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“Oy, Marvin, you fressed like a chazzer!”“What are you talking? I only ate a morsel of kugel!” “Yeah? Pull in. I’ll prove!”IT’S 10 O’CLOCK. DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR MOTHER IS?This is a friendly reminder from the JHD that it’s not only getting later, but mama’s not getting any younger. She could be lying on the floor, like the ferkrimpted lady in the nightgown on the commercial screaming “HELP, I FELL!” What kind of child doesn’t care if her mother might or might not be on the linoleum? Call already! If she can’t crawl, at least you tried.OY … BE PREPARED TO FLEEI learned this at my late bubbe’s knee-highs. Whenever we drove on a Sunday to “wisit” family and she saw (or thought she saw) something like this, she grabbed her “setchel” – a purse the size of the cargo hold on the good ship “Exodus” – and did inventory. Out would fly two briskets (with sides), bottles of chicken soup mit matzo balls, five pounds of chopped liver, a slew ofseltzer bottles, three washcloths and four pairs of rubber running shoes with Dr. Scholl’s inserts. The woman was ready should there be a pogrom on Queens Boulevard.HEARING AID ALERT!You’re entering an area with winds over 20 mph. Now, this should be a nice day, however, not for those of us who bought hearing aids from LignerLots online. One slightly open window and the thingy will poof its way from your ear canal to the Suez one. CLOSE all windows if cheap Uncle Shmooie with the “WHAT? WHATS?” is napping in the backseat.THEY SAW!Ok. You took all the free samples from the bakery or slipped the leftovers (including other people’s) into your tote bag. The lady at Whole Foods or Tante Tilly, who aren’t “quirky” like you, have hit their Goniff app, and the JHD is alerting you to toss your stash before the G-patrol stops and cites you for EG “Exaggerated Gonifery.”SIDEWALK ENDSThis particular sign is to alert some seniors, the British and impatient Jewish people that you MUST IMMEDIATELY STOP DRIVING ON THE SIDEWALK and get back on the big black road. Yes, all those other vehicles can be annoying, but then, so can driving through their houses.NO SHLUFFY ON HIGHWAYS

Let’s say you picked up the I 95 to take you to Miami … -or Route 90 in Israel to get to Eilat. Somewhere around either New Jersey or the Galilee, you’ve had it, especially on Sunday after the bagel buffet. These are very bad places to shluf while driving (although the other drivers in New Jersey are shlufferating). Should you nod off, assign a passenger to poke you, then, shluf away when you get to Trenton or the Dead Sea.LISTEN TO YOUR WIFE ALREADY!You’ve bought 36 maps, and the GPS lady has laryngitis. For three hours “she’s” stuck on: “Take-first-right. Destination-left 0.1 miles.” You’ve circled Utah (which is OK, if you weren’t going to Arizona). Your wife is screaming: “There’s another Chevron … Ask already.” Do NOT say: “But the GPS lady says we’re only 0.1 miles away!” or she’ll throw herself on the hood screaming “Vi tsu derleb ikh im shoyn tsu bagrobn!” (“I should outlive him long enough to bury him.”)GO GREPSERS!This sign, sensitively created by the JHS, is telling us there are trucks around with toxic chemicals that, when in the presence of human grepsers have the capacity to wipe out small third world nations. Should you see it, quickly do a U and leave great uncle Morris on the soft shoulder – with a week’s supply of Sen-Sen.HOT WATER BOTTLE ALERT!You’re in the car and do you know where your hot water bottle is? No? And this, with your back?! Go home immediately and bring it before your start shvitzing from the spasms, and ruining yet another Sunday with your mechutonim. A normal person would understand if you’re two hours late. Right?AND WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT …DID YOU TAKE THE CLOTHES OUT OF THE DRYER BEFORE WE LEFT?Of course they didn’t, never mind adding 5 fabric sheets! Face it. By the time you get home, your favorite tops will resemble a relief map of Mongolia. The rule is: if you’re 50 miles or less from you destination, turn back. If you’re more than 50 miles away from home … adopt the basic sigh throughout your visit, and leave two hours early to “re do.”-THE FEDS ARE ON THE JOBThis sign was created NOT by the JHD, but by The Federal Highway Administration in Washington D.C. Unless you have two lazy eyes, enough said?

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https://www.aish.com/j/fs/101098064.htmlMovin' On Up?Aug 19, 2010by Marnie Winston-MacauleyI’m not downsizing. I’m upgrading. Or at least that’s what I tell myself.There’s no doubt about it. Among those of us over 40, the second leading cause of death isn’t cancer, heart disease, or even diabetes. No, my friends.It’s moving.The second leading cause of death among the over 40 crowd isn’t cancer. It’s moving.We recently moved from a house to an apartment. To bring you up to speed, the last time I lived in an apartment, I was 22, wore bell bottoms, and came with no baggage (SJF-Single Jewish Female) exceptone frayed ottoman, curlers the size of inner tubes,500 books and one mezuzah for one room. My–“palace” was a studio apartment.For those who live anywhere but Manhattan, a “studio” is a small but cozy one room “pad,” usually with an “L”-shape somewhere. In Manhattan, where space is $100 an inch, a “studio” was once a “charming” five foot high supply closet – before they renovated. If you see Manhattanites walking sway-backed and ducking, they live in a studio.The terrific news was, the whole move took two trips in a borrowed Ram Van, and three friends who “owed” me. One to help shlep, one to drive back and forth from Queens (my parents’ house) to Manhattan (Freeedom!), the third to lie prostrate on the street to save the parking space. I decorated quickly. My taste? “Multi task.” My ottoman was: a bed, guest -seating, a dining table, a desk plus desk chair. The effect was “junkyard.” But it was my junkyard even if I had to step o–ver the bed to the shower head in the kitchen “area.”Flash-forward a generation. Picture it. Me, in a long shmatte with a college logo I never went to, slathered in “muscle-pain be-gone” ointment.

As for “baggage,” I had enough “stuff” to fill the cargo hold of the QE2. The contents of four houses, including three incomplete sets of dishes, five non-matching sets of silverware, two dozen sheets that fit nothing, one working computer with assorted parts from six others, 1,000 articles, 100,000 pieces of paper (and gum wrappers) with “must have” ideas,” 3,000 -photos and items of “memorabilia,” and 5,000 books. Oh, and the contents of five medicine cabinets filled with Ace bandages, Gingko Biloba, and a dazzling array of chalky pink liquids.All I had to do was fit this stuff into an apartment less than ½ the size of my house. What to get rid of? Trust me. In addition to a major cause of death, moving is the primary reason for family dissolution.We dug in. A process that caused my inner ears to explode and my husband to lose feeling in both his legs. “We have to be ruthless,” said my husband, who has a filing cabinet for matchbook covers.Hmmm. If we took only the good furniture (four pieces) and kept it to a hundred cartons by eliminating half the books and papers (ten thousand), we could fit it all in, providing we didn’t plan to use a hallway.Day one was a breeze. I threw out six huge baggies of greasy Tupperware.Day 12. My arm was buried in a dish carton marked “FRAGILE,” into which I was tossing a 1983 World Almanac! The same carton my husband wanted to use for his 12 City College mugs. “You touch this and I’ll break your mugs!” I said, clutching the tattered pages to my chest.We glared. Impasse.Forty-eight hours to moving day. I was in the same shmatte, humming Abba Dabba Honeymoon while making concentric circles in the dust as my husband threw anything that wasn’t radioactive or half-eaten into anything with a lid. He railed for me to help.I couldn’t hear him. My ears closed up ten days ago at about the same time his eyelids developed an astounding flutter.The moving men arrived. They weighed our boxes. We were told their original estimate could be off by five per cent. Ours was off by 3,000 pounds. Did we want to eliminate something?We volunteered each other. Somehow, we moved!

“Welcome to your new apartment,” said the building manager, as the moving men, plus three of my son’s friends who were bouncers in a former life, tried to fit a five foot, 500 pound piano in a 4-foot service elevator.With the exception of a few mishaps involving trusses, torn ligaments, and weird fractures that are only found in elephant hunters in Borneo, our stuff “fit!” Sort of.We looked around. Then at each other. “Where’s the phone?” I asked my husband. “I saw it ... in the boxes with the soy sauce packets. Maybe.” Oyyyyy.“The sofa!” I shrieked. Now, this sofa had been a bone of contention. It was the one piece I bought retail. Real simulated leather. I loved that sofa! My son loved that sofa! For days, he argued. “It won’t FIT in your place! I should have it!” The logic was flawless – except for the fact that he was (thankfully) moving in with a friend whose digs were the size of a peanut can. Now, the “subject” in question, was lodged (OK, stuck), halfway between the bathroom and kitchen. “Told you so!” he smirked.“Enough!” I said. “Coffee break!”Without having taken a good look at my new digs, hidden by massive cartons and sofas, I ran out.For decades, I’d just open a door, and Boom! The great outdoors. Now, I had to find the great outdoors. First, the elevator. “F,” “LL,” “W,” “P,” “1\"? But where is, “‘OUT?!” I frantically pushed “1\" and met a nice lady who ran an aviary – in 1B. She led me to the lobby, and asked about my key. So that’s what that thing was! The manager had hurriedly given me a thingamabob when I moved in. I’d stared at the plastic rectangle like E.T. studying a cellular, and wondered if it was some kind of Southwestern decoration.I managed to open three doors. The fourth? Bupkes. Finally, the 90-year-old doorman gave me instructions. “Push it, ma’am.”From the 7-eleven across the street, I finally looked at “my” building and imagined the marvelous possibilities. It’s amazing what a giant mochacino and a little distance can do.Renewed, I dialed the first “HELP!!” service in the book. An hour later, “he” arrived. Don. An angel in a shmutz-stained shirt with a hammer, saying “no big deal” when I pointed to the sofa in the bathroom!–“No big deal” – the sweetest words I’d ever heard.And so Don entered our orbit. Things are now being unpacked, filed, hung, and, as I type this, painted.

