Maybe it’s the fact that all the Israelis I knew growing up were seriously cute girls (Orali in fourth grade, I’m looking at you), but Hebrew versions of words always sounded so…cute. I’m not talking about the guttural ch that pops up everywhere. But the rest of it — the doubling-up of words (kacha-kacha), the addition of -y to every name, whether it makes sense or not (for years, I was “Matty” to every Israeli I knew), the fact that Israelis always sound so condescending when they deign to speak English to us non-Israelis — just strikes me as really sweet and 10-year-old-like.
You know who else uses made-up words and suffixes a lot? Snoop Dogg.
Keeping all this in mind,there’s a new restaurant in Brooklyn. I don’t know what the name is supposed to mean (it’s a dairy restaurant, and, like every other kosher restaurant in New York, they also serve sushi), but it’s called Shabazzile.
What do you think — is Shabazzile an Israeli way of saying “yummy”? Or the Hebrew vernacular equivalent of “Yo, party’s on Coney Island Avenue”? I couldn’t tell you for sure. Clearly, though, it’s an example of Israeli cute-ification in action.
And clearly the sort of place that Snoop Dogg would eat at. If, you know, he was Shomer Shabizzle.
(Thanks to the awesome kosher blog Thanks A Glatt for the tip.)
