"Jew(ish) lightning"

Fri Mar 4 18:21:39 UTC 2011

The phrase didn't make it into HDAS because, way back when, only a single
cite was available. No earlier than '74, though.

JL

On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 12:33 PM, George Thompson <george.thompson at nyu.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Jew(ish) lightning"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> JGreen's Dict of Slang has the expression from 1986-87, citing Maledicta.
>
> In 2000 I posted a long screed on the expression "successful fire" which
> contained an oral occurrence of "Jewish lightning".  (He doesn't seem to
> have "successful fire".)
>
> The screed, somewhat edited:
>
> Some months ago I walked down Broadway heading for the NYCity
> Archives.  I crossed Canal St. just as the fire dept. was stowing its
> gear after putting out a fire in a low and rather ratty looking
> builidng that's somewhat of a landmark in the area, since it housed
> "Pearl River", a Chinese department store.  Later that day I
> overheard a couple of guys talking who had heard a news report on the
> fire and were speculating as to where exactly it had been.  I told
> them what I had seen, and they placed the building immediately.  Then
> I said, "It looked like a pretty successful fire."  They both smiled
> and nodded and added a few similar pleasantries, showing that they
> were New Yorkers of the old breed.  My father never passed a burned
> building without giving it a connoisseur's eye and pronouncing it "a
> successful fire" or otherwise.
>
> In the next few days I did a random but unscientific sampling of
> friends.  The general results were that the young people I know
> didn't know the phrase, and the non-New Yorkers didn't know it
> either.  My wife, who's my age but was born to respectable parents in
> southwestern Pennsylvania, tells me that she had never heard it until
> she came to the big city and began consorting with low company, such
> as me and my father.  Actually, I only asked two New Yorkers of my
> own age.  One, when I asked him if he used or recognized the phrase,
> immediately said "The old Jewish lightning, eh?"  He was born and
> raised in the Bronx, and is as Irish as Paddy's pig.(1)  I was
> surprised that the other, born and raised in Brooklyn, I believe, and
> Jewish, didn't know it.  Does any one out there use it?
> [The answer to this, in 2000, was no, much to my surprise.  It seems that
> "successful fire" is limited to the NY Irish?  My father was one of the last
> of the old-time Brooklyn Irishmen.]
>
> [Back to the screed:]  Whether RHHDAS, vol. 3, will have "successful fire"
> is hidden in the
> mists of time. [Alas!]   It does not have "Jewish lightning" among its
> phrases beginning with the word "Jewish".
>
> I have been sitting on this note until I could get my hands on Jenna
> Weissman Joselit's book "Our Gang: Jewish Crime and the New York
> Jewish Community," (Bloomington: Indiana U. Pr., 1983,) since I
> thought I remembered that she had reproduced a relevant cartoon.  Her
> discussion of arson as a tool of Jewish business management is on pp.
> 36-39.
>  It begins "Of all the offenses commonly associated with New York
> Jews, arson, or "Jewish lightning," as it was popularly called,
> received the most attention."  (pp. 36-37)  She does not give a
> printed contemporary source for "Jewish lightning".  The cartoon
> turned out to be from Puck and undated, and not directly relevant
> with regards the expression.  It had been captioned "Adding Insult to
> Injury"; frame #1 showed members of a volunteer fire company in a
> businessman's office, asking him to contribute toward the purchase of
> a new fire engine.  In frame #2, the businessman, ("Mr. Burnupski")
> throws an inkwell and a bottle at the fleeing firemen.  The caption
> is: "Mr. Burnupski (excitedly)  So hellup me Fadder Abram!  Asks me
> to hellup dem puy a new undt more bowerful engine ven der oldt von
> put oudt four fires in mein store in der last six months!"
>
> For the benefit of those of you who are young, or respectable, or not
> New Yorkers, I will explain that the expression carries a cynical
> imputation that the fire had been started on purpose, in order to
> collect on the fire insurance.  The more completely the building was
> destroyed, the more "successful" the fire.
>
> (1)  I admit to never having heard spoken the expression "as Irish as
> Paddy's pig", and to having seen it only once, in a book from the
> late 1920s about low life in NYC.  A very major gambler and criminal
> power-broker and financier named Arnold Rothstein had been murdered.
> An Irish-born cleaning woman who worked in the hotel where Rothstein
> was last alive said that she had seen him talking to a man she
> described as "a big feller, and as Irish as Paddy's pig".  The cops,
> reasoning shrewdly, thought that the description was not
> inappropriate for George McManus, who was considerably taller than 6
> feet and who was on poor terms with Rothstein.  Nothing came of this.
>  Rothstein's murder generated a lot of heat but even more pressure to
> cover it up, and covered up it was.
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.  Working on a new edition, though.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Date: Friday, March 4, 2011 11:35 am
> Subject: "Jew(ish) lightning"
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> > Not in the OED, nor had I in my sheltered upbringing heard it
> > before.  Urban Dictionary says "To set your house or business on fire
> > on purpose to get the insurance money."
> >
> > For "Jewish lightning", about 13,000 Google hits.   For "Jewish
> > lightning", 230 Gbooks hits.  For "Jew lightning", perhaps 3 genuine
> > of 8 GBooks hits.
> >
> > A.  Jewish lightning, before 1980.
> >
> > 1)  1974.  Black Mafia; ethnic succession in organized crime, by
> > Francis A. J. Ianni.  Allegedly page 133.
> >
> > "You mean it wasn't no Jewish lightning." "Nah, not any neighborhood
> > lightning either. Who around here wants to burn down a bar?" "Hey
> > right." Manchu said softly, "If it ain't been axed to death, I hear
> > there's plenty of whiskey in that ...
> >
> > Snippet, but "From inside the book" for a reason unknown to me shows
> > entirely different text.
> >
> > 2)  1975 alleged.  Jewish spectator: Volumes 40-41.  Page 10.  Snippet.
> >
> > Put them all together and they spell Jewish Lightning, a novel which
> > proves that Robert Klane is to books what Mel Brooks is to movies.
> >
> > [Meaning unclear.  I did not find a book with this title in WorldCat.]
> >
> > 3)  1978.  In Espy, "O thou improper, thou uncommon noun".
> >
> > B.  Jew lightning.
> >
> > 1992, Blood of Our Fathers, by Sonny Girard.  Snippet.
> >
> > "As you get closer to the holidays, we'll keep selling off your extra
> > stuff to our people, an' you'll keep filling in. Then in January,
> > before your biggest bills come due . . ." He snapped his fingers.
> > "Whap! Jew's lightning. ...
> >
> > Page alleged to be 223.  But again the display "From inside the book"
> > is a completely different excerpt.
> >
> > [Two other allegations, but they do not reveal any surrounding text.]
> >
> > Joel
> >
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