Copyright © 1995 - 2020 Aish.com, https://www.aish.com.Aish.com is a non-profit and needs your support. Please donate at: aish.com/donate,or mail a check to: Aish.com c/o The Jerusalem Aish HaTorah Fund PO Box 1259 Lakewood, NJ 08701.I chose rose for the living room. Don thinks yellow is perfect for the halls. But we agree a platform for the piano would be such a quirky “design element.”The other day the fridge spewed out strange stuff. I called “downstairs” and boom! A “Larry” fixed it, 1, 2, 3. I started imagining a life where things like plumbing --actually work. Had I been nuts all these years? Us? “Us” who think needle nose plyers is a male hygiene product in a house?Then, we moved a carton, and I saw it. A light switch! To a view! From my balcony there it was, the Vegas landscape, from the towering hotels to the majestic Red Rock mountains!My husband is now soaking his foot in the communal hot tub. His eyelids are down to two flutters a minute. We just finished painting the living room.I love my living room.I’m about to bring fruit to the terrace. And I’m smiling. I love my terrace.I love the precious stuff that has traveled with me, chronicling this hooty adventure.I love my apartment.Sure, sometimes I still get off on strange floors. But hey, isn’t that true of everything in a life?The way I figure, even if you get a little lost, it’s just one more journey to embrace.

https://www.aish.com/j/fs/48945076.htmlMurphosky's LawDec 6, 2008by Marnie Winston-MacauleyFor egt M urph y 'sL a w .We e Jw sh v ae \"M urp ohs .k y \"We've all heard it, read it, and, as Jews, definitely lived it: \"Murphy's Law\" or some version of: \"If anything can go wrong it will.\"But who is this Murphy anyway? Do we know him? Does he know from \"going wrong?\" We all know who the real experts are in this department. Us.Who, more than Jews have had higher hopes and rainier parades?I say, Murphy-Shmurphy! His real name was probably Hyman Murphosky.I say, Murphy-Shmurphy! His real name was probably Hyman Murphosky, an old-world haberdasher from Minsk, who, expecting to prosper, bought a used steam machine that shmutzed andburned so much of his inventory, that Hymie's son,Melvin, had to forego his medical education to pinch fedoras. \"Oy-oy-oy,\" cried Murphosky the elder, while his son sat, hunched over and pinching.\"If anything can be farpatshekt (messed up), trust me hold onto your hat! Personally, –there should be a law. \"From there, it was only a hop, skip, and jump to a compendium of Murphosky's Law(s). So in honor of Hymie and Melvin Murphosky, I bring you examples of MURPHOSKY'S LAW ...plus a few corollaries.MURPHOSKY'S LAWS* When guests ask what you'd like for your Birthday and you say: \"Feh! All I want is your company,\" that's all you'll get.* If you tell your child he should take up a career that makes him happy, he'll become a mime.

Copyright © 1995 - 2020 Aish.com, https://www.aish.com.Aish.com is a non-profit and needs your support. Please donate at: aish.com/donate,or mail a check to: Aish.com c/o The Jerusalem Aish HaTorah Fund PO Box 1259 Lakewood, NJ 08701.* After you've won the \"Manischewitz Matzoh ball Cook-off,\" your mother-in-law will always say: \"Could use a little salt.\"* If you're right 100% of the time, who cares? No one will listen anyway.No matter how much of a bargain you get, your sister-in-law will get it cheaper.* No matter how much of a bargain you get, your sister-in-law will get it cheaper.* Tell your daughter and son-in-law, \"Go on vacation, darlings, there will be other Mother's Days,\" and you'll get a postal card from Aruba.* If your mother says everything's all right, call 911, as something's very very wrong.* No matter what you cook, everything will taste like chicken.* The more expensive the carpet, the greater the probability of a borscht stain.* If anything can go wrong it will ... when Mr. Murphosky's mother is visiting.* Everything that has gone wrong for anyone else, went less wrong than it did for you.* Call something a minor problem, and some \"maven's\" sure to turn it into a big tsimmis.* Teach your parrot Yinglish, and his first will be \"yutz\" to your boss.–* Always assume the bottle is half-full unless it's your last bottle of diet Dr. Pepper in which –case your brother-in-law, the chazzer, will drink it.* Whenever you wake up to write a brilliant joke for your act on a napkin, your mother will decide to \"tidy up\" at 6 a.m for the garbage man.––* No matter how many times you try for roast beef, it'll come out brisket.* Tell your daughter, \"Go, you might meet somebody,\" and she will a doctor named –Mohammed.* Try to teach a meshugener something, and not only will you become meshugge, but he'll be better at it.GREAT GIFT IDEAS FOR THE HOLIDAYS: Marnie Winston-Macauley is the author of \"Yiddishe Mamas: The Truth About the Jewish Mother\" and the award-winning \"A Little Joy, A Little Oy\" calendar. Her 2009 calendar can be found on Amazon and fine bookstores.

https://www.aish.com/j/fs/My-Farflucket-List.htmlMy “Farflucket” ListApr 20, 2013by Marnie Winston-MacauleySome people have a “bucket list; I have a “farflucket list.”Everybody’s doing it. Bill Clinton’s got one. Zachery Levi’s is even online. They’re “bucket lists” or “things I want to do before I kick it”. Celebs to bloggers are writing “bucket lists” which has become a trendy cultural past time since the 2007 Rob Reiner film, “The Bucket List” in which two terminally ill men (played by Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman) take a road trip with a wish list of things to do before “kicking the bucket.”Gen-Xers, who not only refuse to age, but are determined not to die at all (well, at least without having done “it all”), have grabbed onto it with a fervor I usually reserve for buffets.Ironically, most of the lists I’ve read are filled with stuff that can kill you (crocodile hunting, skydiving, bungee jumping). No doubt, they think if they make the list long and meshugge enough the Grim Reaper will wait until they’ve lugged down Mt. Kilimanjaro before tap tapping. Many of these idiot bucket lists are really bucket avoidance lists.Many of these idiot bucket lists are really bucket avoidance lists.For over 3,000 years, Jews have lived a “bucket list” life through not only our mitzvahs, but our occasional experience with lousy neighbors, major tsouris, and distinctive DNA. When it comes to thefuture, we’re optimistic. For now? We stick with evil eye avoidance through enough poo poosto revive the Dead Sea.The Jewish lists are definitely different, and mine from yours. For example, We Jews generally tend to be … realistic, do-able (well mostly), and don’t involve winning an Olympic Gold Medal for the ski slalom.So, for you dear readers, I’ve created …MY JEWISH “FARFLUCKET” LIST: The First 14(“FARFLUCKET” is a made up Yiddish term. Cross that off my Bucket List!)(NOTE: Peace and a safe Israel are all there, but the IDF turned me down.)

1- When a loved one has a wart, a beauty mark, a mole, to once before plotzing, say: “It’s nothing mamala. Put on a little duct tape and it will disappear, one, two, three” – before sending a sample to the Mayo Clinic.2-Spend one day looking like Christie Brinkley. Be honest. What Jewish female isn’t curious to know what it feels like to be a 6 foot 4 gorgeous ostrich, with blonde bangs that don’t resemble fucilli, and an actual waist? True, we can straighten but we can’t heighten, so I’ll settle for a day with Christie, telling everyone we’re identical conjoined twins who were separated at birth and do an article on their reactions.–Spend one day looking like Christie Brinkley.3- Go on a worldwide deli tour. I want to (forgive me) pig out on pastrami from Peoria to Prokopyevsk and bask in blintzes, brisket, and corned beef from every single coast. When I finally go, I want thecause of death to be a bursting kishke from too many kishkes.–4-And while we’re on the subject, I want to be the one who figures out how to make the carrot cake 20 calories, and the carrot, 2,000.5-Just once I’d like to tell the following joke to a gentile who doesn’t look at me quizzically:Sheld’n told mama and papa: “I’ve found my bashert. For fun, I'm going to bring over three women and you guess which is “the one.” The next day he brought three beautiful women who chatted with Mama and Papa over a little cake. After they left, he challenged, \"Okay, Guess which one I'm going to marry?\"“The one in the middle with the red hair,” his parents replied instantly. \"Right! But ... how did you know?\" asked Sheld’n, amazed.Mama said, \"Simple. Her, we don't like.\"(Is the gentile laughing? No. “If his parents don’t like her I don’t get it.” Oyyyy.)6-Say to my son, “Darling, you’re an adult now. If you want to go away for a week without telling me … I say ‘OK! I know you’ll be fine rock climbing in Thailand, even though you threw up on the Ferris Wheel at Coney Island. And to prove it, you can take the timer with the alarm off your little belt.”7-Be a contestant on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” when the big gelt questions are: a) “Who started life as Goldie Mabovitch?” b) “Which is cholent?” And for the mil, c) “Who designed the Lincoln penny? (Jew, Victor David Brenner.)

Copyright © 1995 - 2020 Aish.com, https://www.aish.com.Aish.com is a non-profit and needs your support. Please donate at: aish.com/donate,or mail a check to: Aish.com c/o The Jerusalem Aish HaTorah Fund PO Box 1259 Lakewood, NJ 08701.8-Move to a place in the world where it doesn’t cost $750 a month to get the right temperature. Like Golde-lox, I want to spend a little time without shvitzing or icicles hanging. Seventy-two degrees (without a budge) is nice.9- Go to a meeting at the Shul and when they ask: “Any questions?” I say “ eh … forget about it.”10- Promote cellulite as a positive thing, proving we women have lived. In fact, anyone without it, should cross thighs in shame. Then, get a $500.000 investment from The Shark Tankers, but only for distribution. Between me, my family and friends, we have enough free raw material to supply the U.S., Western Europe, and half of Asia.11- Lie on a beach and not once worry about whether I left the water running, who my son is dating, why I haven’t received a text from cousin Marvin about his hernia, or whether terrorists will target my apartment.12- Write a film about a functional Jewish family where the kinder call the parents “Sir” and “Ma’am,” “dope” is reserved for the yutz next door who thinks “Philadelphia” starts with an “F,” the “machatanim” are a gift from God, and when a grandchild is born, no one says: “About naming the baby after grandpa Irving, may he rest in peace ... listen, if you want to name him Luke Picard Lispshitz, that's fine with us.” (PS. It’s a drama not a reality series.)13- Stroll into Saks in a shmatte and casually buy a $5,000 bag retail – and return it … a week later.14- Kill off reality shows and bring back real newspapers and magazines; inky, sweaty, smelly ones, so writers like me won’t have to return bags to Saks a week later.So dear readers, should you care to share your Manischewitz wishes and stuffed derma dreams, by all means, post!

https://www.aish.com/j/fs/My_15_Minutes.htmlMy 15 MinutesJun 30, 2012by Marnie Winston-MacauleySeveral years ago I had a brush with celebrity I starred in my own TV pilot.–Several years ago I made a TV pilot -- a “test” show which either becomes a hit or is vaulted away where networks put their other rejects.It started when I got a phone call from a producer who read my syndicated column, “Ask Sadie.” These “reality” people were looking for a pro who could answer questions on the fly. The gimmick? Questioners total strangers who happened by a park in Maryland -- would –put a buck in a pushke, and the “chosen maven” would improvise advice, one-two-three.I was to dispense advice as a loveable “Jewishy” Auntie.“Advice for a buck? Just how cheap do I come?” I wondered. But hey, when a real producer calls who am I to argue?After phone auditions and looking at the worstphoto of me ever taken, I was to be the new “Jewishy” Auntie.I was brought to Maryland to do a radio test and meet the network VIPS; seven women all in black. Whatever “cute” I could still conjure turned to shvitz. But, I respected them. And, like a good Scout, I was prepared with a mission statement for this little show that rivaled the Geneva Convention. I said “tribal” and “on trend” a lot.We got the green light! Now, we back-up. My fashion style is “Early Execution.” My curls resemble electrified fucilli; clothes are one-size-fits-nobody and accessories are “cleaningtags.” So a few pals “took me on” as “Project Impossible.”My entire life has consisted of hairdressers suggesting Lourdes. The women sent me to a “genius” stylist who had a PhD in pounding fucilli – while mentioning Lourdes a lot. One shlepped me to “Off Fifth Avenue.” There’s a reason it’s “off.” I bought yesterday’s designer “bargains” and still looked like Bette Midler on Skid Row.

