Schnorrer of Poland in Leipzig, Germany From: Die Gartenlaube (1875) Schnorrer (שנאָרער; also spelled shnorrer) is a Yiddish term meaning "beggar" or "sponger".jewishencyclopedia.com – The word Schnorrer originally occurred in the German language to describe a freeloader who frequently asks for little things, like cigarettes or little sums of money, without offering a return.
|
|
Sometimes called "Schnorrer". He was based on the impresario Lew Grade.
|
|
"Hey, Got A Shekel For A Schnorrer?: Schnorring, sticking your hand out and yelling 'tzedakah' to passersby, is actually a fine art, according to Super Schnorrer, an icon of Malchei Yisrael Street in Geula for the past 32 years. While most people would be humiliated to jangle their cup and beg, Super Schnorrer says his ego disappeared long ago - and besides, aren't all fundraisers just schnnorrers with ties?". Mishpacha Supplement, "A Face & A Place … Hear Their Stories", Sukkot 5772 (2011), pp. 16-22.
|
|
The English language usage of the word denotes a sly chiseler who will get money out of his acquaintances any way he can, often through an air of entitlement. A schnorrer is distinguished from an ordinary beggar by dint of his boundless chutzpah. Like "moocher", "schnorrer" does not apply to direct begging or destitution, but rather a habit of getting things (food, tools) by politely or insistently borrowing them with no intention of return.
|
|
Schnorrer Club of Morrisania was established in 1881. It was located as East 163rd Street east of Third Avenue. Membership included many notable figures and it was active in Democratic Party politics. It closed in 1966.
|
|
398–99: "Herzl found himself visited by shabby, excitable Jews from distant parts, to the dismay of his fashionable wife, who grew to detest the very word Zionism. Yet these were the men who became the foot soldiers, indeed the NCOs and officers, in the Zionist legion; Herzl called them his 'army of schnorrers'. The 'army' met publicly for the first time on 29 August 1897..." Israel Zangwill later described a schnorrer as a beggar who would chide a donor for not giving enough. The Schnorrer Club of Morrisania was a German- American social club in the Bronx, New York.
|
|
While generally used in a pejorative or ironic sense, the term can also be used as a backhanded compliment to someone's perseverance, cleverness, or thrift. For instance, Azriel Hildesheimer, known for his travels around Europe to spread his rabbinical wisdom to the poor, and for his refusal to accept payment for his services, was sometimes referred to as the "international schnorrer" for his reliance on the local community to house and feed him wherever he went. Alternatively, Theodor Herzl described his early Eastern European immigrant supporters among the Ostjuden, as his "army of schnorrers".Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews, pp.
|
|
He draws the transition from the life in the narrow ghetto to the farmer's life in the open field; and he shows the struggles, doubts, and misgivings of those who, yielding to the impulse of modern times, undergo the changes of their newly chosen career. Seeing that under the leveling influence of the present day the characteristic inner Jewish life is threatened to vanish, he endeavors to preserve its originality, its deeper psychological, sentimental, and ethical spirit, for the knowledge of posterity. Kompert's first story, Der Schnorrer, appeared in 1846 in Ludwig August Frankl's Sonntagsblatt, No. 7. Then followed :Geschichten aus dem Ghetto, Leipzig, 1848; :Böhmische Juden, Vienna, 1851; :Am Pfluge, Berlin, 1855; :Neue Geschichten aus dem Ghetto, Prague, 1860; :Geschichten einer Gasse, Berlin, 1865; :Zwischen Ruinen, ib.
|
|
In 1861 he took his stand against Abraham Geiger by criticising Geiger, Die Geiger'sche Broschüre Notwendigkeit und Maass einer Reform des jüdischen Gottesdienstes (under the name variant Israel Hildesheimer, Mayence: Verlag der Le Roux'schen Hofbuchhandlung, 1861). (In fact, as early as 1847—as the representative of the communities in the Magdeburg district—he had energetically opposed the Reform attempts of Ludwig Philippson.) Hildesheimer was "simple in his habits and fearless"; he had an unusual capacity for work; and his great Talmudic learning "was joined to practical administrative ability". He was financially independent, and never accepted remuneration for his rabbinical activity. He was frequently engaged in philanthropic activities connected with his own congregation, but additionally, "no labor was too great and no journey too long for him" in the service of the Jews of Germany, Austria, Russia, and even Abyssinia and Persia, so that he came to be known as the "international schnorrer".
|
|