Aztec Curses

Say what you want about how important the cause of Zionism is, but some things just work better in the United States.

No, this isn't a reference to our democracy or our lack of dysfunctional government offices. I'm talking about swearing in Hebrew.

Back in Israel, if I swore in English people (even Israelis) would know I was making an attempt to be rude or vulgar, and they would understand immediately the vile or insulting thing I just said. The same goes for swearing in English in the US.

And swearing in Hebrew in Israel was...embarrassing to say the least. I didn't even really have to worry about offending someone by being vulgar. Mostly the problem was that my accent was not convincing to any resident of Israel. To fully appreciate what me swearing in Hebrew sounds like, try to imagine a Russian guy yelling in English, "Well, go shits yourselfs on your cousins, sisters-fachers!" Like, I couldn't come up with the correct combination of words and to top it off I mispronounced everything.

But swearing in Hebrew in America....is fantastic. So far I've sworn at strangers and police officers. Now I know how my nanny must have felt. I used to crack up whenever she would yell at people in English in her fits of road rage, "I DON LIKE YOU, MATHER FLOWERS!" She seemed so silly. But truly terrifying was when, having pulled her head back inside through the car window, she would then swear under her breath in Spanish. Long before I understood the full meaning of words like "pendejo" and "puta" and whatever, I understood that this was an angry woman. A woman not to be trifled with. There was something extremely powerful about swearing in a foreign language, under your breath, in a sort of growl.

Now I wield that power. Sure, any Israeli knows I have an accent....but your average American doesn't have to know. Today a girl was rude to me as we waited in line for our professor to answer questions for some stupid reason, and I just sort of glared at her. Without speaking a word of English, as I started to walk away I growled in Hebrew, "Whore..."

And oh man. The pay-off was wonderful. Just as I used to tense up and feel irrationally uncomfortable whenever my nanny would growl under her breath in Spanish, so too did this girl when I growled under my breath in Hebrew. All I did was call her a whore. Had I done this in English, a fight would have ensued and I would have been in trouble. But doing it in Hebrew, the girl feels like I've just uttered some horrible ancient Aztec curse at her, one which she doesn't understand and which she doesn't know how to fight about.


Damn it's gonna be a great year...