Coiffed, dressed, with a bazillion notes, I headed back to the D.C. area. My curls were in abeyance, but my anxiety had spiraled. I’d done TV many times as a guest, and had written for TV, but the “stah?” Oy vey. With my usual optimism, I spent the plane ride counting all the people I could let down should I stare, mouth open, saying bupkes.How not to bring out Stah power: the PilotAt the producer’s office I met my “acting coach.” She’d just come off a stint with Brando, who “adored” her, so she was too choked up to actually make a suggestion.The production team met privately and decided they needed their own “geniuses” to fix me up – again. I’m no Bar Refaeli, but hey, either is Dr. Ruth. So, on top of massive anxiety, I was getting a little paranoid. At a high-end salon, I was forced to do the one thing I hate most.Being futzed over. I sat for hours looking at videos of fish, while they dyed, de-frizzed and moaned, as one curl not only went on strike, it got three others to stand up with picket signs. Next stop: a department store where I got a buyer who obviously confused “The Midler” look (me) with “the Thatcher” look (not me). The only thing I liked was the Spanx. But hey, when a real producer says “perfecto” who am I to argue?At 6 am the next morning the “Brando & Me” coach and the make-up/hair lady arrived. Quaking, I was going over strategies should a “client” ask me if his child could be a serial killer, while these two divas were quacking over hair, make-up, and of course, what might have been with Marlon.On the “set” at the Maryland Park there we all were: the network people, producers, tech crew, and the “people people” watching us set up. Would they come over? Would I buckle? -Stare in a stupor, repeating “I’m a big fat teapot?”They came. Strangers who wanted to tell an imperfect stranger with dripping mascara, their woes on air and get advice for a buck. I called upon 3,000 years of Jewish women with pisks behind me, and got into “the zone.” Tuning out everything except “the problem” I was there, present, and loved every minute.MishapsOf course, there were a few mishaps:Forgetting I was miked everywhere, I nearly destroyed $5,000 worth of equipment in the Ladies room.DIRECTOR: “Jauntily run to the dock and jump on the ferry.” This he says to a woman with a mortal fear of falling the six inches between the dock and ferry into the river. Praying, I closed my eyes and jumped. After 12 shots I landed with the producer, camera people, and of course

Copyright © 1995 - 2020 Aish.com, https://www.aish.com.Aish.com is a non-profit and needs your support. Please donate at: aish.com/donate,or mail a check to: Aish.com c/o The Jerusalem Aish HaTorah Fund PO Box 1259 Lakewood, NJ 08701.the make-up diva whose mascara ministrations in the rolling ferry made me look like KISS in a tsunami.On the ferry, I noticed that the other passengers were wearing unusual clothes. I politely asked if they were nurses. “We’re Amish,” said the leader, who, before averting her eyes, made me feel I was sentenced to wherever bad Amish people go. Oyyy.There was the shot where I was supposed to walk “jauntily” toward a restaurant. Except the path was overgrown with fake palm streets, and I wound up swinging like a Jewish Tarzan.It’s a WrapThe raw film was in the can! We were jubilant. Now it was going to “editing.”Weeks later, with trembling hands I opened the tape, now called “SADIE SAYS!” Of course I kvelled. But trust me. If you think the camera adds ten pounds, it adds 30. Ten I had to lose, and 20 – let’s just say that my arms waffled like mutant turkey goiters.Time to Focus (Group)It never fails to amaze me that network execs with a combined experience of 100 years leave The Yay or Nay to 15 strangers who want a free lunch. According to my Q-score, which no one understands, they found me “welcoming,” which was also used to describe Bill O’Reilly.The production? Not so much. The pilot aired a few times. I was kept on contract and the producers were fired. Then the network sold to Oprah, who had her “stah” in Phil.Well, I did have my moment. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t kind of like the attention, even with the shlepping, the anxiety, the stares, the fussing, the traveling, the divas.But, despite the mishegoss, I found that sharing your passion about what you’ve learned with people you quickly come to care about is the real “stah.”Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. But now I’m way too old to be a diva.

https://www.aish.com/j/f/My_Canadian_Jewish_Dad.htmlMy Canadian Jewish DadJun 4, 2011by Marnie Winston-MacauleyEveryone knew you could count on my dad.As Father’s Day approaches, naturally my thoughts turn to my own: Louis “NMI” Winston (Weinstein). The “Louis” he insisted, was pronounced “Louie” as “Louis XVI”. The NMI stood for “no middle initial.” As the youngest of six (the oldest two from his widowed father), he was the only “NMI” in the bunch. It’s possible that his mother, Manya, for whom I was named, charged at age 24 with running a farm in Northern Ontario, managing the local Jewish girls’ club, cooking, housing relatives from “the old country,” taking in sewing, organizing labor strikes, and then, raising her brood alone (my grandfather, in ill health, died when “Louie” was a baby) was too busy to think of a middle name.Through my father I learned all Jews aren’t stereotypical “New Yawk.”Or to notice that “little Louie,” age three, like Mary’s little lamb, followed his next elder brother to school one day and stayed.–Yes, my dad had independence thrust upon him early. By age five, he, like his sibs worked for apenny, and developed strategies for streetcar “sharing” – one fare, and five sibs running and replacing one another at different stops.Dad never thought of himself as “poor.” Underfinanced, maybe. But never “poor.” Poor was a mindset, and his was to view life as rich with fascinating possibilities.He went to New York at 16 to make 35 cents an hour, pioneered an industry, spent four years in the India-Burma-China theatre during WWII, suffered 14 bouts of malaria, then met my mother at Mrs. Ginsberg’s house in Brooklyn, the mama of a mutual friend. In her thick Yiddish “hecsent” she warned her: “Dere’s a soldier here. From Ceneda. He’s a bissel meshugge from the var, and losing his mama.” His beloved mother died the day his ship docked. The Army refused to let him muster out a little early. After four years in the jungle he arrived 60 minutes too late to say good-bye.So, he threw all the furniture out a second story window.

Ok, he was a little shaky. Yet, when he appeared at the top of the stairs, thin, in a bathrobe, hair disheveled, my mother fell instantly in love. They married within two months and moved to Flushing, New York.Like many of my peers raised in New York City, the second “Jewish homeland,” we arrogantly assumed that American Jewry was synonymous with “New Yawk Jews.”But it was through my father, that I learned all Jews aren’t stereotypical “New Yawk.”Canadians, for example, actually stop at crosswalks, talk to answering machines, don’t know from road rage, and if you’re lost, they’ll walk you -- to another Province. Perhaps because they never went through that adolescent “revolution,” Canadians are well, nice. Enterprising. Optimistic. Helpful.Unlike the many Jewish Dad “New Yawky” stereotypes:My Canadian Jewish Dad … Fixed things! Yes! A Jewish dad who didn’t stare in a stupor under car hoods, bang and “geshrei” at toilets to make them flush, or have panic attacks at IKEA. Canadians are doers. From pipe clogs to building machinery that would frighten John Deere, nothing remained tsebrokhn (broken) in Dad’s orbit. Except for the rare times, he broke it. Dad once lit a match under my car to “see what the trouble was.” By the time Emergency Services arrived, Dad emerged from the flames looking like Peanuts’ Pigpen with a sweet “oops” on his face. But he most enjoyed fixing -- us. At the mention of a splinter, his eyes lit: “Bring me a needle from my sewing kit!” Paralyzed, we let him “operate.”My Canadian Jewish Dad … cared how contraptions worked. Canadians are a curious people. Whistling, they adore taking things apart, from computers to, well … once, a neighbor, owner of a quick mart, brought over a can of mace. With a houseful of people, my dad, fascinated, futzed with it. Dad’s curiosity was quelled. He learned that “futzing” with mace can send 50 humans careening through screen doors in 10 seconds flat, leaving cartoony cut-outs worthy of the Roadrunner.My Canadian Jewish Dad … didn’t buy, he made! Or found “deals.” Canadians are endlessly thrifty and resourceful! Need a toothpick? Chop down a forest and shear a sheep. Out of butter? Churn! Nothing in our house was ever “obsolete” – until it blew up. Dad canned enough crabapples from our tree to end world hunger. Need a Purim costume? He turned me into a working shower – with curtain. Less successful were his “deals.” Dad used a mail order house. In Belarus. “Need a coat, mamala? I ordered you three -- 150,000 rubles!” (47 dollars.) They arrived made of a mystery fabric I’m sure will be featured on “Life After People.”

Copyright © 1995 - 2020 Aish.com, https://www.aish.com.Aish.com is a non-profit and needs your support. Please donate at: aish.com/donate,or mail a check to: Aish.com c/o The Jerusalem Aish HaTorah Fund PO Box 1259 Lakewood, NJ 08701.My Canadian Jewish Dad … played ice hockey! “Wind chill factors?” Feh! He and his sibs swam like Mark Spitz in Lake Ontario -- in January -- saw icy streets as skating ops, and knew from pucks, balls, and baskets. With unset broken noses, his sisters and brothers were champions! Sadly, his daughter was AC (Athletically-Challenged). For 10 long years, my Canadian Dad tried to teach me to float. Like a matzoh ball, I was a natural sinker.My Canadian Jewish Dad … believed the world was his responsibility. When I was a child we lived in a working- class neighborhood where gelt was scarce. When a little girl across the street was ill and her immigrant parents refused to call a doctor, my Canadian Dad tended to her for a solid 72 hours until her fever broke. Throughout his life, if a neighbor needed a new porch, mentioned a broken sink, or was stranded in say, Philadelphia, everyone cried “Call Louie!” Everyone knew he’d be there.My Canadian Jewish Dad … was ardently pro-Jewish and pro-Israel. During the War, in the jungle, he demanded Services for the Jewish soldiers. When anti-Semites kicked up trouble, my dad stood up and organized the few Jews in the neighborhood, including those who “didn’t want to make a fuss.” Despite a tight budget, he laid the cornerstone for the first synagogue in the area.From my Canadian Jewish dad, with his Yiddish-British background, morality wasn’t implied, it was taught. Ethics were essential. Trust was inviolate. Generosity was expected. Responsibility was unquestioning. Jewish principles and Yiddishkeit weren’t merely guidelines, or golden tickets to heaven. They were living values that could never be compromised.The day he died the house was full with family, friends, the myriads of people he’d helped, mentored, loved and was loved by.Yet almost comatose, in severe pain, he hung on. I knew why. He couldn’t, wouldn’t ruin a party, even as his own was ending. I asked them to leave, took his hand, and said, partly in Yiddish, the most difficult words I’d ever said or would say: “Everyone’s gone now. You did great. We love you, Daddy. And, we’ll be okay. It’s time now … for you to rest.”My Canadian Dad died right then, his hand in mine. Remember this touch, I thought. And this upcoming Father’s Day, as every day, I remember.

