ADMISSION: $10 General; $7 Seniors and Full-Time Students; $5 Children 2-12; Free to Members and Children under 2; Free to all on Thursdays

Jews on Vinyl spans the history of Jewish recorded music from the 1940s to the 1980s, weaving an account that begins with sacred songs, continues through Yiddish crossover pop and ends with the triumvirate of Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, and Barry Manilow. Set in a retro 1950s-style living room equipped with listening stations, the exhibition features a soundtrack of LP highlights-much of it no longer available in any format-providing an unprecedented opportunity to experience lost moments in American Jewish pop history and new perspectives on Jewish identity. 

Listening Party: Get Down, Moses

ADMISSION: $10 General; $8 Members ; $6 Full-Time Students. Advance tickets recommended

The Vortsman, meaning "man of his word," brings you the story of a different Yiddish word or phrase each month.

Written by Hershl Hartman, long-time Yiddishkayt Board Member and Education Director at the Sholem Community

Continuing, for a moment, on the theme of Yinglish, the Vortsman notes that the L.A. Times' business writer Michael Hiltzik dropped one into his April 7th column. Describing the long-term health insurance travails of a couple named Klotz (no comment), Hiltzik reported that they haven't had to make a claim yet, then added parenthetically: "kinehora."

That's it. Just the word. No explanation for the Yiddish-impaired, who wouldn't find it in any English dictionary (we checked: not even on-line).

So, since that Yinglish word lacks Official Recognition, here's our suggestion for the next editions of Merriam-Webster, et al:

Ki-ne-hora (ki' ne ho' re), expletive, American-Jewish, from Yiddish keyn eyn hore, no evil eye. Combines Yid. keyn (none) with Hebrew ayin (eye) hora (evil). Used when praising someone (esp. a child) or mentioning a favorable event: "She's, kinehora, such a smart child."

Were the Vortsman writing copy for the Oxford dictionary, he'd probably add:

Not to be confused with mirtshem, another Yinglishism, derived from the Yiddish/Hebrew phrase, im yirtse ha'shem, if The (sacred) Name wills it. Most often used in the phrase mirtshem bay dir, meaning "if The Name wills it, may the same befall you." Most often used at weddings, spoken to still-unmarried young people and/or their parents.

But enough of this Yinglish lexicography. On to the Vortsman's mailbox:

Our use of the term ameratses, defined as "rank, utter, total, unmitigated, noxious stupidity," led a reader to suggest that we should have written amhorets. He confused the word used to describe an unlearned person (man of the soil, i.e., peasant) with the term we used, meaning ignorance in general. Another reader pointed out that the term was an insulting reference to tillers of the soil. We agree, but note that many terms lose their original meanings over the centuries. For example, even the most orthodox English-speaking atheist will say "goodbye," though it is a contraction of "God be with ye."

Then there are mis-heard or mis-remembered expressions used by Yiddish-speaking parents. One reader recalled her father saying geferlekh a maynse when regretting a semi-serious mishap, such as mislaying one's glasses. Actually, her dad was saying, sarcastically, a geferlekhe maynse - a terrible event.

Sarcasm in Yiddish found a major expression when Tsarina Catherine II (the Great) demanded that her newly-acquired Polish-Jewish subjects adopt family names. Until then, Moyshe-Khane-Leye's was sufficient to distinguish the Moyshe (Moses) who was the son of Khane (Hannah) and grandson of Leye (Leah) from other Moyshes in the shtetl (village). Forced to follow the  decree, many poverty-stricken Jewish families adopted sarcastically grandiose names: Gold, Zilber, and variants like Goldshteyn and Zilbershteyn (gold/silver nuggets), Goldberg/Zilberberg (gold/silver mountains) Diment (diamond), Perl (pearl), and their variants, plus Brilyant (jewel), Rubin (ruby) and many others.

Another sarcastic name choice was of special interest to the Yidbits' editor, Wesley Pinkham, whose original family name was translated (probably, by a German steamship line clerk) as Pinkwater. Having once heard the name Funkvaser (don't ask where or when), we opined that this may have been the original, but that confusion between the Hebrew/Yiddish letters fey (f) and pey (p) - distinguished only by a dot in the latter - and the Southern (Polish) pronunciation of "u" as "i" (are you still with us?), would have led that clerk to change Finkvaser to Pinkvaser and to translate it as Pinkwater. But, why funk (or fink) vaser to begin with? The first part means "spark." A spark can't possibly exist in water. That was (we surmise) the idea: "The powers-that-be want a family name? We'll give 'em a name that makes no sense. Take that, Tsarina Katerina!"