tyler butler

Yiddish Curses

My friend Dan is Jewish, and he was telling me the other day about Yiddish curses. He had some pretty funny ones, and he managed to find a site or two that listed some more. I don’t know Yiddish, and I can’t even pronounce it based on the spelling, so I’m not going to waste the space of including the actual Yiddish here. If you actually want the Yiddish, go to the sites listed at the bottom of the page. Anyway, here are a few of my favorites.

  • All problems I have in my heart, should go to his head.
  • He should marry the daughter of the Angel of Death.
  • God should visit upon him the best of the Ten Plagues.
  • Venereal disease should consume his body.
  • I should outlive him long enough to bury him.
  • God should bless him with three people: one should grab him, the second should stab him and the third should hide him.
  • He should have a large store, and whatever people ask for he shouldn’t have, and what he does have shouldn’t be requested.
  • God should bestow him with everything his heart desires, but he should be a quadriplegic and not be able to use his tongue.
  • He should be transformed into a chandelier, to hang by day and to burn by night.
  • May your bones be broken as often as the Ten Commandments.
  • May you every day eat chopped liver with onions, herring, chicken soup with matzo balls, carp with horseradish, roast beef with tsimmes (a sweet side dish), pancakes, and tea with lemon – and may you choke on every bite.

[http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040401/news_1c1yiddish.html][1] [http://www.yiddishradioproject.org/exhibits/stutchkoff/curses.php3?pg=3][2] [1]: http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040401/news_1c1yiddish.html (A news story about Yiddish curses.) [2]: http://www.yiddishradioproject.org/exhibits/stutchkoff/curses.php3?pg=3 (A short list of curses… in Yiddish of course!)