Schnorrer
Template:Short description Template:For Template:Use dmy dates
Schnorrer (שנאָרער; also spelled shnorrer) is a Yiddish pejorative term for a beggar who, unlike ordinary beggars, presents himself as respectable and feels entitled for the alms received.<ref name="schnorrer encyclopedia">Template:Cite web</ref>
Historical
A large number of beggars appeared in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth after the pogroms of the Khmelnytsky Uprising, when many homes were destroyed. Schnorrers begged for themselves, for the dowries of poor brides (Template:Langx), or for the restoration of a house that had burned down.<ref name="virtual library">Template:Cite web</ref> This practice was allowed even when it disrupted the public study of the Torah.Template:Citation needed Azriel Hildesheimer was described as the "international schnorrer" for his calls for philanthropy in many countries he visited.<ref name="hildesheimer">Template:Cite web</ref>
Milton Hindus, commenting on the picaresque novel The King of Schnorrers, wrote that the Jews did not regard outcasts as failures, and assumed social responsibility for them. "Properly exploited by a fertile intelligence like Menasseh’s, this attitude enables the ostensible mendicant to become the actual master in the eleemosynary relationship."<ref name=mihi>Milton Hindus, "The King of Schnorrers, by Israel Zangwill", Commentary, March 1954</ref>
Jewish humor
Schnorrers are a common butt of Jewish jokes, depicted as living off their wits and assuming a dignified entitlement to handouts.<ref name=tjc/>
(One of many variants) A schnorrer comes to a wealthy businessman and asks for a handout. "Have a pity for a poor shoemaker whose family is starving." - "But aren't you the one who asked for alms from me last week presenting yourself as a carpenter?" - "So true, who can in these bad times support himself from just one job?"<ref>Payson R. Stevens, Sol Steinmetz, Meshuggenary. Celebrating the World of Yiddish, 2002, p.76</ref><ref name="targets">Template:Cite web</ref>
Moishe the shnorrer is outraged to hear that his wealthy patron has halved his annual allowance. The donor apologetically explains that his son has married a woman of expensive tastes and he, the father, must foot the bill. "He can marry who he wants," retorts the shnorrer. "Just not with my money."<ref name=tjc>Jewish words: Shnorrer, The Jewish Chronicle</ref>
Sigmund Freud in his 1905 joke collection Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (its 1905 translation is in public domain now together with the original) gives the following interpretation of a shnorrer's entitlement. Template:Blockquote
In film and literature
- Israel Zangwill's 1894 picaresque novel The King of Schnorrers.
- Bernard Herrmann wrote a musical comedy based on Zangwill's novel, which ran on Broadway for a short time in 1979.
- The song "Hooray for Captain Spaulding", as performed in The Marx Brothers' 1930 film Animal Crackers, has in its chorus the line "Hooray for Captain Spaulding, the African explorer," to which Groucho, in character as Captain Spaulding, at one point retorts "Did someone call me schnorrer?"
- The comedian Jackie Mason often poked fun at the stereotype of Jews as schnorrers.Template:Cn
- Father Phil, in Season 1 of The Sopranos, often refers to himself as a "schnorrer," going to parishioner's homes to eat their home cooking, commonly that of Carmela Soprano. He defines a "schnorrer" as "Somebody who always shows up in time for free grub." He attributes this language to growing up in Yonkers, NY, among many Jewish people.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>