https://www.aish.com/j/fs/53114347.htmlMy Son, The GeniusAug 16, 2009by Marnie Winston-MacauleyI know what you're thinking, but my son really is a genius.The day (or should I say \"days\") I was in labor with my son, I knew something was up. After 36 hours of hee-hooing and enough IVs to push a moose through a water slide, he'd decided, \"What? Me move? I don't think so!\" So, there he stayed, gleefully.Now, with the threat of \"Labor\" Day looming to weeks, my doctor sensitively suggested: \"Either we do an emergency C-Section, or you'll give birth to a long pointy head.\" I jump- waddled onto the surgical bed. If not, I'm sure he'd still be there, swigging a Coke with one hand, and e-mailing me to swallow an IPod with the other.And so \"my son, the genius\" entered the world. And I learned late this gift comes with a ––curse.As an adult, with an intense full time career in criminal justice, I knew bupkes about babies, never mind weird ones. (I assumed \"swaddling\" was a type of medieval torture.) I had no expectations, no comparisons. What I did have was terror. Not just normal new mom mishegoss, like nailing everything other than strained peas onto the ceiling. No. I was the Empress of Mishegoss. When my Seth was diagnosed with a hernia, I had my dentist in the operating room ... to assure me it wasn't cancerous. I saw his chart. In bold, the pediatrician wrote: \"MOTHER: LUNATIC!\"At nine months Seth was attaching magnetic letters to the fridge in alphabetical order– while sounding them out.The \"positives\" gave me yet another title: \"Crazeeyenta.\" At nine months, I noticed Seth, playing by the fridge, was intently attaching magnetic letters in alphabetical order while –sounding them out.I frothed. Spewed liquid naches, like a maddenedbeast. All my clinical degrees,sense – lost in transformation over my progeny's magnetic letter miracle. My metamorphosis to Mama-loon

was complete. What's the first thing Mama-Loons do? Call \"witnesses,\" doling out solar filters for the event. No matter how \"cool\" a Jewish mom seems, \"Is he smart!\" makes us \"kvell\" like \"Now this kid's a future quarterback!\" to anyone else.After an exhaustive search, I found an \"Institute\" with a system to teach infants to read -- and do calculus. (I'm hiding in shame.) Games were flash cards. By 14 months he babbled \"Pee- –bah!\" when I held up a \"Peanut Butter\" card! Delirious, we all \"pee-bah'd\" in our pants. By two, he could ID hexagons and octagons. From there, Seth made faster connections than Sprint. The only thing faster, was our ability to \"spread\" the news and that included –strangers.Which is why I couldn't understand why no one wanted to \"play\" with us. Instead of singing \"Wheels on the Bus,\" other moms wanted to throw me under one. \"Maybe you should quit carrying the cards ... and the abacus,\" suggested a friend ...gingerly. In fairness, private school in Manhattan is de rigeur. The Big Kinderlekh Competition starts at age three when \"King of the Hill\" means being \"Top of the Prep Track\" bound for Harvard. If your babe, thumb in mouth, says \"wee wee\" in the testing room, Boom! He's stuck in a second-rate Pre-K, and, at 18, doomed to Knish U-- on line. Need a tutor to teach your toddler to draw an isosceles triangle? Call 212-anything. All Manhattan-ites have the 411, or know a couple who paid a tutor, then needed Prozac when their progeny \"failed\" triangles. As for Seth ... when the tester asked him to name two animals, he said, \"Two ‘hippopathamuses.'\"Ah. And so we hit the core of the 155 I.Q. gift-cursed. At nine, he landed the role of young Nathan in The Rothschilds, understudied in Lost in Yonkers, taught himself piano, started composing at ten, and wrote analyses of Plato at 12. But my bragging rights had developed a definite wormhole that got bigger with age (his, and mine). It started to dawn that the clinical term for \"genius,\" could also include \"Emotional Deficit Disorder.\"I eventually learned that many of these kids actually think differently. I call them \"doughnut- hollers\" after the genius who went \"Eureka!\" when looking at the deep-fried inner tube, and said, \"We'll sell the holes and make a fortune!\" During second grade, Seth's teacher, confused, called me. They'd returned from a class trip to a hoo-ha parent's glass factory. When the children were entering the grinding room, they were instructed to put on goggles. Seth politely asked, \"What about the other five holes on my face?\" And sweetly sat out.At eight, \"My son, the genius,\" was a terrific techie. Unfortunately, one of his experiments blew the school's entire computer system. (I'm still paying for that one.)By fourth grade he spent his time at the Public Library instead of doing homework -- intent –on learning to stop any impending apocalypse. During his \"Ingmar Bergman\" phase, when I asked him if wanted juice in his lunch box, his answer? \"In a thousand years will it make a

Copyright © 1995 - 2020 Aish.com, https://www.aish.com.Aish.com is a non-profit and needs your support. Please donate at: aish.com/donate,or mail a check to: Aish.com c/o The Jerusalem Aish HaTorah Fund PO Box 1259 Lakewood, NJ 08701.difference?\" Oy.I learned that: genius is a marvelous \"poseur\" for maturity and can sandbag it. If a child can talk like an adult, it's easy to assume he has adult judgment. Wrong! Worse, he thinks he does. Which is how he wound up driving from New York to Nashua, New Hampshire, at 14, to \"rescue\" a girlfriend he met at his college for adolescent geniuses. –(Now that was genius -- putting 100 tweenie geniuses together in the woods -- and us –sending him there. The only thing missing were assault weapons.) I'm also still paying off the taxi meter.I learned that: \"success\" came way too easily. At seven, Seth scored #1 in his school in a national science aptitude test. And got zero in \"words.\" How is that possible? Just run through, skip a box and throw off the rest of your answers because you're not bothering to –listen. Failure wasn't on his radar, or his \"fault,\" any more than the need to care and endure.Like child stars who crash on adolescence, child \"geniuses\" can only coast as children. As he grew, he saw less \"gifted\" peers, who struggled, embraced mistakes, and connect emotionally with the world, succeed. And was left behind agonized and lost.–We both learned that such a generous human gift, places the recipient in danger of losing the very humanity it's meant to serve. \"Genius\" easily becomes you, the measure of all worth. And what use is genius without heart? Without understanding and empathizing with the pain –and joy of the human struggle.He has a way to go. But, at 28, he's finally on the path, doing brilliantly academically, and tutoring others. Perhaps, like late bloomers who take longer to blossom, the very gifted may demand more time to \"grow\" into their intellect. Meanwhile, I thank Hashem that Seth hasn't ended up like some the smartest philosopher on Skid Row. That he's learning the true –meaning and responsibility of his gift. And that I've quit being an \"admirer\" and become a real parent to an already difficult child I'd helped create, so he could find his neshuma (soul).I humbly say to all new parents, especially those whose progeny have unusual gifts: the job demands teaching neshuma, not shepping naches. No longer lost, Seth can now access his \"genius,\" tempered with humility, humanity, and endurance that comes from challenges, failure, pride in the trying.\"My son, the genius,\" \"My daughter, the dancer,\" \"My son, the painter,\" \"My daughter, the beauty,\" means nothing, when compared with \"My child, the mensch.\"

https://www.aish.com/j/fs/New-Jewish-Superheroes.htmlNew Jewish SuperheroesSep 6, 2014by Marnie Winston-MacauleyWholesaleman puts back in people’s pockets what those over-priced department store goniffs are stealing with their fancy-shmancy labels.The connection between Jews and superheroes is well known. Just last week the Times of Israel ran a story titled “A Marvel-ous night out for Jewish comic book nerds: Costumed superheroes with Semitic roots are swinging into a town near you.” Many have pointed out that Jewish creators of Superman for example, Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel, gave their Superman Jewish characteristics from his name Kal-El to his unique double life reminiscent –in ways to Moses himself.Supershadchan!our superheroes?But many of these comic book superheroes were hidden Jews. Baruch Hashem, thank God, today we Jews don’t have to hide our identity. So why shouldI’m glad you asked. Ladies and gentlemen…JEWISH SUPERHEROES WE’D LIKE TO SEEMatzo Man: In defense of all that is kosher, Matzo Man has the unique ability to unleaven himself, break apart (not necessarily evenly), and fit in any corner, allowing him to wipe out crime from any hiding spot. His arch enemy is The Matzolator. Should he come within 50 feet, Matzo Man risks being found and buttered to death.

Supershadchan! Her task is simple: to make sure all eligible Jewish people have a prospect for marriage by the time they finish university. Should, say, a particular prospect have certain flaws, for example, he acts like a bulvan (animal), Supershadchan will find a suitable bulvanette, thereby saving unsuspecting mensches by limiting the spread the bulvanism worldwide. Should Supershadchan come across an immoveable bachelor, she has back-up: The Yenta Patrol.The Yenta Patrol: On duty 24/7, The Yenta Patrol consists of Four Fab Females: Mrs. Goldstein a.k.a. The Finder. Whether it’s triefe or your daughter texting a shmendrik, she’ll find out and –tell. The Inquisinator a.k.a. Mrs. Piske has the ability to sniff out the truth during her intense interrogations. The Worrier a.k.a. Mrs. Shvitzer. She is a Jewish empath, who, whether your child is 15 minutes late or you had a slow season, will take on your anxieties and free you to frolic in Boca. The Bargainer a.k.a. Mrs. Chazzerwitz who possesses , four sets of eyes equipped with MapQuest, can find anything cheaper. Should Supershadchan (above) have a tough client, she can call upon The Yenta Patrol who will, for example, attach available men to the chains around the leather jackets at Armani in Barney’s until they agree to a date.Baleboostagator: Stronger than a Super Swiffer, more powerful than a Bissell Power Brush, more courageous than a Clorox pellet, the Baeboostagator is determined to conquer dirt, mold, and mess in our lifetime! With each appendage a cleaning product capable of detecting a new microbe strain in the clean rooms at NASA, there’s nothing that gets by her –except her arch-enemy, The Schmutzik. From his home base in a swamp in Bangladesh, he has the ability to teleport filth up to 5000 miles. Each adventure is a showdown between the two. Can the Baleboostagator clean-up his putrid schmutz in time to prevent worldwide contamination or will she plotz from the shtinkt !–The Mighty Mechutonim: This powerful duo, known to the world as M&Ms, are on a mission to make sure that no in-law can undo, change, or melt the years of work we put into our children. Should, God forbid, your daughter’s MIL suggest the couple spend the holidays with them, Poof! Using their gift of Guilt gift, your daughter’s head will bob as she spits pea soup and shrieks, thereby making the mechutonim think she’s meshugge and shut up with the suggestions. (Mark Burnett is now testing a reality show starring the M&Ms.)Wholesaleman: Cherished Jewish hero, he puts back in people’s pockets what those over- priced department store goniffs (thieves) are stealing with their fancy-shmancy labels.Lightning fast with a needle, he not only copies the most exclusive looks, he sews in clever names should somebody peek at the collar of your knock-off shmatte. Some of his more popular “lines” include: Roberta Cavatelli, Louis Jourdan, Eva St. Laurant, Bill Blast, Norma Camal, Donatella Versailles, and Donna Carone. They can be found at places like the late

