When Crox Minor was about three, she was sitting in the synagogue, with the prayer book upside down before her, and proclaimed, in stentorian tones that would have done credit to Lady Bracknell – “This Hebrew is Too Lumpy!”
How the time has flown. In a matter of weeks, she’ll be 13 and having her Bat-Mitzvah. To this end much scholarly deliberation over Hebrew has been taking place in the Salon Des Girrafes. And – guess what? – the Hebrew is as lumpy as ever. Here is a picture of Crox Minor’s secretarial assistance, recently. Captions, as ever, blah blah etcetera etcetera.
Teh Hebrew not too lumpy for teh kittehs.
PS – For those who don’t know what a Bat-Mitzvah is, think of it as a tribal initiation ritual. Like walking over hot coals. Or having ritual dirt scratched into your skin. Or having a tattoo, or a unicycle speared through your lower lip. Only more embarrassing.
Bar-Mitzvah celebration in Chigwell, recently
PPS – I never had one. It’s all a bit anthropological. My role in all this is to sign the cheques.
It is obvious that if you trow yourself on it, things go much easier! How much hints does she need!!!
PS: Can somebody remove that trellis placed in front of my cat flap, pleeeeeease?
Hahaha! Actually, the cat flap is not in use. Teh kittehs is frighted by it. They’d rather use the back door.
“I can haz Kat-Mitzvah?”
(upload it to Icanhazcheeseburger.com & give it teh full lol-cat treatment)
Done.
“The parting of the Red Sea, you say? I thought it was departing of my head flea.”
“I’m going to need a hairball to pronounce this correctly”
“I hope my favourite Klezmer/Punk band, “Mazeltov Cocktail”, plays at teh party. I luvz to sign along: “Oi! Oi! Oi, oi, VEY!”"
Mazal Tov to Crox Minor (or will that now be upgraded to “Major”?).
Here’s to speaking a “lumpy language”!
BTW, I have English roots–did you know that Caplan (derived from Chaplin, and therefore priest=Cohen) is the English spelling of the name, whereas Kaplan is the American style? This is almost a rule of thumb, and my paternal grandfather was born in Manchester before moving out to the colonies (Canada).
Had no idea that Caplan = Cohen. Fascinating!
Having said all that, not sure what the real paternal name was–apparently somewhere along the way it was changed in an attempt to avoid the draft into the Czar’s army…
Steve’s story reminds me that I had a University flatmate and friend with the thoroughly English-sounding name of Speller, whose Jewish paternal grandfather had apparently changed the name on arriving in London’s East End from Russia in the early part of the 20th century. According to my friend said grandad flatly refused to tell his kids the original name, though they always assumed it was something vaguely similar-sounding.
BTW, Steve, you probably know this already, but Manchester has a long-standing Jewish community, and also a Museum (website here).
Austin,
I did know that there is a sizeable Jewish community in Manchester, but I’ve never been there. However, I am a thorough English culture lover–everything from Monty P. comedy, right on down to Jane Austen and Shakespeare. (It took me years to finally shed my British spellings for the American way…) My favorite films and actors are all British, along with a high percentage of my favorite authors. But if I were to live in the UK–or more specifically, England, I would have to choose somewhere in the Yorkshire dales so I could practice my great Geordie accent…
Also: Steve=Esteban (Sp.)=Etienne (Fr.)=Ethan back to Eng., and in Hebrew, is Eitan, meaning strong…
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Oh Hai! I’z on ur Torah, reading ur prayz!
*laugh*