The First Word Of The Day At The Scripps Spelling Bee Was ‘Yiddishkeit’
A contestant from this morning’s round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Image by Getty
By Ari Feldman May 30, 2019
The first word posed in competition this morning on the first day of the storied Scripps National Spelling Bee was “yiddishkeit,” a beloved phrase from Yiddish that sums up Ashkenazi Jewish culture in a manner akin to the term Americana.
More technically, the word means “Jewish character or quality,” “Jewish way of life” or “Jewishness,” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
The first word this morning at the Scripps National #SpellingBee finals: Yiddishkeit. Excited to see what other Hebrew and Yiddish words pop up in this year’s competition. pic.twitter.com/vwK2v7XnBQ
— Jewish Tweets (@JewishTweets) May 30, 2019
The contestant who got the word asked its language of origin right away. “Yiddish,” was the answer, of course.
“I don’t know what I expected,” he deadpanned in response.
“Yiddishkeit. Can I have the language of origin?”
“It’s from Yiddish.”
“I don’t know what I expected…”#SpellingBee pic.twitter.com/un1GEUjcOF
— Jewish Tweets (@JewishTweets) May 30, 2019
Yiddishkeit is used to refer to things that just ooze Jewishness — specifically Ashkenazic/Eastern European Jewishness — such as shtiebels, taking a whiskey break in the middle of Shabbat morning services, food from Russ & Daughter’s, etc.
But the word also gets ascribed to non-Jews on a fairly regular basis, for instance in these Forward articles on Pete Seeger and Nat “King” Cole.
Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
