The Most Underrated Jewish and Israeli Sayings
For a people who have seen everything, lost everything, and built everything back again — words aren’t just words, they’re how we’ve stayed alive.
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Jews don’t just have history. We have punchlines.
When you’re part of the world’s oldest, most stubborn, most un-killable people, you learn early on that survival isn’t enough. You have to tell the story. You have to laugh about it. And you have to leave the world just a little bit speechless at how you’re still here.
For thousands of years, Jewish life has been distilled into short, sharp sayings — equal parts wisdom, sarcasm, grit, and gallows humor. Little phrases that carry entire histories. That turn tragedy into perspective. That turn suffering into strength. That turn victimhood into a well-timed joke over dinner.
This is a list of the greatest hits — seven of the most underrated Jewish and Israeli sayings. Some ancient, some modern, some dark, some defiant. All of them true. All of them earned. And every single one of them proof that Jewish life isn’t just about surviving history; it’s about outsmarting it.
1) ‘Yehiyeh beseder.’
This is Hebrew for: “It’ll be okay.”
It’s not wishful thinking. It’s not naive. It’s Israel’s national coping mechanism — forged in a country where the absurd is just part of the daily news cycle.
It’s said completely unironically while:
The car is leaking oil.
The neighbor’s kid is blasting Mizrahi music at 3 in the morning.
The country is fighting a seven-front war.
Yehiyeh beseder isn’t optimism because things look good. It’s optimism because giving in or giving up just isn’t an option.
Israelis don’t have time to panic. Panic is for people who expect life to be fair. Israelis expect life to be hard. And they meet it with a shrug, a curse word, and a cup of café hafuch.1
As Michael Dickson and Naomi L. Baum wrote in their book, ISResilience: “By any rational analysis, Israel should not exist at all, let alone be a thriving powerhouse of a country. Yet … Israel defies reason, logic, and historical precedent.”
This is a nation built by people who had every reason to believe it wouldn’t work — and did it anyway. That’s what Yehiyeh beseder really means: not that everything will magically fix itself, but that we will fix it. Or survive it. Or laugh about it later.
Because Jewish history is full of impossible situations. And Jewish survival is full of impossible comebacks.
Yehiyeh beseder.
It always is. Eventually.
2) ‘No Jews, No News’
For a people who make up less than 0.2 percent of the world’s population, Jews sure seem to be living rent-free on the front page.
Coincidence? Hardly.
There’s an old joke: “No Jews, No News”
Because without Jews, what would the world even talk about? Who would they blame? Who would they boycott? Who would they accuse of controlling things they demonstrably don’t control?
Israel sneezes — it’s international news. Jews defend themselves — it’s a United Nations emergency session. Antisemites do something antisemitic — and somehow it’s still the Jews’ fault.
“No Jews, No News” isn’t just a phrase; it’s a window into the obsessive fixation of the world’s oldest prejudice. We don’t ask for the attention. But we know how to survive it. We’ve been headline material since Pharaoh. Might as well own it.
3) ‘Yalla balagan!’
Hebrew slang for: “Let’s make a mess!”
Balagan is Hebrew slang for “chaos” — but it’s not just chaos. It’s a special kind of chaos. Warm chaos. Loud chaos. Jewish chaos. Think:
Every Israeli family dinner.
Every Jerusalem traffic circle.
Every Tel Aviv startup that somehow raised $100 million without a single person knowing what’s going on.
Balagan is how Israelis navigate life: loud, messy, passionate, and somehow (miraculously) it works.
A country surrounded by enemies? Balagan. Government falls apart every six months? Balagan. Half the country arguing in five different languages over whose grandmother makes better schnitzel? Balagan.
But here’s the secret: Inside the balagan is love. Loyalty. Resilience. The belief that order is fine — but life is better when it’s real.
Israel isn’t polished. It isn’t quiet. It isn’t pretending to be perfect. It’s a balagan. And that’s exactly why it survives.
4) ‘There’s no business like Shoah business.’
It’s a brutal thing to say. But Jews have learned, over centuries, to say the brutal thing when it’s true.
The world loves its Jewish victims. Candlelight vigils. Teary-eyed museum tours. Holocaust education week — just long enough to feel sad before returning to business as usual.
Dead Jews are safe. Dead Jews don’t fight back. Dead Jews don’t have armies, borders, or opinions.
Living Jews? Especially empowered, free, self-defending Jews? Now that makes people uncomfortable.
Israel is living proof that Jews refuse to stay in the role history assigned them. And nothing angers the world more than a Jew who stands up straight.
That’s why “Holocaust remembrance” without Jewish dignity — without Zionism — isn’t remembrance at all. It’s performance. The Jewish story was never meant to end at Auschwitz. It was meant to continue in Jerusalem.
5) ‘Zeh charah, aval zeh hahacharrah shelanu.’
This is Hebrew for: “It’s crap, but it’s our crap.”
No phrase captures the Israeli mindset better.
It’s not whining. It’s not defeatism. It’s grown-up responsibility.
Israelis don’t sugarcoat reality. They look it dead in the eye and say: Zeh charah. This is crap. This hurts. This situation is terrible. But right after that comes the punchline of Jewish agency: Aval zeh hahacharrah shelanu. But this is our crap. Our choice. Our mess.
We didn’t ask for an easy life. We asked for a life of meaning. We didn’t ask for safety over dignity. We asked for sovereignty over victimhood. This is what it means to be a free people in our land. You don’t always get to choose your circumstances — but you always get to choose your response.
Israelis know this better than anyone.
6) ‘They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat.’ (The Entirety of Jewish History in One Sentence)
This is not just a joke. It’s a worldview, and the unofficial summary of every Jewish holiday:
Passover? “Egyptians tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat matzah.”
Purim? “Persians tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat hamantaschen.”
Hanukkah? “Greeks tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat oily food until we need cholesterol medication.”
This isn’t glib; it’s genius.
Jewish humor has always been about defiance. Laughter after tragedy is a declaration of victory. Food after survival is a celebration of life.
It’s how Jews tell the world: “You tried to erase us. We’re still here. Pass the cholent.”
Because for Jews, survival isn’t enough. We sit down together, we eat, we tell the story — and then we go back to building, defending, creating, and living.
That’s the ultimate revenge. We’re still here. And dinner’s ready.
7) ‘Gam zeh ya’avor.’
This is Hebrew for: “This too shall pass.” It is a very common saying in Israeli society, a people who know no bounds when it comes to tragedy, misfortune, and still getting up the next morning to go to work, drink coffee, argue about politics, and live.
Israelis don’t say Gam zeh ya’avor because they expect life to be easy. They say it because they know life isn’t supposed to be.
It’s what you tell yourself when rockets are falling. It’s what you whisper when the news is unbearable. It’s what a grandmother says when her grandson is called up to reserve duty — again.
It doesn’t mean “don’t feel.” It means “feel it all — but know it won’t last forever.”
That’s why this phrase is so deeply Jewish: It acknowledges the pain without surrendering to it. It’s not just comfort; it’s strategy.
We’ve outlived Pharaoh, Haman, Hitler, and Hamas. We’ve buried empires. We’ve buried kings. Time has always been our best revenge.
Gam zeh ya’avor.
And when it does, we’ll still be here.
Cappuccino in Hebrew
For holidays, it's "They tried to kill us. We won. Let's eat." There's a big difference between "We survived" and "We won."
Israel belongs to God...