Ask a Manager: My Manager Started Using Yiddish

[minoanmiss]

1. My manager started using Yiddish after she found out I’m Jewish

I started a new job last year with a very small team that is entirely white. After I put in a leave request for the Jewish High Holidays last year, my immediate manager began peppering our conversations with Yiddish words — “I’ve got to schlep this over to the loading dock” or “I’ll work on my schpiel before the meeting” or even just “Oy.” I hadn’t been there very long (maybe six or eight weeks) before I put in the leave request and “outed” myself as a Jew, so I want to give her the benefit of the doubt, but … we live in the deep South. There’s a very small Jewish community in our area and it’s not uncommon for people to tell me I’m the first Jew they’ve ever met.

We’ve been working remotely since I began with an expectation that we will go back into the office in person a few days a week soon. I’m worried the Yiddish-isms will be more frequent in person. Any advice on how to handle this?

Any chance she’s Jewish herself? If she’s not and she’s throwing in Yiddish because she wants to relate to you better or make you feel comfortable or show she likes Jews … that’s not okay (similar to if she started throwing in Spanish words after discovering you were Latina), even assuming it’s well-intentioned.

That said, “schlep” and “schpiel” and even “oy” aren’t uncommon to hear from non-Jews; they’ve made their way into English more than, say, “tsuris” or “meshuggeneh” have, so it’s possible that the timing is coincidental. But if it’s a definite change since she learned you were Jewish — and especially if it’s more than the three examples you listed — personally (and as a fellow Jew) I might just say outright at some point, in a tone of genuine curiosity, “I wonder if you realize you use a lot of Yiddish words around me. Is it because I’m Jewish?” If her response indicates that she is indeed breaking out the Yiddish specifically for you, you could say, “I’d rather you talk to me the same way you do to everyone else.” (Obviously, this only works if you’re comfortable saying that and your sense is that the relationship allows for it; realistically, the power dynamics will sometimes make that feel risky.)

Comments

[minoanmiss]

The comments on this one are really fucking annoying. at least 4/5 are something like "I didn't know X word was Yiddish!" or "X word isn't Yiddish anymore, it's just ENglish now!" and therefore "this is just harmless/boss probably uses this language with everyone/there's no problem here LW"

UGH.

There is an aspect of microaggressions that's really hard to convey in words but immediately recognizable to people who pay attention. I saw it as soon as LW described the situation, how (from LW's POV at least) her manager is using all this sprinkled-in Yiddish as a clumsy attempt at 'relating' that is actually othering. It's so annoying to see people without this experience/who won't let themselves notice these things, blithely dismissing LW's concerns.

Also, check out this thread, which seems to be helping a couple of people get the point: https://www.askamanager.org/2022/03/my-boss-started-using-yiddish-after-she-found-out-im-jewish-sleepwear-for-work-travel-and-more.html#comment-3805140

[liv]

I really appreciate your comment here and your pithy description of the microaggression involved. I've lived in lots of places where I'm people's first ever Jewish person, and I have lots of experience of fielding weird awkward processing about that. Not random Yiddish expressions as far as I can remember, but similar stuff that's right on the border between well-meaning yet clumsy attempt to connect, and treating me as a curiosity.

[minoanmiss]

I hear you, and send you strength. I have learned to cringe at the line, "You're the first X I've ever met!" aughghghghgh.

[jadelennox]

• "Tell me your opinions on Israel."
• "The Wailing Wall is so important."
• "I love matzah ball soup!"
• "I used to love having that holiday, you know, the one with the food, with my neighbors."

and on and on and on.

[ysobel]

you know, the one with the food

*snerk*

[jadelennox]

exactly. a woman mentioning another woman's hairstyle is a normal thing that happens in english; a white woman mentioning a black woman's hairstyle is usually a microaggression, even when well intended. A non jew saying "oy my back!" might just be incorporating Yinglish into their dialect. A non jew saying to a jew, "oy, your code", especially if they say to the other non jews "yikes, your code," is a microaggression.