Copyright © 1995 - 2020 Aish.com, https://www.aish.com.Aish.com is a non-profit and needs your support. Please donate at: aish.com/donate,or mail a check to: Aish.com c/o The Jerusalem Aish HaTorah Fund PO Box 1259 Lakewood, NJ 08701.Loehmann’s and special outlet Malls outside of Paramus. Word has it he may be thinking of retiring, as his biggest competitor, The Invisible Bulk (IVB), has risen to fight worldwide depression by creating giga-stores that sell everything from sump pumps to silk socks. All goods come in packages of at least 30. Although no one has ever seen him, it’s rumored the founder also started BuyBay and is a billionaire macher in Silicon Valley. The Financial Times of Sri Lanka reports that The IVB and Wholesaleman may join forces and form the mighty Line Yitzak Miszreppi – 45 sweaters for $14.99, or $16.99 … with the label.Dr. Nu? Dressed in his trade white cat suit with question marks in blue, his unflagging ability to answer a question with a question has the power to drive even the toughest foes to fumfer (mumble) and eventually either tell the truth or experience piercing brain fag before passing out. Dr. Nu has been used by the highest government agencies in the U.S. and Israel with an almost perfect record except in Finland. Fortunately we get along with the Finns. After all, –what can you say about a country whose favorite expression is: “An empty barrel makes the most noise”? And how much can you milk a sauna anyway?Imagine it! A world filled with even more Jewish Superheroes! Let your imaginations soar and send in ideas whether they are witty, or even half-wittyied!

https://www.aish.com/j/fs/New-Plagues-for-Passover.htmlNew Plagues for PassoverMar 24, 2018by Marnie Winston-MacauleySome new plagues to relive the Exodus experience.For thousands of years, during the Seder Jews recite the Ten Plagues that God inflicted upon Egypt to persuade the Pharaoh to release the Israelites from slavery. We’re supposed to “relive” the Exodus at the Seder, but when it comes to the plagues it’s a little hard, no? Frogs? Lice? Bloody water?How about a few new plagues to get you in the mood. Let’s look.NEW PLAGUE: SAYING ABSOLUTLY NOTHING IN 500 TRENDY CATCHPHRASES ORLESS.Example: “Let’s make America great again with more transparency and less fake news.” This in answer to, “Can I pay my doctor for my liver transplant?” Other examples of the genius of saying nothing include:“There’s a lot to unpack here.” Meaning: “They’re wrong, you’re wrong, everything and everyone – wrong.”A particular favorite? This is a “nothingburger.” Meaning: Russia, North Korea, tax reform, racism, healthcare? What are you talking? Nothing. How meat got mashed up in this, is a mystery, however, We Jews, of course can adapt it to a “BupkesBurger,” which while alliterative, would be extremely unfair to the burger. But then it’s all about the “optics.”NEW PLAGUE: NEVER SATISFIED

Example: “Orange is the new black,” “Pink is the new purple,” “Black is the new pink,” “50 is the new 30,” “80 is the new 40,” etc. Such futzing with nature is to me, un-Jewish. Worse, it proves my point that thanks to Internet slang, Millennials have trouble coming up with an original thought over five letters or words. One glorious exception is: “40 is the new 12.” When we Boomers were young, we wanted world peace and to get out of the house. Today, our adult children want world peace and to move back in with us (so they can leave ––medicine and explore miming).NEW PLAGUE: NIT-TWITSExample: “Oo, Bella, let’s ‘twit’ to see if we’re at war with Canada.” True, we’ve now replaced the complex art of talking with “tweeting.” Billions are announcing, pronouncing, and denouncing using this platform, which is the greatest boon to editing since White-Out. Dang it, people! At my advancing age, I still prefer news from high level officials to come from “We interrupt this show for a breaking story” followed by the VIP, then an hour of Walter Kronkite telling us what the VIP said, to #nuclearcodeholder@warfromhellupdate: We may bomb Toronto if Trudeau’s talking points don’t resonate with our narrative. Pass it along.NEW PLAGUE: SELFISH SELFIESExample1: 20 million humans shooting pix of themselves in mirrors on an ab roller while flashing a steroid-plumped bicep.Example 2: Shooting you having lunch.Example 3: Shooting you shooting you. These egoist yawners are spamming our laptops, and turning the ether into a gigantic middle school autograph book. Much better to take “Elsies”! Shooting something \"else!\" Pictures you take of –other people and things; a lovely Jewish girl, an attractive group of medical school graduates, your mother pictures of more than –your hairline.NEW PLAGUE: MEDIA MACHERISMExample: Suddenly, pontificating cable anchors are fodder for E-Entertainment. Big shots are now being reported on by bloviating news big shots whose star has risen on the wings of chaos. They’re writing books, pandering to their guests, and do “routines” with each other as they hack away at everything from world peace to a new hair growth on yet another politico on the wrong side of their aisle. Fake news, new news, old news, biased news. Editing! Hire an editor (who hasn’t been fired yet) who knows the difference between “big” and “little”: fact and feature. Either that or send them to a barn where they can build a playhouse. Yes. Sean can paint … Brian can make the stage … Anderson can sell the tickets … and Rachel can give us the little-known but critical history of the bloated anchor in Somalia who exploded in 1948.NEW PLAGUE: YOUTHENIZATION YUTZES

Copyright © 1995 - 2020 Aish.com, https://www.aish.com.Aish.com is a non-profit and needs your support. Please donate at: aish.com/donate,or mail a check to: Aish.com c/o The Jerusalem Aish HaTorah Fund PO Box 1259 Lakewood, NJ 08701.Example: The spate of infomercials, YouTubes, and pop-up ads for miracle creams that: “attach to our DNA” (or something) and dial us back to pre-wrinkles, sags, skin tags, and under eye bags. Personally, I have my Google set on SCAM despite the C-List models’ breakthrough videos. Worse, the online vipers with MDs from fifth world countries who get us with faux ads. Title sample: “Meryl Streep Goes Beserk!” One click and you’re on Dr.Feelbadovian’s site. He’s talking about the danger of facial fungus and aging. Once he starts you will be harangued for 30 minutes of the hard “Facts” of facial fungus. If you try to leave the site The Net-“God” punishes you. There IS no exit. Your computer will freeze and spit stuff on you. Millions of good people are being spat at. Time to spit back and make another –flood.NEW PLAGUE: BODY ALTERING ADVERTISING OR “BAA”Example: Tattoo obsessives. Of course We Jews don’t and can’t, which is a blessing. Almost everyone else has become a walking Billboard. No body part is immune from being sullied; hips, shoulders, heels, necks, stomachs and places we can’t mention in a high-toned publication like this one. From art, to feelings, to flavor of the month bffs, to “original” spiritual sayings such as “You have to look through the rain to see the rainbow,” using body parts to advertise is both lazy and abusive to a perfectly fine limb that never did you any harm. But the hopeful news is God will get you for that. At 25, a tattoo on your chest of the Bengal tiger you wish you were will be gnawing your knees when you’re 65.Have a favorite new plague? By all means, share!Chag kasher vesame’ach,Marnie

https://www.aish.com/j/fs/New-Yiddish-for-Millennials.htmlNew Yiddish for MillennialsAug 6, 2016by Marnie Winston-MacauleyNew words for today's young and fast-moving generation.Ever since Leo Rosten turned the world onto Yiddish, English-speakers have delighted in our Mama-loshen with its majestic ability to turn a word or phrase into a thesaurus of joy, misery, sarcasm, humor, and truly hysterical curses with a relish that few other languages can match. What other language has 100 words for “idiot?” There’s the polite idiot, the grubby idiot, the greedy idiot, the clumsy idiot … to the idiot who can win a Nobel prize but can’t close his sneakers with Velcro.–So, do we keep up with the times? Rosten referred to “Yinglish” and “Ameridish.” Do I know the difference? Do you? Write me. I read it 1,000 times, showed it around, did massive research, and to settle it once and for all, I call it “Yinglidish.” As Yinglidish is, or could be growing, I felt it was my duty to add new words for Jewish Young Adults (JYA’s) … to get with their need to “shorten.”Face it. Between txtesing, tweeting, IMimg and SMShing not one person under 30 can say a whole word in any language without ROFLing. (In a few years, not only have we reduced millions or words to maybe seven abbreviations, but GenZ will lose the power of speech altogether. The good news is, they’ll have palms that can double for catcher’s mitts.)In my never-ending quest to keep pace, the following are new words I created, whether by “combining,” hyphenating, compounding or portmanteau-ing that I hope will keep Yinglidish alive even when we’re mime-aloshening.Mamaloshen for Millennials

WORD: MEESMENSCHORIGIN: Meeskite and menschMEANING: A wonderful person who isn’t so good-looking.USAGE: “OK, Milton, so a Natalie Portman she isn’t. Ah, but a personality? She volunteers 36 hours a week studying with the Matzo Preservation Society to keep our bread of affliction from crumbling and adding to Global Warming. She is some meesmensch!”OTHER WORD FORMS EXAMPLES: Meesmenschen, Meesmenschly, MeesmenschesqueWORD: SHVIMCHAORIGIN: Simcha and ShvitzMEANING: A joyous occasion that: 1.) took such work for so long one could plotz; 2.) that caused so much fighting and tsouris, one could also plotz.USAGE: “Thank God the Bar Mitzvah was a success! Eight caterers backed out, the Shul was booked up until our Benjamin was 16, so we had to wait for a cancellation! The bubble machine we rented kept flooding! And would you believe the cake arrived saying: ‘For Ben On Your Christening!’ This was some shvimcha!“Oy. Tante Bella threw a fit at the Chasseneh because she was seated next to Cousin Mendel, who she had a fight with the week before! The bubbes didn’t stop kvetching about the food! The family 20 people from Boca brought 10 more people! A monsoon hit Brooklyn two ––hours before, 50 people didn’t show up and we still had to pay for their chickens!”OTHER WORD FORMS EXAMPLES: shvimchful, shvimchad, shvimchaphyWORD: BUBBCHIKELORIGIN: bubbe and chik (Yid. Diminutive Suffix) MEANING: A grandmother who’s turned 60 into the new 30.USAGE: “Do you believe Bella since her tummy tuck never mind the Botox? With four grandchildren yet. She’s some bubbchikel!”OTHER WORD FORMS EXAMPLES: bubbschikels, bubbchikelism, bubbchikelshtiklWORD: HORA-FIED

