Yiddisher, adj. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

Yiddisher adj.

also Yiddishe, Yidisher

[Yid. yiddishe, Jewish]

Jewish.

1879		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 4 Oct. 4/1: [headline] The Yiddisher Maiden and the Tar.
1884		Sporting Times 8 Nov. 1/5: ‘I have to go to a Yiddisher wedding’.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 27 July 8/4: The Yiddisher talent were cleaned out completely.
1890		‘Morris the Mohel’ ‘Houndsditch Day By Day’ in Sporting Times 18 Jan. 3/1: Thith little vurk, the study of a lifetime, cometh from the pen of a retired Yiddisher buster.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 9 Dec. 6/1: Another powerful Yiddisher Syndicate the head of which was [...] largely interested in the pork-pie trade.
1899		Era (London) 1 July 16/1: ‘The Dandy Yiddisher Coon’ enables Mr Costello to show us how cleverly he can burlesque the typical youth of Houndsditch.
1900		Sporting Times 3 Mar. 1/4: Into a certain sporting club there walked last week a well-known Yidisher turfite.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 16 Jan. 1/5: Deutchy Perlstein, a Yiddisher son of the ‘Fair Land of Poland’.
1910		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 107: Barney Bernard has a young yiddisher fighter who is a scholar on the side.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 29 May 2nd sect. 12/5: The other day he built a whole paragraph around the: momentous fact that Newton offered a Yiddisher kid sixpence, which same she refused!
1915		G. Bronson-Howard God’s Man 147: If I’d been born a Hunky or a Ginny, or even a Yiddisher boy – but Irish – ! – !
1925		Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 103: ‘Oy Oy Meester Solomon Levy with his best Yiddisher garments all marked down,’ piped jeering voices.
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 12: Yiddisher kid: Jew or Jew-boy.
c.1939		B. Bennett ‘Trumpeter’ in Billy Bennett’s Third Budget 33: There’s Irish Guards from Wigan, and there’s Scottish Guards from Kent, / And the Yiddisher Light Infantry all charging ten per cent.
1959		B. Kops Hamlet of Stepney Green Act I: Who ever heard of it? Yiddisher Spiritualism!... I should like to see you all tapping the table for a change, instead of each other.
1968		J. Barlow Burden of Proof 18: I’m just a Yiddisher boy from the East End.
1971		N. Smith Gumshoe (1998) 119: The Scottish, Jewish hood from the dole, Straker. My Yiddisher momser.
1976		J. Rosenthal Bar Mitzvah Boy Scene 11: Always has to be a Yiddishe feller, have you noticed?
1989		(con. 1950s–60s) in G. Tremlett Little Legs 73: Nine time out of ten, they were good Yiddisher boys.
1999		Indep. Rev. 21 Oct. 7: He later described himself as a ‘ragged-arsed East End little Yiddisher kid from the ghetto.’.

In compounds

Yiddisher fiddle (n.) [pun on SE fiddle/fiddle n.³ (1)]

minor cheating or other illegality.

1981

J. Franklyn Dict. Rhy. Sl. (2nd edn).

Yiddisher piano (n.) [negative stereotyping]

a cash register.

1980		Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 54: To call a cash register ‘Yiddisher piano’ conveys the legend about the Jews.
2002		(con. 1910s) M. McGrath Silvertown 9: Sarah Fulcher is a thrifty creature [...] The only music my Sarah can’t stand is the sound of the Yiddisher piana, French says.