Literal meaning: pins.
Thus, to be ‘on shpilkes’, as I have been for the whole of my life - having been shown the way by mother who was shown the way by hers - is to be in a state of nervous expectation, whether of hope or dread, whether in anticipation of good news or bad, but more usually bad.
A recent example of being on shpilkes, in that latter sense, was the unbearable tension experienced by boycotters and traducers of Israel during the finals of the Eurovision Song Contest when it seemed distinctly possible that the Israeli singer Noam Bettan was going to win.
I was, I don’t mind admitting, on shpilkes myself, not as to the justice, one way or another, of the result – this is not my kind of music – but as to the consequences for the quiet of the city in which I live were he to win.
Was there to be added to the usual cacophony of ill-informed demonstration, a further weekly march calling for an end to Eurovision, the banning of all Israeli pop-music, and the death of judges from countries complicit in Noam Bettan’s victory?
Literal meaning: barefaced cheek.
A recent example being Nigel Farage, architect of Brexit, daring to show his face, let alone canvass for support, in a country he helped impoverish.
Many people will of course be on shpilkes when Andy Burnham stands in a by-election for the seat of Makerfield where it would seem from the last council elections that the meaning of chutzpah is not fully grasped by the electorate.
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