Yimakh shemo
Encyclopedia
The Hebrew phrase yimakh shemo "May his name be obliterated" is a curse placed after the name of particular enemies of the Jewish people. A variant is yimakh shemo ve zikhro "Obliterate his name and his memory." Yimakh shemo is one of the strongest curses in the Hebrew language.
may be abbreviated as "Y. S." in some English texts. In Hebrew the abbreviation is (יש"ו) y-sh"u The curse connects with examples of erasure of names in other cultures. but has been called "the classic Jewish curse."
and Haman
, but can be applied to any abhorrent enemy of the people such as Shabsai Tzvi Spain
, Joseph Stalin
Russians
, Poles
Adolf Hitler
, Eichman, Mengele, or any other Nazi Or even in cases of personal slight, such as of a bullying father, or conversely as the father of Israel Zangwill
of his playwright son. Yisrael Meir Kagan
used the epithet of the man who tried to persuade him to abandon his studies.
There are only a very small number of texts where yimakh shemo is used of Jesus of Nazareth, though the tradition that Yeshu
(minus the ayin
) is related to the yimach shemo has a little popular circulation, this may be an inheritance from medieval polemical traditions. An early introduction of this connection into Lutheran literature was made by convert Johan Kemper
.
.
places the phrase in the mouth of the titular character of his novel Herzog
to comically depict his anger. Leo Haber
's The Red Heifer (2001) set in New York's Lower East Side in the 1940s includes the term in a glossary.
The term yimakh shemo is often used in combination with the term meshummad from the root shamad, which signifies to destroy.
The obliteration of Amalek's memory has been compared to the Latin damnatio memoriae
by several European academics.
Usage
The term although Hebrew, may be inserted as a set phrase in languages other than Hebrew, including Yiddish, e.g. "Dos iz a kol-boynik, yemakh-shmoy!" ("He is a scoundrel, yemakh-shmoy!") and English. When the phrase is used in English of plurals the Hebrew plural -om ("their names and their memories" yimach shemom ve zichrom) is applied. The epithetEpithet
An epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...
may be abbreviated as "Y. S." in some English texts. In Hebrew the abbreviation is (יש"ו) y-sh"u The curse connects with examples of erasure of names in other cultures. but has been called "the classic Jewish curse."
Haman and others
The phrase originates with PurimPurim
Purim is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian Empire from destruction in the wake of a plot by Haman, a story recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther .Purim is celebrated annually according to the Hebrew calendar on the 14th...
and Haman
Haman
Haman can be a surname which is a corruption of the German Hamann. It is also a biblical surname as described below. It also refers to:*Haman , appears in the Book of Esther and is the main antagonist in the Jewish holiday of Purim....
, but can be applied to any abhorrent enemy of the people such as Shabsai Tzvi Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
, Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, Eichman, Mengele, or any other Nazi Or even in cases of personal slight, such as of a bullying father, or conversely as the father of Israel Zangwill
Israel Zangwill
Israel Zangwill was a British humorist and writer.-Biography:Zangwill was born in London on January 21, 1864 in a family of Jewish immigrants from Czarist Russia, to Moses Zangwill from what is now Latvia and Ellen Hannah Marks Zangwill from what is now Poland. He dedicated his life to championing...
of his playwright son. Yisrael Meir Kagan
Yisrael Meir Kagan
Yisrael Meir Poupko , known popularly as The Chofetz Chaim, was an influential Eastern European rabbi, Halakhist, posek, and ethicist whose works continue to be widely influential in Jewish life...
used the epithet of the man who tried to persuade him to abandon his studies.
There are only a very small number of texts where yimakh shemo is used of Jesus of Nazareth, though the tradition that Yeshu
Yeshu
Yeshu is the name of an individual or individuals mentioned in Rabbinic literature. The oldest works in which references to Yeshu occur are the Tosefta and the Talmud, although some scholars consider the references to Yeshu to be post-Talmudic additions....
(minus the ayin
Ayin
' or ' is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic . It is the twenty-first letter in the new Persian alphabet...
) is related to the yimach shemo has a little popular circulation, this may be an inheritance from medieval polemical traditions. An early introduction of this connection into Lutheran literature was made by convert Johan Kemper
Johan Kemper
Johan Christian Jacob Kemper , formerly Moshe ben Aharon of Kraków, was a Polish Sabbatean Jew who converted from Judaism to Lutheran Christianity...
.
Amalek
Although the immediate context of the phrase yimakh shemo ve zikhro is related to Haman, some sources suggest that the second part of the phrase "and his memory," (ve zikhro) harks back to the instruction to "obliterate the memory of Amalek" (תִּמְחֶה אֶת־זֵכֶר עֲמָלֵק) in Deuteronomy 25:19, and Exodus 17:14. This connection is supported in some sources by the idea that Haman is a descendant of AmalekAmalek
The Amalekites are a people mentioned a number of times in the Hebrew Bible. They are considered to be descended from an ancestor Amalek....
.
Usage in English and Yiddish literature
Saul BellowSaul Bellow
Saul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...
places the phrase in the mouth of the titular character of his novel Herzog
Herzog (novel)
Herzog is a 1964 novel by Saul Bellow. Letters from the protagonist constitute much of the text.Herzog won the 1965 National Book Award for Fiction and the The Prix International...
to comically depict his anger. Leo Haber
Leo Haber
Leo Haber is an American writer based in New York.Haber studied at City College, Columbia University and is adjunct professor of Hebrew language at Hebrew Union College, New York....
's The Red Heifer (2001) set in New York's Lower East Side in the 1940s includes the term in a glossary.
Related terms
In Yiddish a derived noun, formed with the Slavonic -nik nominalizing suffix, is yemakh-shmoynik "scoundrel" (feminine, yemakh-shmoynitse) but this is not used with the strength of the original epithet yemakh-shmoy.The term yimakh shemo is often used in combination with the term meshummad from the root shamad, which signifies to destroy.
The obliteration of Amalek's memory has been compared to the Latin damnatio memoriae
Damnatio memoriae
Damnatio memoriae is the Latin phrase literally meaning "condemnation of memory" in the sense of a judgment that a person must not be remembered. It was a form of dishonor that could be passed by the Roman Senate upon traitors or others who brought discredit to the Roman State...
by several European academics.