Orange glass floor lamp by Tibor Hazi, Hungary, 1973

hungarians

radiohead’s ok computer album art by stanley donwood

today i learned that Jews in Ireland used to call an goyische Irish person “beitz” or “beitzimer” (pl) which in hebrew is EGG.  because “eggs” in yiddish is “eyer”.   (get it?? because eyer-ish?)

irish goyim:

irish jews: 

Since this post has gotten around a bit (and since my Irish friend and I have been comparing notes for years), I thought I’d throw in a little history I found following the rabbit hole that led me to eyer(ish).

Ireland historically has a very small Jewish population.  Records indicate that Jews have been there consistently for almost one thousand years, though they weren’t allowed to become naturalized till 1846. 

I like this line from Daniel O’Connell, an Irish politician who fought against the English prescribed dress codes for Jews:

“Ireland has claims on your ancient race, it is the only country that I know of unsullied by any one act of persecution of the Jews”.

This feeling was apparently somewhat mutual, as evidenced by the Jewish contributions during the Great Famine.  New York communities sent contributions, and one paper noted that the Rothschilds contributed “a sum far beyond the joint contributions of the Devonshires, and Herefords, Lansdownes, Fitzwilliams and Herberts, who annually drew so many times that amount from their Irish estates.”

As in other places at the time, Ashkenazi Jews started arriving in numbers in the 1870s, fleeing pogroms, but the population never topped 5000.  They mostly worked as peddlers and money lenders.  Unfortunately there was an upswing in antisemitism in the 20th century, but overall the Jewish population has fared relatively well.  This review of a recent book on the subject, Jewish Ireland in the Age of Joyce: A Socioeconomic History, has some good history.  THe author quotes a memoirist saying “acceptance of our Irish playmates, no wonder many of them could speak Yiddish as good as we did, and knew as much of the important religious observances as we did.…”  Dublin has also had two Jewish mayors!

happy purim & st patrick’s day to my fellow jews and beitzimer! ✡️🤝☘️

Okay, this is INCREDIBLE for two reasons: 

1) my grandfather was born to a Poylish-Jewish mother and gentile Irish father in Belfast. 

2) The word for Jew in Spokane Salish at least used to be/mean egg-eater. IDK if still is but it would be hilarious if so. 

History Link’s article on the Jewish presence in Spokane, Washington–which is dated and it shows–explains: 

“The first synagogue in the state opened in Spokane in 1892, but the city’s Jewish history began even before the little village of Spokane Falls existed. In 1879, Indians told Simon Berg, the first known Jewish resident, that he was not the first “egg-eater” they had met. Apparently, other Jewish traders observing the kosher dietary rules had visited before.”

“When Simon Berg, a German immigrant, arrived in Spokane Falls to build his general merchandise store in 1879, the dusty pioneer village was little more than a scattering of wooden storefronts. Berg later said that he knew he couldn’t have been the first Jewish trader to visit the area; Spokane [people] told him that earlier traders had been ‘egg-eaters,’ which Berg interpreted to mean Jewish. Many Jewish traders avoided meat when away from home because of kosher dietary restrictions. They survived, to the apparent fascination of the [Spokane people], on hard-boiled eggs.”

https://www.historylink.org/File/8640