Gzuckier posted a comment on Digg to my Top 10 Words that Sound Yiddish (But Aren’t) with a link to a great article.

Some poor geezer got his knickers in a twist over the use of the word Kaffufle in an article, which led to an anti-Israel/ antisemitic diatribe.

What does “Israelization of American culture” mean? Since when do they speak Yiddish in Israel? (Of course ‘Israelization’ is not in the dictionary, but is synonymous with Judeification. Classic antisemitism!)

Anyway, the last laugh was left for the editor (see below).

Thank you for that wonderful comment. Here is the article from Concord Monitor

A language kafuffle

Peter Davis, Laconia
Letter to the editor

For the Monitor
November 14. 2007 12:45AM

What is a “kafuffle”? It’s not in the dictionary. Is it just another proofreading error? Or is it a further example of your acquiescence to the Israelization of American culture by attempting to pass obscure Yiddish words into the mainstream of the American language?

It’s bad enough that we are steered toward war with the entire Arab world and beyond because our “friend” Israel won’t relinquish its occupation of Palestine and make peace with its neighbors. Still we are suckered into giving Israel, the 14th richest country on earth, billions and billions of our tax dollars in foreign aid every year, and we gave it carte blanche to rampage through Lebanon destroying everything in its path and inflicting collective punishment on its people, an aggression internationally condemned as a war crime, yet condoned by the Bush administration and sheepishly accepted by the American people.

How can we hold our heads high and proud when our own county illegally attacks and invades an Arab country that had done nothing to us, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and wrecking their entire infrastructure, clearly Bush war crimes, all for the benefit of Israel because Saddam was assisting the families of Palestinian martyrs in their struggle against the illegal Israeli occupation of their land? We shouldn’t be proud to be associated with Israel, and I don’t appreciate their insidious adulteration of our language.

PETER DAVIS

Laconia

(The word “kafuffle” appeared in a Sunday Monitor Viewpoints column called “A tip for Clinton: Change the subject” by Hillary Nelson on Nov. 11. Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary of English defines it as “disorder” or “commotion.” It can also be spelled curfuffle, kafuffle and gefuffle. The etymology is not Yiddish but rather Gaelic. Ed.)