There is an aspect of microaggressions that's really hard to convey in words but immediately recognizable to people who pay attention.

yes, this!

[minoanmiss]

ONE DAY I will figure out how to fully describe a microaggression in mere words.

[shirou]

From a statistical perspective it should come down to frequency, right? If an individual uses Yiddish words with greater frequency when speaking to a Jew than to a non-Jew, then intentional or not, it's targeted. In the case of LW's manager, it's intentional.

FWIW I use "schpiel" a little but rarely "schlep" or "oy." I might use other Yiddish words without realizing it simply because Yiddish and my first language are both Germanic. (I am not Jewish.)

[minoanmiss]

I like the statistical angle. makes a note

[cimorene]

This is just so... weird. Is this a thing? Are people like this? Do people do this? Did some of you read this and go, like, "Oh yeah, I've met a person who would do that"?

[cimorene]

Clarification: not to dismiss the possibility of this type of micro-aggression! I just had a really hard time picturing it. (And I AM a jew who grew up in the south, although admittedly, I'm also an introvert. Maybe I just haven't met the type.)

[minoanmiss]

People are RIDICULOUS. I have had people do the equivalent to me and have heard from at least a couple differnt Jewish people and Latino people about having people do this to them.

[cimorene]

And there was that guy in the thread you linked, too. Wow... ! I guess there really always IS a better type of idiot.

[gingicat]

I sometimes have this thought when listening to Stephen Colbert. "Is the Yiddish now natural to him or is it him being self-conscious about being an adopted New Yorker who's friends with Jon Stewart?"

[gingicat]

Oh, and I also have this reaction to Bostonians using y'all.

[heavenscalyx]

I mean, I'm a Bostonian who uses y'all, but that's because it got permanently screwed onto my vocabulary during grad school in the South.

I'm also baffled that this person hasn't apparently heard other people use this Yiddish-lite? Like, a couple of my friends (non-Jewish) moved to New Zealand and discovered that there was a huge chunk of their vocabulary that was Yiddish and was not recognizable to Kiwis -- most of the niches that Yiddish takes in our USian vocab are filled with Maori borrow words. Maybe this is a thing that just occurs in the Northeast and MidAtlantic? I have used "schlep" for decades and I think my (Silent Generation Irish Catholic) parents actually taught me the word "schpiel"...

[minoanmiss]

I mean, I'm from NYC so I'm used to Yiddish loanwords, but that's not what Manager is doing -- this isn't how she's always talked. She found out LW is Jewish and started deliberately talking to her in as much Yiddish as possible in that clumsy meant-to-connect-but-actually-othering way.

In my first comment I linked to a thread where another woman described someone trying to talk to her in pseudo-AAVE (I have also had people do this to me, ugh) for a possibly clearer illustration of how this process goes.

[heavenscalyx]

Oh, gods, the idea of someone using pseudo-AAVE just gave me a full-body cringe/shudder.

I get what you mean now. Thanks.

[gingicat]

The particular people I am thinking of don't have Southern connections, you see. (My Mom is from Savannah; y'all is way more regional to me than for most people.)

[heavenscalyx]

Uh. Yeaaaaah.

[cimorene]

Yeah, that is definitely not true in the south. There are hardly any jewish people there at all. I grew up there without really hearing any but "oy" outside of books and movies. It's safe to say that if you DO hear them in the south, the speaker almost certainly isn't a southerner.

[cereta]

Funny thing about "y'all": I never used it growing up despite living one river away from Kentucky. I started using it when I moved to Dayton - not sure why or how; it just happened. When I was visiting home (Cincinnati), I used it around a friend, and she was aghast. I hadn't realized until then just how much things like "y'all" and Southern pronunciations (both from KY and from the Appalachian influences to the north) were class markers in Cincinnati.

[jadelennox]

I use y'all mostly because people get gross and judgey when I say "yiz." It's deeply exhausting that the implications of the perfectly good second person plural from own Boston vocabulary are so profoundly classist in a way that y'all is less marked. Pittsburgians has successfully reclaimed yinz in a way Bostonians have not managed with yiz.

