bagel, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bagel n.

[Yid. bagel, a style of doughnut-shaped bread roll popular among Jews]

1. (US, also Jew bagel) a Jew; occas. Jewishness.

1957		J. Salter Hunters 45: I’m a wop [...] that’s all; but let’s face it, incidentally there’s a little bagel in me, too.
1967		Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ) Sun. Mag. 7 May 36: [advert] oy vay!...it’s Mother’s Birthday. Good, gentle, kind, lovable mom her little bagel baby Leon (such a party boy) wants her to really know he cares.
1977		J.G. Dunne True Confessions (1979) 35: We’ll get the bagel to take a few pictures.
1980		L.M. Feinsilver in Dillard Perspectives on Amer. Eng. 208: I recall in my early childhood being taunted by Gentile children with the epithet ‘Jew-bagel’.
1994		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 1: bagel – a Jewish person.
2015		J. Stahl OG Dad 101: Your bundle of joy. (Or bundle of goy in this case, since I’m purebred East Coast bagel and mom’s the Southern blonde).

2. (S.Afr.) a spoilt, wealthy, upper-class (Jewish) young man.

1981		J. Mullins in Fair Lady n.p.: 2 Dec., A male kugel is called a bagel [...] [He] gets his name from a round piece of dough with a space in the middle. He originates in Johannesburg and as soon as he is mobile he migrates to 1st Beach, Clifton [...] Bagels are round as the result of too much spoonfeeding, too many trips to the fridge, and living too near to a delicatessen [DSAE].
1988		Sun. Times 3 Apr. (Mag. Sect.) 42: ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, seeing her concern. ‘I can tell you’re going to take to this like a kugel to a bagel.’ [DSAE].
1997		Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) 25 Apr. 🌐 That great northern suburbs phenomenon, the kugel and the bagel.
2007		Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) 27 Aug. 🌐 he is also a full-on bagel (the male version of a kugel).

bagel baby (n.) [baby n. (3)]

1. (US, also blintze queen) a young (middle-class) Jewish woman; orig. from the Bronx, then the richer areas further down town.

1959		Latrobe Bulletin (PA) 29 Sept. 16/1: The association of white girls, called ‘Bronx bagel babies’ by the old-guard Italians, and Negro youth [...] looking for thrills.
1959		Guardian 3 Dec. 9/1: The ‘Bronx Bagel-babies’ — the middle-class girls who leap feet first into the vie Bohème.
1960		Brooklyn Dly (NY) 6 June 9/3: ‘The lost generation [...] the bagel babies who come down on the A train’.
1970		E. Tidyman Shaft 48: The fat-thighed Bronx bagel babies who shaved off their moustaches on Saturday nights.
1974		J. Charyn Marilyn The Wild (2003) 172: She didn’t have her father’s thick neck or the complexion of a blintze queen.
1977		(ref. to 1950s) L.A. Times Book Rev. 23 Jan. 1/1: They were there for the taking [...] The Bagel Babies of the 50s. Middle class, unpwardly mobile princesses from the East Side [...] They came by the hundreds, bu the thousands to the Village.

2. (US) any young middle-class Jew, usu. one who is liberal, often politically active.

1983		Maledicta VII 23: In the 1960s in New York, middle-class, young Jewish women who flocked to liberal causes were called bagel babies.
1991		N. Mailer Harlot’s Ghost 76: Marine Corps grunts used to look upon Rosen as a bagel-baby from the middle-class purlieus of the Bronx.
1995		E. Feldman Too Close for Comfort 213: The knee-jerk-liberal-let’s-all-sit- around-and-strum-our-guitars-together bagel baby.

bagel belt (n.)

1. (US) the concentration of resort town in the Catskill Mountains of N.Y. state.

1950		Miami News (FL) 23 July 40/1: Let’s first, however, differentiate between the [Catskill] Bagel Belt and the well-known Borscht Circuit of show biz.
1961		Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TX) 9 June 33/1: Kutsher’s, a pretentious retreat in the Catskill bagel belt.

2. areas of a city seen as predominantly populated by Jews; also the winter resorts of South Florida, popular among East Coast Jews.

1954		Miami News 21 Oct. 18/1: The Bagel Belt around Lakewood, N.J.
1970		Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TX) 15 Apr. 39/1: Miami horse tracks are bubbling over the Super Bowl’s return to the bagel belt.
1983		Age (Melbourne) 17 Sept. 49/11: [real esate advert] elsternwick [Melbourne: largest Aus. Jewish community] Lady mud wrestler reluctantly selling her palatial period retreat deep in the bagel belt.
1990		Tampa Bay Times (St Petersburg, FL) 14 Oct. 8F/3: The condo crowds who will soon begin flocking to South Florida’s Bagel Belt for the winter.
1999		Aus. Jewish News (Melbourne) 23 July 21/1: In Melbourne, entry into the ‘Bagel Belt’ was formally granted in 1995, when the State Zionist Council enabled the formation of the Mercaz Halsraeli, the Israeli Centre.
2000		Boston Globe (MA) 11 Aug. A31/5: Fairfax Avenue [...] ‘used to be our bagel belt, but a lot of it has been taken over by blacks’.
2017		timesofisrael 9 June 🌐 [headline] ‘Corbyn surge’ in London faltered in‘'bagel belt’ suburbs with strong Jewish vote.
2020		(ref. to 1998) books.apple.com 🌐 NEW BOY is a dark modern comedy about the hormonal angst of a Jewish lad growing up in north-west London's bagel belt.
2021		New European 10 Feb. 🌐 I live in the so-called bagel belt in North London – three marginal parliamentary constituencies with many Jewish voters.

bagel bender (n.)

(US) a Jew.

1948		News (Paterson, NJ) 22 Oct.31/3: Lang Clazton, Clifton’s director of atheletics and bagel bender.
1958		Akron Beacon Jrnl (OH) 6 Nov. 26/4: A silent movie returns to an Akron screen Sunday [...] One of the attractions of Temple Israel’s carnival [is] the hit film ‘Will Success Spoil Becky the Bagel Bender’.
[1970		Orland Sentinel (FL) 24 June 2/5: [headline] Bagel Bender Makes Scene [...] The Bagel bender is a gourmet type delicatessen].
1977		J.G. Dunne True Confessions 32: Show me a job you run into a bad person sometime. I’ll show you a bagel-bender doesn’t want it.
1995		J. Ellroy Amer. Tabloid 201: The Loop’s downtown, you fat bagel bender.
2002		Reckoning 28 July 🌐 For some reason, they shy away from more derogatory terms for Jews and Blacks. What...are they trying to make this game more accessible to the masses by avoiding ‘Bagel-bender’ or ‘Nigger’?