Word Prompt – VERKLEMPT – Ruchama Feuerman

I used to love the Yiddish word verklempt – means getting all choked up – but then I heard Barack Obama say, while honoring Barbra Streisand, “I’m getting all verklempt just thinking about it.”

Did you have to ruin that word for me, Barry? Forever?

(No, I didn’t vote for him in either election. Though my husband did in 2016.)

See, when somebody who doesn’t exactly give me the warm and fuzzies about Jews, Israel, etc., cozily employs a Yiddish phrase, it ruins it for me. The word, I mean.

But at least farklempt is left. Close enough, sound-wise, if not in meaning.

Then Cory Booker had to go ahead and grab meshuga. Called himself Meshuga Booker.

Fine, he can have the word. It’s so passé.

I asked Chat whether President Trump ever used any Yiddish, but aside from the cruder words, Yiddish and the Donald don’t seem to mix. 

Not every celeb or politician’s use of Yiddish makes me prickle. Take Fran Drescher. She once dropped a leck mit a schmeck – a lick and a sniff, basically a whole lot of nothing. A leck mit a schmeck. I get a thrill just saying it.

Colin Powell, who in his youth served as a Shabbos goy, picked up a decent amount of Yiddish. He can drop as much Yiddish as he likes. He earned it.

Same with Irish-American actor James Cagney, who knew Yiddish and actually used it, in movies and in real life. “Oi, bin ich meet” – “Oy, am I tired” – is one example of the latter.

Okay. Genug! Before I get really verklempt.