Thursday, March 18, 2010

A Different Kind of Ish


Okay, I'm not Irish, I'll admit it. Each year when I wake up on St. Patrick's Day, I don't bounce out of bed thinking about it or about fields of four-leafed clovers. Of course, then I arrive at my exercise class and, duh, everyone is always wearing green and all of our routines for the day are Irish jigs.

The problem, of course, is that I'm a different kind of Ish - Jewish. There are several differences between being Irish and Jewish. Here's a short list of the Irish terms on the left with their Jewish equivalents on the right.









                      





Tiny Leprechauns = Shrunken Elderly relatives
Green Beer = Mogen David Wine
Green cookies = Matzah
Corned Beef and Cabbage = Corned Beef on Rye
Gaelic = Yiddish
Jaunty caps = Yarmulke
Red Hair = No Hair
Dancing a Jig = Dancing the Hora
Pot 'O Gold at the End of the Rainbow = Pot 'O Gold in the Bank

Not surprisingly, there's no Jewish equivalent for "The Luck of the Irish." 

It's just a different kind of Ish.

Got any Irish equivalents from your culture or religion? Does your life sometimes feel like it runs on a different calendar than the rest of the world? Do you do a big celebration for St. Patrick's Day or not?

28 comments:

  1. I'm a different kind of Ish too and your equivalents conjured up images of my family and had me laughing at 5:30 in the morning! I love your humor!

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  2. I grew up in Northeren NJ where almost half my friends were the same "ish" as you. Jewish, Irish,I didn't realize we had so much in common!! (Yes I did)
    You're so funny!

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  3. You are CRACKING me up! I think the first item on the list is my favorite.

    I'm part Irish, but I hate corned beef and cabbage. We celebrate by doing things for the girls--they get a new green shirt to wear every year, and when they wake up in the morning, they get to search for "mischief" that the naughty leprechaun has made. It's pretty mundane--I put green food coloring in the toilet, green glitter inside their shoes, serve them green milk. But they love it.

    Miss D. (who has the coloring of her Indian father) was quite indignant this year when a classmate told her that she couldn't have any Irish heritage. You know, because she's "brown." Poor kid!

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  4. Those comparisons were great. I tend to envy families who still have all that "old world" tradition going on, even if they live in the states. It was my favorite thing about MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, for instance. Also, I love reading the Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich. Grandma Mazur is my favorite character. Of course, a lot of her characters are "traditional" in the sense that you are talking about, and I love them all.

    As for me, my roots date back to Ireland and Wales, but it's so far back that the traditions got lost a LONG time ago. So, all of those Irish terms, and the holiday, don't feel like they belong to me more than they do to anyone else. To top it all off, I totally forgot to wear green...

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  5. Let's dye our matzah green next year! I'm so impressed that you really get to the gym every morning, wearing green, black, orange, or yellow!

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  6. Wait! I have red hair and am the same ISH as you! Do have the big nose to go with it too.

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  7. I have no idea what my heritage is- which is sad. I am researching my family right now.. my dad's side has been in America since the late 1600's ( they're all french) and I cannot find anyting on my mom's side past my great grandmother. So, I have no clue where they came from. As for St Paddy's Day.. growing up where I did, I just learned in school to always wear green so I didn't get pinched. My parents never reminded me OR celebrated it... because of the pinching abuse I sustained as a child, I make sure and put my kid in green on St Patrick's Day to keep him out of harm's way.

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  8. Ellen, from one "ish" to another, oy.

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  9. Maureen, when we do those jigs at my exercise class, they don't seem so far removed from all my old country relatives doing their strange Russian "kazatzka" dance in the center circle of the dancers at every Bar Mitzvah and wedding! An Irish jig comes in handy sometimes!

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  10. TKW, I wonder what my kids would make of green toilet water? I'm sure they'd come shrieking into my bedroom to make me "fix" it.

    And about coloring and being Irish, I have been trying, with no success, to explain to my sister's kids, whose father is African American, that they're Jewish. Can you just see me trying to convince everyone in my family how they're so Jewish?

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  11. Robin, My Big Fat Greek Wedding is definitely one of my favorite movies because those are MY nutty old country relatives! That's MY embarassing house! That's us, always speaking the wrong language. Thanks for reminding me it's time to watch it again!

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  12. Terry, I've already bought chocolate-covered matzah, so how far off could green matzah be? :)
    And yes, total fanatic about my Jazzercise. Six days a week. (I guess you could say that I take off the sabbath!)

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  13. Karen at Waisting Time, Ah the rare "ish" with red hair! Just your standard Jewish brunette here (bottle-dyed now...). But the men are the bald ones, right?

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  14. Jennifer, Unbelievable about being pinched! Of course, growing up in nearly all Jewish Skokie, we didn't exactly know all the rules of the Saints Days! So fascinating that you've been able to track your dad's family back so far! Don't see many French redheads, though!

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  15. tried to leave a comment yesterday...I am not an ish but ist.
    southern baptist...
    so
    Irish drink...
    we don't
    the irish dance
    we don't
    The irish have red hair...
    old southern baptist ladies have helmet hair
    Irish language=Gaelic
    Southern baptist preacher on fire with the holy spirit= indecipherable.
    lol.
    Have a good night linda

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  16. Linda!! OMGish!!! Hilarious - thanks!

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  17. How about green macaroons? I could see those being marketed as a nice crossover product for St. Patrick's Day and Passover.

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  18. I'm the one who always tells her Catholic friends they have a smudge of pencil on their foreheads ... just .. right ... there ... and then realize it's Ash Wednesday. Does that make me heathenish?? =>

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  19. Chris, from an ish to an ist - love the helmet hair (though I know you will never, never have any!) and the indecipherable preacher - sounds a little like a Yiddische Rabbi!

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  20. Lisa, from one ish to a half-ish, thanks!

    BLW, Love the delish! Anything with food goes with being Jewish!

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  21. Kristen, I keep telling my kids that this springtime focus on eggs - forget the macaroons! - thing was stolen from our seder plate. Of course, I can't prove it but I go through a lot of eggs in Passover preparation!

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  22. Stacia, growing up in a complete Jewish town, I had never seen the ashes before I moved to Arizona. I had NO CLUE and I think I tried to clean it up for my pals until they recoiled from me like I was crazy. Then I noticed it on everyone's forehead and I realized, Oh, I'm the minority!

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  23. I don't think I'm an -ish! Pretty sure mormonish is an insult. Oh wait, I'm often grouchy-ish and tired-ish. Do those count?

    All this time I thought St. Patrick's Day was a Jewish holiday. Next you'll be telling me neither is St Valentine's Day.

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  24. LOL. Based on what I have learned from my Jewish friends, I'd say what you have for your "ish" is the exact opposite of The Luck of the Irish... LOL. esp. after seeing the movie "A Simple Man" I am convinced this is the truth... ;-)

    To me it's actually quite similar to the Chinese belief in "yin yang" balance. One should never be too pleased if one should come across any good luck, because you know, soon the universe is going to balance everything out. I am forever happy that I don't win the lottery!

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  25. I loved this post, but being a European mutt, I am not really what -ish I am. Maybe, bookish. I mean, it's not offensive to anyone right?

    Tagged you over at my blog today...Come check it out!

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  26. Charlotte, you're right. Sometimes an -ish is not good! And, of course, if a holiday involves chocolate it does have some universal appeal!

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  27. Absence, I totally agree. I was working up to something about the "Curse of the Jews," or whatever the exact, miserable opposite of luck is!

    Maria, I'll take that bookish one too. And thanks for the tag. (I can't guarantee I'm not cleaning out the garbage can I call a purse before I do this one!)

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