[minoanmiss]

That's a good question, yeah.

[cereta]

I will say: I'm a linguistic chameleon. You know how most people, entirely unintentionally, start to match their accent and even diction to those around them? I do that in a matter of hours. It's not intentional. In fact, I have to make an effort not to do it, because I worry people will think I'm making fun of them (the first time I noticed this was when I was working at a Big Boy in Dayton, Ohio, where there's quite a bit of Appalachian influence on pronunciation, and where said accent is very definitely a class marker). My best friend is Jewish, and I know I've picked up some Yiddish from her. I don't only use it with her, though, if that makes a difference. I will really need to ponder this now.

[gingicat]

It does - if it's because you're a linguistic sponge (which I suspect Colbert is as well), it's very different than consciously using it.

(I myself am a turn-of-phrase sponge, but accents escape me.)

[liv]

ICBW but I don't get the impression that LW drops a lot of Yiddish expressions into their own speech. They're Jewish in the Deep South, not in New York. They talk about outing themselves by asking for time off for the Jewish festivals – I don't think they'd use that language if they used a lot of Yiddish day-to-day. So I don't think this is a case of the manager subconsciously picking up on the employee's speech patterns. I think you're probably off the hook, in short.

[cereta]

Good to know ;).

[ysobel]

I'm a linguistic chameleon

Same, and I have the same worry about sounding like I'm mocking people. :/

It also gets tricky when e.g. I follow a bunch of Black people on Twitter and my brain absorbs some of their speech patterns -- not as How To Talk To Black People specifically, just as "this is now part of my ideolect" -- but I am very white. White people stealing Black slang is a thing that happens that I don't want to do, and it's hard for me to know where the line is between okay and not.

(why is racism, anyway...)

[ambyr]

At least she hasn't started using "putz," I guess?

(My dad is a native Yiddish speaker, and the American adoption of "putz" to mean something mild, akin to "fool" drives him nuts; he says in his community it was the kind of vicious insult that you'd only use if you were prepared for the other person to immediately assault you physically. Every time someone says "I was just putzing around" to mean "I was just messing around" he flinches.)

[sporky_rat]

I learned 'putz' from the type of older Jewish people that would hiss it at people passing by the deli and tell Small White Southern Rat Child 'those are the people who burn crosses in your neighbor's yards'. 'Putz' is a Very Bad Word to call someone.

[castiron]

I've never heard folks use "putzing around", but I've heard "futzing around"; is that equally bad, or is it kind of like "fricking"?

[ambyr]

Different etymology! Futz all you like.

[castiron]

Whew!

[liv]

Arrrrgh yes this, it's horrible. My pet hate is when people self-describe as a shiksa; that's a really, really offensive word to the point where I considered asterisking it out. So either they're saying they're a misogynist and racist stereotype, or they're saying that Jews believe non-Jewish women are a vile slur, which is almost worse. But I think most people who get under my skin by doing this don't mean either of those things, they have somewhere picked up that the s-word is the feminine of 'goy' (which can also be a bit awkward if it's used by non-Jews), but it really isn't equivalent.

[ethelmay]

"Putzing around" is not Yiddish - it's German-derived slang, where it means about the same thing as "puttering." In German "putzen" means to clean (it's the verb you use for brushing your teeth or cleaning the kitchen). When my grandmother "putzed around" in her house, she was doing things like dusting, watering the African violets, tidying the magazines, and so forth.

[lemonsharks]

It's both, in the same way that Tenkū no Shiro: Laputa does not have the same connotations in Japanese that Laputa: El Castillo En El Cielo does in Spanish.

[ethelmay]

Oh, I'm not saying you shouldn't be careful where you use it. I mostly don't say it any more myself. But the connotation is entirely different in German, or in German-influenced midwestern US slang.

I think Swift probably did know about "la puta" in Spanish, if it matters.

[tielan]

Query: is the word 'spiel' the same as 'schpiel'?

[minoanmiss]

There was a discussion about it but unfortunately people were really annoying so it's one of the threads that got deleted, I think.