The New Joys of Yiddish: Completely Updated | 
| Author: Leo Rosten
Creator: Lawrence Bush
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $11.25
You Save: $8.70 (44%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 249285
Media: Paperback
Edition: Updated
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 496
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.3 x 1
ISBN: 0609806920
Dewey Decimal Number: 422.43910207
EAN: 9780609806920
ASIN: 0609806920
Publication Date: August 26, 2003
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Product Description
Enjoy the most comprehensive and hilariously entertaining lexicon of the colorful and deeply expressive language of Yiddish. With the recent renaissance of interest in Yiddish, and in keeping with a language that embodies the variety and vibrancy of life itself, The New Joys of Yiddish brings Leo Rosten’s masterful work up to date. Revised for the first time by Lawrence Bush, in close consultation with Rosten’s daughters, it retains the spirit of the original—with its wonderful jokes, tidbits of cultural history, Talmudic and biblical references—and is enhanced by hundreds of new entries and thoughtful commentary on how Yiddish has evolved over the years, as well as clever illustrations by R. O. Blechman.
Did you know that cockamamy, bluffer, maven, and aha! are all Yiddish words? If you did, you’re a gaon, possessing a lot of seykhl.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 joys of yiddish July 19, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
thils is an updated version of leo rosten's original book. it appears a bit overdone in its scholarly definitions. i purchased the book as a gift for someone who was interested in learning something about yiddish.
 sanitized for understandable reasons May 1, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
For example, for an honest translation and etymology of "shaygetz" or "shiksa," see the Meggido Modern Hebrew-English Dictionary:
"sheqetz: unclean animal, loathsome creature, abomination...."
Sorta 'new' joys of yiddish January 29, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I hoped there'd me more actual language and less American-isms. But I get it now that I've read it - and the introductions. It was not intended as such. But I didn't really know that before I bought it. It's a classic, and I still really had fun with it.
Get an older edition, without the irrelevant and/or PC footnotes February 8, 2007
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
There's no need to repeat the deservedly fine comments already posted about Rosten's book. I simply wish to recommend buying any edition PRIOR to this 2001 revision by Lawrence Bush. While Bush does preserve Rosten's witty text intact, he spoils things by adding agenda-driven footnotes throughout. Bush castigates Rosten for making Reform jokes (please! I was raised Reform, and I found them funny) and ruins the humourous "shadchan" (matchmaker) entry by going on at length about Jewish domestic abuse (a problem to be sure, but no more so than in any other ethnicity). Lighten up, Bush! Finally, he inserts commercials for Reconstructionism and Jewish Renewal, which are valid expressions of Judaism but are post-1950s American in origin and NOT a part of the old Yiddish culture Rosten celebrates. Stick with Rosten's original text if you can find it.
Revisionism has ruined this book. March 31, 2006
44 out of 46 found this review helpful
First of all you may make the mistake I made and think that just because Leo Rosten's name is emblazoned in huge letters on the cover that this book was authored by him. He is deceased. In his absence the book has been completely gutted, the innuendo removed, the vulgarity lightened. The idea in the beginning was subversive. Bring to light the Yiddish language that had been excluded for so long from the European tradition, and let the gritty coloring of yiddish words speak for themselves. Instead of busying himself with a contrived story of yiddish culture, the first Joys of Yiddish really was just words. And the words were so good that they literally spoke for themselves. Just saying them and mulling them over was enough to expose the truth of where they came from, as well the lies of those who sought to repress them. This new book, The New Joys of Yiddish has swung completely the opposite direction. Now the book is filled with a contrived culture bound representation of Yiddish where Yiddish is all things Jewish. The author's daughters along with their hired script-nurse have recast the book in terms of modern Jewish identity politics, with Yiddish playing a lead role. If you are interested in such things, if for example you need to know that cockamammy is not Yiddish but sounds like a colorful Jewish expression, read on. I for one was saddened by their wholesale destruction of a great book that was keeping the candle burning for one of history's most subversive languages.
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