ORIGIN: Hora and FiedMEANING: That gruesome moment when the group is happily doing the Hora … and two rotten dancers get in the middle of the circle and try to do a duo.USAGE: “Oy vey … the ambulance just came! The paramedics think Uncle Morris may have a dislocated knee and Uncle Yankel, a twisted ankle. I was hora-fied when I saw two 80-year-old men trying to kick with the same foot at the same time!”OTHER WORD FORMS EXAMPLES: hora-fy, hora-fyable, hora-fytionWORD: CHALLAHCHAZZERORIGIN: Challah and chazzer (pig/greedy)MEANING: This is the person who, on Shabbat, at the shul Kiddush or on holidays, grabs the challah and tears a piece so big, it could feed all 3,300 Jews in Kazakhstan.USAGE: “Pssst. Did you see Levine? What he did? Again with the challah? Stuck his hand in and took the best bumps all of them! He is a –challahchazzer or what? Maybe we should report him to the Rabbi for challahchazzing. It must be a sin somewhere.”OTHER WORD FORMS EXAMPLES: challahchazzing, challahchazzeration, challahchazzereticWORD: BEGALLYORIGIN: Bagel and BialyMEANING: No, it’s not an Irish introjection, but a simple, shorter way of saying one wants a mixture of bagels and bialys.USAGE: “Sol darling, when you go to the ‘appetizing’ make sure with the lox you also getbegallys.”OTHER WORD FORMS EXAMPLES: begallys, begallyless, begallyphileWORD: HAYMSHIKKORIGIN: Haymish and ShikkerMEANING: A lovely, down to earth person when he’s not “Schnappsing.” (Think Haymitch inThe Hunger Games.)

USAGE: “Listen Hannah, he’s a bit of a haymshikk. The terrific news is, he’s a doll three time a year! But darling, do Purim … alone. Maybe go to a fascinating faraway place, like Laos for a month, maybe two.”OTHER WORD FORMS EXAMPLES: haymshikkism, haymshikkness, haymshikkaholicWORD: MITZMACHAHORIGIN: Mitzvah and macherMEANING: A person who is or thinks he is the God of Mitzvahs and wants everyone to know it.USAGE: “So Haim, are you going to the testimonial dinner for Fliegelmeister? “It’s 300 a plate.”“Well, he did donate 10 million for the Advancement of Israeli Chick Peas. I hear there’ll be a sculpture of him – in hummus.”“The man is such a mitzmachah! If he’s that terrific, why does he need so many character witnesses?”OTHER WORD FORMS EXAMPLES: Mitzmachahment, Mitzmachally, MitzmachayaWORD: KLOOGLEDORIGIN: Kloolye (curse) and GoogleMEANING: 1.) A Google glitch; it’s annoying; or crashes all by itself; 2.) When Googling becomes (God forbid) an addiction.USAGE: “I’d look it up to prove to you I’m right and you’re wrong, but my Mac is currentlykloogled.”“David, darling, stop already with the computer before you become kloogled. I don’t think my KrankKare covers that. Irving! Get the policy!”OTHER WORD FORMS EXAMPLES: kloogle, kloogling, klooglencyShould you too, suffer from Meshugling, and wish to add to my mission, by all means suggest away!

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https://www.aish.com/j/fs/New-Yinglish-Words-You-Didnt-Know-You-Needed.htmlNew Yinglish Words You Didn’t Know You NeededNov 11, 2017by Marnie Winston-MacauleyCreative mashing of two words.Is it just me, or are we making up new words and blending the few we’re still saying, so (God forbid) we don’t have to waste time with two words? Technically, these are “portmanteaus.” Add a suffix, mash together or just “luftmensch” (dream) up something with strange letters and we have yet another way to be misunderstood but quickly. Certain portmanteaus make –sense. “Motel” (from “motor” and “hotel”) I can understand. “Brunch” is from “breakfast” and “lunch”– although “lupper” and “linner” never caught on.Today, we’re “portmanteauing” words I never understood separately, especially in the digital age where if you blink an eye, you’ll miss a new virtual lingo for example, “Spamdexing,” Sysop” and “Vlog.” I promise you I’ve never once “vlogged,” and if I did … would I use a word that sounds like a felony?Enter politics. The news media right, left, middle, out there. I suspect the networks and cable –stations have a nerdy person in a small room think up mashups like “Brexit,” “Alt whatever,” -and “NRx.”Always at the forefront, if “they” can do it, so can We Jews. Better. Just add a prefix or suffix here and there, combine words …but…in Yiddish.YIDDISH PORTMANTEUING AND IXES1. Original Word: BULVAN: An ox, with no class. He'll move your house, with you in it –without asking.New Word BULVANARIUM:

Meaning: Finally, a place we can put all the bulvans in our lives. A whole building the –Bulvanarium—where they can BULVANESS each other or even get a BULVANECTOMY. Alt. meaning: a whole family of bulvans.Usage: “Those Bronsteins! Such nerve! Making us wrestle for the drumstick! It’s a regularBulvanarium in there! ”Text: BLVIUM (a group or location)2. Original Word: CHALERIA: A shrew. If her pastrami's fatty, she'll make a federal case, sue –and maybe win.New Word: CHALERIASMeaning: Instead of chewing up your liver, it’s the ability to turn this drama queen into a Sarah Silverman so you don’t become a CHALEROPHOBE.Usage: (Hysterical) “Did you see the way Zelda yelled to change seats five times in the deli? It was too warm, too cold, a little chilly, not chilly enough. Five times we shlepped our chicken soup. The whole restaurant thought we were meshuggah. Was she chalerias or what?Text: CHALOL (She’s a riot.)3. Original Word: CHAZZER: A pig: He'll take home the cheap wine he brought you for Passover.New Word: CHAZZERPATHMeaning: Approach with caution. This is a chazzer who is a thimble short of “gonifizing” (turning into a thief). It’s one thing to take his Manischewitz home, and another to make a carton from all your leftovers and throw in your Israeli decanter. This is a –devolving chazzer.Usage: “Yossel … the silver tongs are missing. They were in the bucket with the Manischewitz Harvey took home. Oy vey! The crystal decanter’s gone I got from Tel Aviv! Quick! Check the silver. We have a chazzerpath in the family!TEXT: DTYB! (Don’t turn your back!)4. Original Word: DRAYCUP: She not only forgot her address, she's wound up in the wrong city.

New Word: DRAYCOPIAMeaning: We Jews, with our endless compassion, should always look for the platinum lining. Much better to blame her wrong lefts and rights on her retinas or corneas than thinking she’s a confused idiot.Usage: “Mamala, stop making smart remarks about Tante Rose! So maybe she wound up at the Dead Sea rather than Masada. Her mental health is fine. It’s the draycopia that caused the 87 wrong turns.”TEXT: ISHA (Eyes, Sha!)5. Original Word: KLUTZ: Clumsy. He falls over her own sneakers fastened with Velcro.–New Word: KLUTZEDMeaning: You’ve heard of “You’ve been punked?” Well now “You’ve been klutzed”–which isn’t half as much fun. You made a new friend at Yeshiva U. A lovely person, who tragically can’t walk a block without tripping on you which makes you fall into a lamp post requiring a brief visit to the E.R.Usage: “Oy Morty … I klutzed you! Again. Wait, I’ll tear up your shirt to sop up until the ambulance gets here.TEXT: IKU6. Original Word: MACHER: He made a few bucks selling toilet seats that light up, so now he thinks he’s a genius who should be head of the Shul.New Word: MACHERMALYAH (Combo: “Macher”—big shot and “Chamalyah” – punch) Meaning: This idiot, despite being the toilet seat king, deserves to fall in and hit his head!Usage: “Shh … Hymie, again that machermalyah made himself Tevye in Shul musical despite the fact that his voice alerts the Emergency Services, and he can’t do a hora without five people holding him up.Text: MACMAL (think Blackmail)7. Original Word: OYNew Word: OYLEVAI (Combo: “oy” and “alevai” – if only, God-willing)

Copyright © 1995 - 2020 Aish.com, https://www.aish.com.Aish.com is a non-profit and needs your support. Please donate at: aish.com/donate,or mail a check to: Aish.com c/o The Jerusalem Aish HaTorah Fund PO Box 1259 Lakewood, NJ 08701.Meaning: It should only happen, but with our mazel, this could also bring tsouris.Usage: “Listen Bella, God-willing, we should buy instead of rent. Finally, a place of our own, a tax break … but also, we’d need to fix, replace the kitchen, add a bathroom – and the maintenance. Oylevai!TEXT: OYVI.8. Original Words: SHLEMIEL AND SHLIMAZLNew Word: SHLIZAML (Combo: Shlemiel klutz and Shlimazl klutzed upon) ––Meaning: This super klutz actually makes himself a victim.Usage: (True) A park ranger in Virginia, has the dubious distinction of being struck by lightning seven times throughout his life — the most ever for a person. Ah, but he works in a thunderstorm zone and doesn’t go inside when bolts start shooting. Now this poor guy is the number one Shlizaml!TEXT: SHLZMLShould you, our readers wish to add, we together can create a new Jewsaurus

https://www.aish.com/j/fs/NORDISH-VS-JEWISH.htmlNORDISH VS. JEWISHOct 21, 2017by Marnie Winston-MacauleyT wo po r oppol as it ecu ultre :sh e ykeep e er tt bi inc e .We eep e erk tt binM iam i .Picture them; two people; 62-years old. Their names are: Sven Svensson and Solly Shmulowitz.One is 6’5”, blonde, with suspenders, rocking in his chair reading: “Lutefisk Fishing.” Despite his depression, when the main character, Ole the fisherman, describes falling into a fjord, the man picks up his pipe, thinks, then says “Uff Da.” His wife Lena asks why he’s laughing hysterically.The other is 5’7”, weighs 195 pounds, wearing plaid shorts, reading “The Odd Couple.” Despite his minor indigestion, he hollers for Leah, his wife when Oscar tells Felix: “I told you I can't stand little notes on my pillow!” The hysterical couple decides to make the play their next fund-raiser.If you haven’t figured out whose Nordic and who’s Jewish yet, go take three matzoh balls and call me in the morning.I have two female friends who are of Scandinavian descent. Each, a gorgeous blonde tower, could be the figurehead of a Viking ship.I, on the other hand, am 5’1” with hair that resembles fucilli that got caught in the spin cycle.We took a picture together. There’s them … and on the very bottom, a few spirally curls (me). Our favorite game is standing next to each other and telling strangers we’re the Larsson- Cohen triplets who were separated at birth.

