Mensch

Mensch (Yiddish: מענטש‎ mentsh, cognate with the German word Mensch meaning a "human being") means "a person of integrity and honor". The opposite of a "mensch" is an "unmensch", meaning an utterly unlikeable or unfriendly person.

According to Leo Rosten, the Yiddish maven and author of The Joys of Yiddish, a "mensch" is "someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character. The key to being 'a real mensch' is nothing less than character, rectitude, dignity, a sense of what is right, responsible, decorous." The term is used as a high compliment, implying the rarity and value of that individual's qualities.

In Yiddish, mentsh roughly means "a good person". The word has migrated as a loanword into American English, where a "mensch" is a particularly good person, similar to a "stand-up guy", a person with the qualities one would hope for in a friend or trusted colleague.Mentshlekhkeyt (Yiddish מענטשלעכקייט, German Menschlichkeit) refers to the properties which make a person a "mensch".

During the Age of Enlightenment, in Germany the term Humanität, in the philosophical sense of "compassion", was used in Humanism to describe what characterizes a "better human being". The concept goes back to Cicero's humanitas, which was literally translated as Menschlichkeit in German, from which the Yiddish word mentsh derives.

"Mensch on the Bench," a stuffed toy that looks a bit like a rabbi or a Hasidic Jew, was created as a Jewish counterpart to The Elf on the Shelf. Jewish father Neal Hoffman, a former Hasbro Toys toy marketing executive, raised more than $20,000, using the crowdfunding website Kickstarter to fund creation of the toy in the Spring of 2011.

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