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