If there were ever two cultures which are polar opposites, here they are. They keep better in ice. We keep better in Miami.Today, my dear readers I give you:NORDISH VS. JEWISH1.DEPRESSIONNordish: For Scandinavians depression is not only normal, it’s a festival of misery. Even the Vikings were depressed (I looked it up). What can you expect from people who spend almost 365 days in the freezing dark and consider flying “South” a trip to Minnesota? More, what can you say about a region where Ingmar Bergman’s favorite film was “Winter Light” (“Nattvardsgästerna”), which follows Gunnar Björnstrand around a church talking about his existential crisis for two hours in Swedish. When I saw it, there was some comic relief. The ––guy behind me was snoring so loud, even the sub-titles quaked. This, while his artsy wife kept knocking him awake with her stiletto.Jewish: Our depression comes from having rotten neighbors who’ve sent us running while trying to kill us for 3,500 years. But instead of making movies about a rebbe shlepping around the shul hocking himself silly about our tsouris, we go to see “Winter Light” and make it a 1,000 word anecdote about “the snorer and the stiletto.”2.LET’S GET PHYSICALNordish: In 10 degree weather, what DNA could mutate, especially when it’s the same DNA. I ask you, when was the last time your neighbor said, “You know, I need a change! I’m moving to Jyväskylä!” One Sven or Lena can create a nation of tall, blonde, blue-eyed, depressed Svens and Lenas, which is why they have no interest in cloning. They invented it.Jewish: OK, there is a Jewish stereotype; a Jack Klugman nose, a Sylvia Fine figure, andtrue, more of us sport “Jew Fros” than your average Finn. Ah, but as we’ve wandered from -place to place, our DNA does offer us a range. We can be short and curly, curvy and curly, or zaftig and curly. We can look like Woody Allen or Marty Allen. Some of us also look like Bar Refaeli (Urgent! Get the DNA Ancestry Kit!)3.FoodNordish: They adore fish and white stuff. If the food isn’t white, they scrape off the color and add more white stuff like gravy, to carry other white stuff (sugar, salt or butter) down their throats. Who else would have a Cream of Wheat cook-off? One traditional dish is lutefisk, which, according to author John Anderson, is “codfish dried in icy Nordic air, then soaked in lye, like Drano.” To up the survival rate, their meals are little appetizers without toothpicks, such as white fish balls, meatballs in mushroom soup, and Jell-O smothered with cottage cheese. A successful smorgasbord has the power to cause snow blindness.

Copyright © 1995 - 2020 Aish.com, https://www.aish.com.Aish.com is a non-profit and needs your support. Please donate at: aish.com/donate,Jewish: True, we have herring in common. The difference is we didn’t necessarily catch it. We have, however, made a fortune from it when two young Czech Jews, Victor and George Heller, started selling it in jars the U.S., expanded their line to “foods of color,” then formed Vita Foods (1930) which makes millions, not just from herring but from orange lox.4.HOBBIES:Nordish: Scandinavians love ice fishing, boat fishing, dock fishing, fly fishing, eating fish, putting little dolls inside of bigger little dolls, staring, and sleeping. The adventurous might ski, then drink, fish, eat fish, stare, and sleep. Anything that induces a coma is a worthy hobby or failing that, anything that doesn’t require talking – unless it’s about making fun of people from other Scandinavian countries who they feel are dumber or drunker.Jewish: Jews have something called ITH (“intent to hobby”). This is of course beyond napping, eating, and watching people sleep and eat. We do a lot of “signing up” to gyms, sports teams, fitness programs, and Boards. Then we return to our real hobbies eating, –talking, and arguing over whose shul is more frum.5.HUMOR:What can you say about a people whose favorite color is black, who value bait, staring, and Melmac, go to costume parties as themselves in clogs, and named their high octane favorite wine Glögg, pronounced glooog? However, they think they’re funny, which is the funniest thing about them.Nordic Jokes:What is a party game played by Swedes?One Swede goes into a box and the other Swede tries to guess which Swede is in it.The difference between a Finnish wedding and a Finnish funeral is that at a funeral there's one person not having vodka.Wait, catch a breath from your hysterics. Like Jews, their humor is based on hardship but –not theirs; other people’s. If their neighbor’s rice pudding turns brown, it’s a knee-slapper capable of bringing on a whopping “Uff Da!” Of course laughing is not involved.Jewish: \"How do you tell an extrovert Finn? When conversing with you, he's actually looking at your feet instead of his own!\" If you laughed, trust me, you’re farmisht ancestors took a wrong turn running out of Russia. Ah, but what happens when you cross Nordish with Jewish? You get the Great Dane Victor Borge (Rosenbaum), a magnificent Clown Prince, which only goes to prove, no matter where we are, a Jew can even milk a joke out of a sauna.

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https://www.aish.com/j/fs/One-on-One-with-Barbie.htmlOne on One with BarbieApr 12, 2015by Marnie Winston-MacauleyA sit down interview with the world famous doll who turned 56, and who, it may co e ma assurpr e oi s t m n ay, i sJ ew is . hMarch 9, 2015 was a spectacular day for the legendary Jewish “doll” Barbie who, celebrating her 56th Birthday. A huge gala was thrown in her honor. Wait. You didn’t know she was Jewish? Well Barbie is full of surprises. She sat down with Jewlarious to talk life, love and her decision to reconnect with her Jewish roots.Barbie, you say that you’re Jewish but your background is a little confusingJEWLARIOUS: So, Barbie …. a million of you have been sold in 150 countries. That’s some achievement.BARBIE: Yeah, right. Over 50 years, everywhere I look… me. How would you feel if there were a million ofyou? You’d feel farmisht! Half the time I’m talking to myself and it’s not even me I’m talking to. Once I was so crazy, they were thinking of making “Meshugge Barbie.” Only those anti- Semites in Saudi Arabia don’t want to know from me. Meanwhile, I can’t even go to Saudi Arabia … a Jew – not that I’d want to.JEWLARIOUS: So, Barbie … your background. You say that you’re Jewish but your background is a little confusing. According to your official bio, your whole name is Barbara Millicent Roberts, and you grew up in Willows, Wisconsin to George and Margaret Roberts. Your father was an engineer and your mother, nee Rawlins, was a homemaker. Your sibs are Skipper, Stacie, Todd, Chelsea and Krissy and you went to Willows High School. Doesn’t sound very Jewish…

BARBIE: LIES! All lies and PR! JEWLARIOUS: So, what’s the truth?BARBIE: First of all I went to Manhattan International High School, which was even better than Stuyvesant. We beat them on “College Bowl.” My real parents, were Ruth and Elliot Handler.At home we called him Papa Izzy. Mama’s family, the Moskos, came from Poland. Mama was the baby of 10!JEWLARIOUS: So why the phony background?BARBIE: Oy mamala. It was all hype for the gentiles! They wanted me to appeal to people from Peoria to Muscatoona, Mississippi. In 1959 girls from South Dakota would relate to a curly headed slightly zaftig intellect named Devorah with a killer I.Q. wearing a tasteful wig?? Ha! They even threw in my bio that my grandmother was a Princess!JEWLARIOUS: A Princess?BARBIE: Some “Princess.” My grandfather was a blacksmith in Denver, Colorado. I had two sibs, Barbara and Kenneth. To tell us apart, Mama would call my sister B1 and me, B2. We often spoke Yiddish or Polish, when bubbe came over. OY … her Lokshen kugel was to die for!JEWLARIOUS: So why did you put up with this?BARBIE: What could I do? A smart-talking agent, Swifty Lazarus, said to my parents … “Put this girl in my hands and you’ll never have to worry about paying for Harvard again!” Oy, did Mama Ruth and Swifty fight!! But he had some hoo-hah contract drawn up by Laurie Allbread! A flea couldn’t get through that paper!JEWLARIOUS: What were the biggest fights they had?BARBIE: There were so many. Let’s see. There’s was the time they wanted to put tattoos on me. That was a bad one. Tattoos on a Jewish girl? A sin it was. Bubbe almost plotzed! … Thenin my teen years, they had me say, are you ready? \"Will we ever have enough clothes?\", \"I love shopping!\", and \"Wanna have a pizza party?\" There were 270 of these phrases which made me feel like such a shmegegge! One other was “Math class is tough!\" Please. If math class was tough, you think I would have made astronaut?! Go on … test me!JEWLARIOUS: OK … Hmmm. What is x and y from the equations 3x - 2y = 5 and x + y = 5? BARBIE: x = -3 and y = -2JEWLARIOUS: Impressive.BARBIE: Tell me. And the whole world thinks I’m “Duh.”

Copyright © 1995 - 2020 Aish.com, https://www.aish.com.Aish.com is a non-profit and needs your support. Please donate at: aish.com/donate,or mail a check to: Aish.com c/o The Jerusalem Aish HaTorah Fund PO Box 1259 Lakewood, NJ 08701.JEWLARIOUS: I know this is a sore subject, but can you talk a little about Ken Carson?BARBIE: That no-goodnik?! Over 40 years dating. Over 40 years promising marriage! I have 36 wedding dresses just hanging. Even Midge got married. MIDGE, yet, who between us, is a lovely person, but has the brains of a speed bump. Meanwhile Ken was busy with his yacht, his fency-dency outfits and who knows what else? So I threw him out.JEWLARIOUS: On a more pleasant note, you’ve had 100 careers! Which were your favorites and worst?BARBIE: Hmmm. My favorite was running for President in 1992. Would I win? No. But when I heard that Khnyok … that evil racist head of the KKK, David Duke was running I felt it was my Jewish duty to throw my Chapeau D’Amour into the ring. As for jobs I hated …. Hmmm. Ah, being a NASCAR driver! The people, the fakakta tail gaiting parties … and the fiery deaths … this is for a Jewish woman? Name one Jewish female NASCAR driver?JEWLARIOUS: Tonight, at the gala … the world was surprised to see you dressed demurely, even Frum.BARBIE: You bet! It’s about time the Real Barbie came out of the shiksa closet and stopped with the mesghugge fashions! It’s enough with dying my hair already. With all that dying, trust me, you don’t want to see my roots. Also it’s enough with the plastic space age Botox, the hate mail, and my phony cousins. It’s enough hearing \"a shanda fur die goyim!” My contract was for 55 years! It’s time to live a Jewish life! A married life with a Jewish man! So … write this down. Are you writing? I’ve decided to retire and make aliyah to Israel, change my name to Bar-El , yes, “Bar EL Barbie” –- work for my people and become a true mensch! Also, if anyone knows of a man, maybe 60 with serious intentions, send to me a photo. Meanwhile darling … I have to go pack.JEWLARIOUS: Thank you Barbie … and may you live to 120!BARBIE: Don’t worry, I will. And Biz hundert un tsvantsik back to you.

