Tuesday, August 30, 2011

The Haimish Line - NYTimes.com

Interesting article by David Brooks on what is 'Haimish" and what do we lose when Haimish goes away (or to use his metaphor, when we're on the wrong side of the 'Haimish' line). What does that word mean to you?

The Haimish Line - NYTimes.com:

I know only one word to describe what the simpler camps had and the more luxurious camps lacked: haimish. It’s a Yiddish word that suggests warmth, domesticity and unpretentious conviviality.

It occurred to me that when we moved from a simple camp to a more luxurious camp, we crossed an invisible Haimish Line. The simpler camps had it, the more comfortable ones did not.

This is a generalized phenomenon, which applies to other aspects of life. Often, as we spend more on something, what we gain in privacy and elegance we lose in spontaneous sociability.

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