Colin Powell and Yiddish

[jaronson <jaronson...>]

>Colin Powell (who claims to know 
>Yiddish!) 

OK, I recognize that this is off topic, but I have a first-
hand experience with Colin Powell and Yiddish. My wife and I 
bumped into him at a Chinese restaurant in Virginia shortly 
after the Gulf War. Never shy, my wife went up and started 
talking to him. She mentioned that we were out for dinner 
with a Jewish social group and we had heard he spoke Yiddish. 
He then immediately switched to conversing in Yiddish. The 
ironic part is that my wife is not a Yiddish speaker. So 
there you had my nice Jewish wife standing in a Chinese 
restaurant unable to comprehend the Yiddish being spoken to 
her by the African American Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff. The melting pot at work.

Jesse

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