All the nu's that's fit to print

It's not a word, it's an attitude.

    The Jews are a complicated people (likewise their distant relative, the Israelis), and you can learn to understand them either by reading all the books ever written about them - or by comprehending the full gist of the word "nu."
    It would be easier to read all those books.
    It's not a word, it's an attitude, and the way it's inflected or accompanied by body language, it's any of a hundred thousand attitudes.
     There isn't, but there should be a nu dictionary with just the meanings of this word, along with the historical baggage associated with each of them.
    Impatience. Insolence. Defiance. Irony. Sarcasm. Nu expresses all that, and with the correct lilt you don't have to say anything more, because if you're fluent in the word, the rest is perfectly understood.
    You have to be at least 20 generations Jewish to be fluent in it. Y'ever hear a Christian say "nu"? They try too hard, and it comes out like "noo." It's all lost in the translation, but go explain.
    When I worked for the Montreal Gazette in the late '70s, we formed a softball team to compete in an industrial league. We debated a name for our luckless nine, and pointing out that many teams adopt the names of animals, I proposed that we call ourselves the Gazette Gnus. At the gnu spaper office and on the field, we greeted or exhorted each other with our monicker, but you could tell the Jews from the others by who knew "gnu" from "nu."
    Get a move on! Stop bothering me! I told you so! So kill me. Y'see?
    Or in other words, nu.
    It's classically Jewish, because it answers a question with a question. More than that, with the proper english, as it were, you're not merely answering questioningly, you're turning the tables on the asker: "What, I'm going to answer such a dumb question? It's obvious, answer it yourself!"
    It's a wonderful verbal weapon if you don't know the answer.
    Hard to believe. Are you ready yet? It's your turn. Such chutzpah! Let's get it done. Aha!
    All that in one single word.
    I would like to be remembered as the first person ever to point this out: The very first time a question is asked in the Bible, it is answered Jewishly, with a question. God asks Cain, where is Abel, thy brother? And Cain answers: What, am I my brother's keeper? (Here, I diverge from the opinions of Rashi, Onkolos and all the rest, positing that this proves Cain was the first Jew, not Abraham.)
    Too bad. Waddaya expect from the goyim? So what do you have to show for it? It's been 20 minutes, I got my hat, stop yakking already!
    An editor at this here nu spaper was noodging me to complete some long-delayed work. We had discussed it, time and again, but I still hadn't finished it. Then he cornered me. "Nu?" he explained. That convinced me. He couldn't have been any more eloquent using 50 words.
    Gimme the full poop. You blew it. So he made something of himself after all. What d'you expect, they're all anti-Semites.
    You can imagine the confusion back in the '50s when Burma's president  visited Israel. His name was U Nu. The BBC called us rude and pushy (nu, it's the BBC, what d'you expect?) every time a Jew addressed him.
    We are so misunderstood.
    It is a little known fact that the BBC has never, not once, uttered the word "nu" on a news broadcast. I won't say it's because they don't hire Jewish news readers, but if you want to deduce that, go ahead.
    Told you so! It's time. Don't I deserve a compliment? What d'you expect, a compliment?
    Several biblical scholars, particularly the anti-Semitic ones, have pointed out that the word "nu" never appears in the Torah. That, they argue, proves that either God is not Jewish, or the Jews aren't.
    On the other hand, the word "nu" appears on the Internet 10,400,000 times. Which proves everything.
    (Actually, I found 10,400,000 nu citations on the Google search engine, but Yahoo only found 987. Therefore, I urge all Jews to boycott Yahoo.)
    However, using interpretative analytical extrapolation, at which we Jews excel, other biblical scholars, among them rabbis, explain that one has to, in the words of Roget, "conclude, construe, decipher, decode, deduce, educe, evince, etc." that the word "nu" is presumed by its absence.
    To wit: when the spies return from casing out the Holy Land. It is implausible that Moses greets them in starchy biblical vernacular. No! Moses is anxious. He says to them, "Nu?"
    Or, the Akeda, Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. On the appointed morning, Abraham understandably procrastinates before setting out with his cherished son. That is, until he hears that fearful voice from above, "Nu?"
    Eve, tempting a reticent Adam with the forbidden fruit; Noah, when the rain starts, in an I-told-you-so manner to his mocking neighbors (and similarly, Moses to the disbelieving Israelites when the sea parts): the word "nu," or rather its attitude, is suggestively ubiquitous throughout the Scriptures -- yet tellingly absent in the Christian Bible.   
    It's all over. A big shot, eh?  What a fool! Awright, finish me off already.
    Not only is everything understood by the correct usage of "nu," but with certain facial expressions, nu itself can be perfectly understood without even having to say it. This is an application of the word at its most exquisite. Like that abovementioned badgering editor: whereas he expressed himself clarionly using one word instead of 50, that one word itself was superfluously long-winded, for merely the correct glare would have elaborately expressed the redundant "nu." 
    My, how she's grown. So where were we? You vote Barak you get Arafat. Next time, listen to your mother. For the hundredth time... .
    They say we Israelis are rude, and I say, the hell we are. (Whatever we are is their fault, because of centuries of persecution.) Take, for instance, the word nu. Have you ever noticed we never say it to non-Semites? We may think it, but a Jew does not say "nu" to a Christian, because we know we'll be misquoted. Genetically, they are unable to comprehend the gist of it, and we know better than to rile the goyim. We only use the word intercommunally, where it's safe to be rude.
    Nu, am I right?