https://www.aish.com/sp/pg/Perfection_vs_Good_Enough.htmlPerfection vs. Good EnoughDec 25, 2010by Marnie Winston-MacauleyHow to stop berating yourself and persevere in trying your best.The other day, while browsing through a bookstore, I happened upon yet another tome promising “The 10 Ways To a Perfect –” something.Here it is perfection! If you want the –perfect date, marriage, family, just buy the experts' books and poof! Get it down in three or 10 easy steps. We've all seen or read the plethora of blather mucking up the self-help shelves over the last 25 years. And while there are tips we can certainly glean, usually involving common-sense simplicity, the insidious offense is nonsense expectations.Yet, it sells because the concept of perfection is seductive. Becoming numero uno has always been an American dream. Who doesn't want to make the perfect landing on the Olympic balance beam? Who doesn’t want a “perfectly” happy mate or child? But “perfect” has become an American cultural pastime in the extreme. \"Imperfect\" means you can't swallow 100 earthworms in under 30 seconds on national TV.I have faith in the human spirit to make things better. Just not “perfect.”In human relationships, the danger is even greater. Surrounded by a culture of “perfectionism,” the normal human can only reach one conclusion: We're all a bunch of failures. The very titles of these booksimply we're a mess if we've failed to achievepersonal Nirvana. So, like mad hatters, we buy this stuff. Then, by \"Step Two,\" when despite our best efforts to follow the expert's “rules,” our mates won't list their faults, our children are headed to Tijuana, our dog is eating our Family Values chart, and our in-laws are cutting us out of the will, what we're left with is: “We’re failures.”All this because perfectionism is a bold-face impossibility. The \"perfect\" child? Start saving for shrink bills.

The \"perfect\" mate? Check his (and your) blood pressure.The \"perfect\" family? A nice thought. Look for signs to Stepford.Before you call me a hopeless curmudgeon, I've spent my life offering hope and believing in change. I have faith in the human spirit to make things better. Just not “perfect.”So let's make a simple wording switch. Instead of “perfect,” how about \"good enough\"? \"Good enough\" doesn't mean lying in a Barcalounger with a diet Pepsi in a stupor while the family runs amok, ignored. No.\"Good enough\" is tough. It demands real work. It requires real commitment, not to a fantasy, but to developing the very best in us and making the very best choices for us, knowing life often deals us major muck-ups.“Good enough,” at its best, is a concept we Jews can well understand. Having lived in an “imperfect” world, who better than us have had to internalize the value of making things work as best we can? This doesn’t mean “settling.” To the contrary. It means forging ahead to create a better, if not “perfect” reality, given any situation and circumstance.And the reality is: good parents sometimes have difficult children. Good wives sometimes get left behind. Good dads sometimes get downsized. And only some of the craziness is within our total personal control.“Good enough\" lets you do the things you can control without hacking your ego to hash. Related Article: Jewish Secrets of SuccessEffort vs. Results•\"Perfect\" is results driven.\"Good enough\" is effort driven a far more realistic and important quality, regardless of –outcome. Time and time again, we see that the truer measure of personal success is “in the trying.”•\"Perfect\" sets up unrealistic expectations. If we're not leaping with marital joy 24/7, or if our child was born with the temperament of Genghis Kahn, we feel there's a party going on and our invite was lost in the mail.\"Good enough\" lets us manage life in the Real Lane. We see potential and limits, evaluate them, forge strategies, and make solid choices based on effort and circumstances.•\"Perfect,\" means we've \"failed\" if we haven't achieved each lofty goal.

Copyright © 1995 - 2020 Aish.com, https://www.aish.com.Aish.com is a non-profit and needs your support. Please donate at: aish.com/donate,or mail a check to: Aish.com c/o The Jerusalem Aish HaTorah Fund PO Box 1259 Lakewood, NJ 08701.\"Good enough\" means we've tried our best. We can persevere or move on without self- flagellation.•\"Perfect\" suggests a shopping list. A one-size-fits all M.O. and standard.\"Good enough\" allows us to make life a custom job. It's not about \"What's right for Dr. Bestseller\" but what works for us and what we wish to achieve.• \"Perfect\" suggests absolutes. Failure” and success are rigidly defined.\"Good enough\" embraces the very Jewish principle of forgiveness and acceptance of workable situations, even if they're imperfect. It requires understanding that there isn't one answer, but competing values that have to be assessed, debated, and factored in truth.•\"Perfect\" becomes an impossible measurement of self-esteem. Mistakes and missteps become a devastating part of our personal self-definition.\"Good enough\" allows us to separate our very human flaws and imperfections from our entire self-view. It not only puts other people's foibles in perspective, it permits us to continue to love ourselves, and each other, unconditionally, contributing to our psychological and spiritual well-being.Life is a glorious work in progress. The next time you see some \"expert\" hawking \"Ten Ways to the Perfect Marriage\" or \"How to Raise the Perfect Child,” toss the book, and consider setting life by your rules, principles and realities. Try your best and celebrate the fact that yes, you’re not “perfect,” but you’re striving to be “good enough.”

https://www.aish.com/j/fs/PunimBook-Facebook-for-Jews.htmlPunimBook: Facebook for JewsJan 17, 2019by Marnie Winston-MacauleyIf there was a Facebook only for Jews, maybe this is what it would look like.Social media giant Facebook may have been famously started by a Jew (Mark Zuckerberg) but is it really Jewish? I think you all know the answer. So, I’m proposing a Jewish Facebook or Punimbook suited to our taste and creativity. Like a good cholent, let it sit before posting.1 “THEM”-FACEBOOK FAUX PAS: DO NOT POST. Coupleswith joint Facebook profiles. Tacky! Are you so into each other you need to share an identity? And please don’t elaborate on your conjoined joy.1 “US”-PUNIMBOOK PRIDE: POST. Of course, they’re one! My daughter (okay, we’ll do a little name-changing), TamaraRosenberg, nee Slotsky, who married her bashert, Moshe, three months ago in Temple Sinai (the Brooklyn one) is still enjoying her honeymoon, even though they returned from Fort Lauderdale seven and one-half weeks ago! Look at my new son-in-law. See that neck. That was from when he was on the Yeshiva crew team. Also, look on Twitter: #Youshouldbesolucky.”Please allow me to post my nephew Benjamin’s report card.”2 “THEM”-FACEBOOK FAUX PAS: DO NOT POST.Long posts, details, and minute by minute videos of your life are a ho-hummer.2 “US”-PUNIMBOOK PRIDE: POST. My dearPunimbook pals, the cartoon below was done by my nephew, Benjamin who’s only 14! Is he gifted? I’m posting his Day School report card. Notice what he got in “ART.” Tomorrow I’ll

post a photo of Tamara making Shabbat from beginning to end so you too can enjoy! Her new husband, Moshe, will be the one behind her peeling potatoes. I’m the one supervising from behind. Also, check for us on Instagram!3“THEM”-FACEBOOK FAUX PAS: DO NOT POST. You oryours are expecting; such a miracle for every couple and their closest 200 relatives. We’ve already had our “miracles.” Don’t remind us and please, no details!3“US”-PUNIMBOOK PRIDE: POST. Good morning my Punimbook pals. I know it’s early (4a.m. in Brooklyn) but I couldn’t wait to share. My Tamarala is expecting! We think it’s a boychik! As my husband Morris is a Cohen and my son-in-law, Moshe, is also a Cohen, is this child going to be a Prince? No, an “Emperor.” He should only have his mother’s nose (now) and his father’s neck. As my Tamara is slim hipped, Dr. Epstein says the birth will be hard. I’ll -share her bumps daily, focusing on her hips. I’ll also upload each new sonogram to show the birth of an emperor! Meanwhile I’ll keep you in the loop with a day by day video on here, and in my Diary of a Married Pregnant Daughter Group!4“THEM”-FACEBOOK FAUX PAS:DO NOT POST. Demands on “friends” to join, respond, notice all you’re posting and work for you.4“US”-PUNIMBOOK PRIDE:POST. When I posted that myTamara is expecting, I expected all my Punimbook friends to throw them a Mazel Tov! Dora, I’m talking to you! From you we received not even a Happy Face. Now, they’re thinking names. I’m sick. They came up with “Rocket” because Moshe is an aerospace something.

“Rocket” Rosenberg?! So, I said, “Not that I’m interfering, but suppose Moshe was a dentist. Would you name your son “Root canal?” I picked “POLL” on this post. I expect each of you to come up with a decent name that starts with an “R” for my great-Aunt Rivka. The winner will get a YouTube of the Big Event. Meanwhile check: #tamarastummybump for daily updates.5“THEM”-FACEBOOK FAUX PAS: DO NOT POST. Selling stuff youdon’t want is annoying, rude, and possibly unlawful.5.US”-PUNIMBOOK PRIDE: POST. Ok, my Punimbook pals, do I have bargains for you! Now that my Tamara is a little zaftig from baby bloat, we decided to put up her old clothes. She thinks she’ll go back to a size 6.Little does she know! BARGAIN!!! A Vera Wang-like wedding dress size 4, gently used three times. Was purchased from a high-end used dress shop. Only two previous owners (but I heard the first was a famous singer) besides my Tamara. Originally, probably $3500. For you: $250! Only one (Please God). Hurry.BARGAIN!!! Cruise wear by the famous designer, Isaac Mizrahi. A lot of size 6 cover-ups only$500. Will go fast.BARGAIN!!! The sheitels (wigs), long. Now that my Tamara is becoming a mommy, she’s gone more conservative and back to shorter synthetic sheitels. Long ones, real hair: $2,000 each, in red, blond, and brown.6“THEM”-FACEBOOK FAUX PAS: DO NOT POST. Sharing your downmoods with vague words or too many.6 US”-PUNIMBOOK PRIDE: POST.Post One: A catastrophe my life is. But I won’t bore you with the details.[Two hundred pals respond: “What happened??” and “Are you okay??”]Post Follow-up: Alright, okay. My daughter Tamara and her husband took back my key to their apartment. I still don’t know why, and no one is talking. I’m packing up all their little gifts and leaving them by her door. My cousin Devorah and her husband, Sam, are having troubles. He looks at meshugge sites all day long, like an addiction. But more, I was on the subway the other day. Don’t ask! A lunatic tried to steal my purse. I hit him with it and he ran. A few weeks ago, I took a trip to Monsey in Rockland County, New York. I got hit with an egg. And then ……………If you have other Punimbook do’s and don’ts don’t hesitate to share!

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