Schnorrer

The scrounger is a person who makes himself unpopular by frequent, non-aggressive requests for favors or money. The scroungers bring other persons to assist him, without being bound like a beggar. In contrast to the normal requests about trifles without compensation as a cigarette or change the bumming is characterized by sustainable repeating the request.

Colloquially the word bumming is sometimes also used for one-time actions, such as the remark "I schnorre me now a cigarette ".

The word comes from the Yiddish: " Since mendicant musicians often covered with noise instruments like the rattle through the country, the name of the instrument was transferred to the musicians. "

Have a special significance in Orthodox Judaism scroungers. They allow religious Jews to fulfill one of the more important religious duties - of mercy towards the weak and the charity donation: the deadbeat case has no beggar status, but that of a benefactor, which causes the relief only.

In today's colloquial usage of the term has completely lost its original spiritual and religious significance. However, in modern Judaism the scrounger is still a recognized and fixed instance. About the Yiddish, the word " deadbeat " also been incorporated into the English language: There it refers to a supplicant, which is characterized by special chutzpah and a lack of any submission.

Novel " King of the scrounger "

Clearly, the function of the Jewish Schnorrer in Israel Zangwill's novel is described The King of scroungers (London 1894). The novel illustrates how the scroungers both different worlds of Christian and Muslim beggar from - both in their respective religions have a similar function as the scroungers in Judaism. However, in contrast to these, the scroungers must also Talmud scholar, he must arrange for its "victims" by the common religious teaching for the benefit. Was Neuverlegt the novel in 1989 by the story was presented through the eyes of a Jewish Schnorrer named Andrey Yumusak during the emergence of Nazism in the Weimar Republic until 1929.