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UPDATE: I've now published a book of 252 Gimpl Beynish comic strips, with translations. Click the picture for more information.

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One of the songs in the American Yiddish Penny Songs collection is called Gimpl Beynish der shadkhn. Gimpel Beinish was the protagonist in a comic strip drawn by Samuel Zagat for the daily Yiddish newspaper Warheit (Truth); when that newspaper collapsed, Zagat took Gimpel over to the Yiddish Daily Forward.

I was lucky enough to get a copy of the book Ida Zagat wrote about Sam Zagat in 1972. She writes that he came from Sebesh (a Lithuanian village near Vitebsk) to New York in 1895. He finished elementary school and then went to work with his older brother to support their mother and two younger sisters.

In his teens he attended evening sessions at the Art Students League and then the Academy of Art. In 1912 his work began to appear in Warheit and the first Gimpel Beinish cartoon ran on December 8, 1912. Ida writes:

[His] one great aim in life is to lead all unattached males and females into the holy state of matrimony-- hoping thereby perhaps to make a living... The fact that his endeavors never succeeded, but invariably led to his undoing, made of him a magnet for the readers of Warheit ...

It became a household term. Gimpl Beinish was used as the title of a successful comedy performed in New York and Brooklyn theaters and was known to multitudes.

I'll write about the song later, but now I want to share a representative comic strip and see what it has to say about the relations between German Jews and Eastern European Jews in 1913. Here is the strip, click it for a larger view, my translation is below:



Top: When a lady is too picky, it's a sign there's something wrong with her, herself.
1) Mrs. Garlic: Mister Matchmaker, keep in mind that I don't want any kike.
2) Gimpel Beinish (to old-fashioned looking man): You won't do. She doesn't want any kike, you know.
3) Gimpel Beinish (to modern looking man): You're the one! You don't look to be any kike!
4) Gimpel Beinish: Come, brother! As long as you're not a kike, it's all good.
5) Jake (the modern looking guy): This is the proposed bride? Feh! I don't want any kike!
6) Now you have it, they've kiked up my matchmaker's fee!

This seems to favor the theory Wikipedia says Stephen Birmingham laid out in Our Crowd, that 'the term "kike" was coined as a put-down by the assimilated U.S. Jews from Germany to identify eastern European and Russian Jews:'

Because many Russian [Jewish] names ended in 'ki', they were called 'kikes'—a German Jewish contribution to the American vernacular. The name then proceeded to be co-opted by non-Jews as it gained prominence in its usage in society, and was later used as a general derogatory slur.

Interesting, right?

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For sheet music and/or performances contact me: jane@mappamundi.com

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Labels: anti-semitism, battle between the sexes, mores, New York