My Israeli friend, Zvi Solow, just wrote me about Dick Cheney’s blessed visit to the Holy Land. I was so touched to know that he davened there on Easter. Perhaps he was looking for a divine sign of the resurrection of his political prospects. Jesus may be able to raise the dead but even he can’t help Bush-Cheney. CBS reports that he sang Amazing Grace during the prayer service. Do you think even God would save a “wretch like him?”
Zvi wrote the following:
Richard this should interest you. On Geula Even’s evening news program she revued Cheyne’s visit here & commented on what he said: “with opinions like that he would have no problem integrating into the Likud”
Zvi knows that I’ve been writing here about how all the political candidates with the exception of Obama seem to be aping the Likud political line, which is why he wrote this to me.
I couldn’t help noticing Zvi’s delightful misspelling of Cheney’s name. Then I started to think: Cheyne. This reminded me of course of “cheynek” as in hoch mir nit kin cheynek (lit. “don’t beat my teapot” or “go way, you bother me”). So forevermore Dick Cheney will be known here as Dick “Go Way You Bother Me” Cheynek thanks to my friend Zvi. There is something akin to beating a teapot about Cheynek’s obsession with jihadis, the Muslim Caliphate and the like.
Returning to Vice President Cheynek. Reuters quotes him as saying:
“The United States will never pressure Israel to take steps that threaten its security.”
Actually, all he needed to say was: “The U.S. will never pressure Israel.” That would describe pretty well Bush Administration policy. And of course it would be music to a Likudnik’s ears. We should remember that this is almost precisely what Lawrence Eagleburger told a United Jewish Communities audience in a three-way debate about Israel policy among representatives of the three presidential candidates:
“He [McCain] isn’t going to push the Israelis.”
Why do I hear a Likud choir singing: “They’re playing our song?”
Amen.
Keep up the good work.
but thats exactly what the corrupt lying hypocrite administration of bush cheney rice is doing. pressuring israel.
Since I was a little girl I heard “hock mir nicht kein chinik” and I knew what it meant (you are giving me a headache- or stop talking so much) I never knew where it came from. And since I did not have access to the internet in those days I translated this myself according to the little Yiddish I had learned from my grandparents and my parents as well as the elementary German from College days. So it seems I mis-translated and consequently mis-understood this as being a racial slur or insult to the Chinese meaning “don’t talk to me like a Chinaman”. In other words you are not only giving me a headache but I don’t understand you either, you don’t make sense, like the Chinese.
But I am cleared up now about this. First of all you cannot bang on a teapot or it will break if it is made of china (presumably where “chinik” comes from?). So it must be a tea kettle- perhaps iron or some metal. That would also make the noise that would give a headache. And thank goodness it’s not a racial slur.
I must be missing something…pressuring Israel? Do tell. What pressure?
Suzanne: ‘Tchai’ is ‘tea’ because tea originates in China. So a chaynik is a teapot or tea kettle. You’re correct in that it is not meant as an aspersion on Chinese people.
And why is McCain campaigning in Israel for the US presidency?
Anybody find that strange?
If I were an American Jew, I would find the whole AIPAC and pro-Israel professional propaganda organizations offensive, as they do not represent American Jews at all.
American Jews (here I go again) represent the whole range of the political spectrum, from hippies to fascists and everything in between.
It irks me that American Jews are not louder in condemning AIPAC et al and shouting to the world – “This is not us, they do not represent us, they are a FRINGE”.
Just like moslems should shout out something similar about al Kaida and its offshoots.
At least Americans (including Jewish) have no compunction to voice our displeasure with bush, cheney and the neocon rat pack entrenched in the beltway….
Incidentally, chaynik, spelled czajnik, means teapot in polish (read – you guessed it – chaynik).
I wonder how many yiddish (?) words made it into the polish language – matza being the most famous example.
American Goy: About 5% of Yiddish words are of Slavic origin which would include Polish I presume. I’m sure many Polish words crept into Yiddish as well as Yiddish words crept into Polish.
I also heard that expression and did not know the literal translation. I really like “Don’t bang on my teapot”!
Richard, maybe you should do a thing on Yiddish curses.
I regret that I did not learn more from my grandmother. I remember two – in English-
‘Go away without your feet’
and
‘You should grow like an onion with your head in the ground.’
🙂
ellen
Richard wrote:
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Why do I hear a Likud choir singing: “They’re playing our song?”
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For the umpteenth time—it was Likud governments that gave up the
entire Sinai and destroyed all the Jewish settlements there.
It was a Likud government that destroyed all the Jewish settlements
in Gush Katif, some of whose residents had lived there for more than
30 years.
No gov’t ever headed by the Labor Party or had MERETZ as a member of
the coalition ever gave up a single settlement. Try to remember these
facts when you throw out comments like that one above.