kumzits

Alternative Spellings

kumsits, kumzitz

Definitions

• sing-along; campfire gathering with singing

Example Sentences

• "I always loved the Sunday night kumzits at camp."

Languages of Origin

Yiddish, Modern Hebrew

Etymology

Yiddish קום kum 'come', זיץ zits 'sit', which became Modern Hebrew קומזיץ

Who Uses This

Camp: Jews who attend or work at a Jewish overnight summer camp

Regions

North America

Dictionaries

Yiddish and English: A Century of Yiddish in America, by Sol Steinmetz (Tuscaloosa, 1986).

Notes

"Despite the existence of a Talmudic term, "tuzitz" for the same activity, and the fact that Israeli linguists attempted to replace the colloquial term with a "pure Hebrew" alternative: "Shev-na" ("please sit"), "kumzitz" never gave up its seat in the collective culture and history of Israel." (http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/word-of-the-day/word-of-the-day-kumzitz.premium-1.517792)