Israeli photographers seek to define 'chutzpah'
A recent photo exhibition examined whether "chutzpah," an Israeli word that has been exported into English and other languages, refers to vulgarity and disrespect or originality and guts.
"Chutzpah" is not just a Hebrew word. Other languages also recognize the word as a trait that is ubiquitous in the Jewish persona. The word appears in the Book of Daniel (2:15), albeit with a different meaning, and later in the Babylonian Talmud. Chutzpah eventually made its way into Yiddish and is frequently used in English and German.
"Chutzpah" has also appeared in fiction and nonfiction: Science fiction author Isaac Asimov had a spaceship named “Chutzpah” in his “Nine Tomorrows” book of short stories and "Chutzpah" also is the name of a nonfiction book about the Jewish people in the United States by attorney Alan Dershowitz.
