Naftali Lewin (pronounced Levine) was my distant cousin, as well as my closest friend -- until his untimely death on 07 November 1984 in Haifa, Israel, from a malignant brain tumor.

I learned a tremendous amount of Yiddish words, expressions, and (off-color) jokes from Naftali. He was a genuine native speaker of Yiddish (אַן אמת'ער פאָלקס־מענטש), having been born in Volkolata / Volkolaty (Yiddish: Vol-ko-LAT), a tiny village (דערפל) near Dokshitz in the former Vilner Gubernia, today in Belarus.

Most of the words and expressions in the Hardware & Tools Vocabulary in my Yiddish Glossary I learned by working side by side with Naftali.

Also, many if not most of the off-color expressions and jokes on this website were learned from him, as he had a tremendous natural sense of humor.

Here is a photo of me (Yosl) on the left, and Naftali on the right. This photo was taken approximately in April 1977 by my friend and former neighbor David Moy. It was taken at a rest stop (exact location unknown) on the highway when the three of us drove down to Washington, DC, in my trusty old Beetle.

Here is another photo of us. I'll bet a lot of the so-called "Vaynraykhistn" (the "Yiddish Establishment") would just love to derlang mir in hintn (kick my ass), as Naftali is about to do: