The New Testament Sounds Odd in Yiddish
15th October 2012
My favorite example of Mr. Heinegg’s examples, though, has nothing to do with Jewish religious terminology. It occurs at the end of the same “Talmudic argument” after Jesus’s death when he appears to his disciples and asks — seeking to prove that he is flesh and blood and not an apparition — whether they have anything for him to eat. (In the King James, this goes: “Have ye here any meat?”) In Einspruch’s Yiddish, the question is: “Hot ir do epes tsu esn?”
The untranslatable epes is marvelous. Epes is one of the homiest words in the Yiddish language. It means “something” or “anything,” but it can also mean “a bit of,” and it makes Jesus sound as if he were saying, “Hey, you guys, can you spare me a bite to eat?” How could anyone have thought he was an apparition after that?