN13: 9780312054458
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 137 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

JACKIE MASON, How to Talk Jewish

Jackie Mason's book "How to Talk Jewish", is the greatest and funniest teaching tool for anyone who wonders why they've wasted words speaking English, when they could have said the same with one word in Jewish.

Jackie Mason helps you learn to talk Jewish the Yiddish way

I wanted to learn some common Yiddish sayings. So I bought Jackie Masons' book titled: "How to Talk Jewish". It is an enjoyable book complete with Yiddish sayings and a taste of Jewish life as only Jackie Mason can tell it.

Can we talk????

Quintessential Jackie! Hilarious! A must-have in a Jewish humor library. May I also recommend a nifty, gezunta book I received as a gift and fell in love with? "A Little joy, A Little Oy" -- if Jackie's a main course Joy, Oy is one amazing antipasto. Lillian & Joe Moses

OY A KLUG!

Only a meshuggener would not find this book entertaining and informative. Then again, probably only meshuggeners would want to READ shtick like this. Too bad Jackie didn't record this for the blind and the goyim; LISTENING to his spiel would just make this so much more of a mecheieha. If only that gantseh macher Webster had had Jackie as his editor -- oy!

Lexicography that is witty and wise

This is a smart little book of 93 Yiddish words and expressions that are defined, illuminated, and used-in-a-sentence by comic and philosopher Mason. In his Introduction, a thoughtful essay on Yiddish, he asserts that although he born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin in 1934, he grew up in a one hundred percent Yiddish-speaking world ("I didn't know that anybody in this country spoke English until I was old enough to go to the movies.") His family moved back to New York before he was five.This little book contains a wealth of Masonisms. Jackie Mason used to have run-ins with censors and others. He reserves the right to be both self-deprecating and insulting. Jews, gentiles, politics, marriage, family, ethnicity, money, power, and God himself - all are up for grabs. There are a lot of funny stories. In addition, he has an understanding of the Yiddish language that he is happy to share. (Harry Truman was haimish - accessible, natural - FDR was not. Colorful explanation is provided.) He offers a theory of chicken soup that links it -successfully - to most of the world's cuisines. He is never dull. Mason: "It seems that in English that you have to prove that you're not emotional in order to have class." He posits his sociolinguistic theory (which you've heard if you've seen or heard his stage show) that the more emotional the speech - content and structure - the more "low class" the speaker. He defends emotionality. He loves Yiddish, and in fact the language (black English, specifically) of any people engaged in a battle of wits to survive.A funny and endearing book.