Debbie Nathan

Mort Miracle

Mexican gambling top, often mistaken for a dreydl. So ... Feliz Hannukah!

Morten and I were at Bed, Bath & Beyond last night looking for Christmas cookie tins so he can send out his homemade Norwegian baked goodies to friends and family — including Scandos, boricuas, DR’s, and Jews. While he was poking through the shelves I spied a Martha-Stewart-fancy dreydl and took it over to show him. I love how in Hebrew, those dreydl letters nun, gimel, hey, and shin mean something all holy –“A Great Miracle Happened Here” — but the same letters, in Yiddish, are street corner crapshooting jive: “Take, All, Half, Put” (nem, gants, halb, shtel). Hey folks, in case you don’t know — dreydls are much less about magic olive oil and Maccabees than everyday, gut-bucket gambling — first in Rome, then Southern Europe, later in the Spanish colonies, and only much later in Ashkenaz Europe. (You can still find them in toy stores and junk shops, from Mexico to England. They have nothing, historically, to do with Jews or Hannukah. Unless you want them to).

So who needs candelabras and shameses? Give me the gelt any time! Shtel two nickels or two chocolate pennies. Nem halb of ‘em. Shtel a couple more. Winner takes gants (for more on how to make it work for you, see here). Now go make some latkes and get fat.

Bakery cookies, Upper Manhattan

Actually, there is one thing I like about the Hebrew. Morten’s last name is Naess (do not pronounce the “a”), which, I’m told means “place” in Norwegian, or something like that.

Antique English "put 'n' take"

But in my gente’s tongue, as I explained above, it means “miracle.” As in “Mort Miracle,” that slick shaygets of mine with the blonde hair, the thick calves and the bicycles. How could this Nize Girl resist? He looks great in a kipah! He’s been hanging around my family so much, he can say the brukhe over bread! His native language is Germanic, and you wouldn’t believe how much he helps me with my Yiddish homework. He is Naess Godol!

We’ve had the intermarriage going for a while, just like those gambling tops that have turned into dreydls because they walk like dreydls, quack like dreydls, and gamble like dreydls. Go look at the picture up top again (which I took earlier this month, in a toy store in a village near Puebla). Spanish “pon” means Yiddish “shtel,” which is English “put” — or, “Sorry, you lose.” Toma is nem is take. Good for you! Grab your gelt and eat some dulces. Pigging out in December, whether on potato pancakes or baked ham or tamales, expands the body and the spirit. Gobbling up everything edible, from other people’s cultures too, and gorging those cultures with your own, seems apt, if not brave, in the dark days.

Maybe talk of taking chances has always been a seasonal treat. Today I was reading the nostalgia section of the latest Forward and found this news clip from a century ago. It’s about goyim and yidn overstepping old bounds and mingling in the most intimate ways. It’s not exactly kind spirited, at least not on the surface. But look deeper and you see a gamble that’s worth celebrating. Along with things like my Yiddish homework and that nes Mort.

Cakes, Upper Manhattan bakery

Form 100 Years Ago in the Forward

One of the most active members of the Jewish community of Boston’s South End was a young Mr. Kadelsky, who not only belonged to a number of different Jewish organizations, but also was given the honor of reading from the Torah this past Yom Kippur and led the circuits around the synagogue on Simchat Torah. But it turns out that Kadelsky isn’t even Jewish. Earlier this month, at a meeting of his landsmanshaft, the Brit Avraham, a new immigrant showed up and was shocked to see Kadelsky, whom he knew from his town in Poland. There, Kadelsky was a Catholic Pole. When this news came up,the meeting turned into an uproar, and when all the members asked what was going on, Kadelsky fainted. When he came to, he admitted that he wasn’t really Jewish but had been raised by Jews, knew Yiddish and could even daven. The head of the landsmanshaft was upset and wanted to kick him out for lying, but Kadelsky said he wanted to be a Jew. To prove it, he was circumcised the following week.

Sophy Naess's homemade church shortly before it was eaten

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!