Synagogue Reader Dismissed For Insisting On Pronouncing ‘GIF’ ‘Jif’

Synagogue members remain split over the wisdom or justice of Mr. Stickler’s firing.

New York, July 15 – Controversy swirled in a Long Island suburb of Manhattan this weekend after a local congregation dismissed its longtime Torah-cantillation specialist for adhering to a pronunciation of a word that, while correct in the historical sense, no longer reflects the way people talk or process the language, and therefore only hinders comprehension.

Yerachmiel Stickler, 45, found himself out of a job today following repeated confrontations in the synagogue over his insistence on saying “Jif” when referring to the .gif image format, in keeping with the sensibilities of the format’s creator, but in divergence with the vast majority of humans, who instead pronounce the term according to the normal conventions of English phonics, by which .gif features a hard ‘g’ as in “geek.”

Synagogue members remain split over the wisdom or justice of Mr. Stickler’s firing. “This has been brewing for a long time,” disclosed Ritual Committee member Shoshana Cohen. “The reader’s pronunciation must reflect the community’s sensibilities. That’s why we insist, for example, on Ashkenazic pronunciation and not, for example, Yemenite, and many of our attendees have expressed misgivings when someone gets up to read the Haftarah with German cantillation instead of Eastern European. Mr. Stickler received multiple notices to stop saying ‘jif’ when only psychopaths do that. He has consistently refused to adapt to our way of  doing things, and we therefore informed him yesterday the we no longer require his services.”

“I’m of two minds about this,” admitted longtime member Hava Amina. “I understand why his continuing with the shul might be problematic, but we could have put it to a general membership vote. I also get why that could have been awkward for everyone, so it’s hard to know whether we made the correct choice here.”

Others voiced firm opposition to Mr. Stickler’s dismissal. “We want someone who does thinjes absolutely correctly,” argued Earnest Medakdek, an assistant beadle. “It’s not easy to find a reader who chants and pronounces everythinj exactly right, with close attention to detail. It’s joinj to be hard to replace Yerachmiel. I fear the community will rejret this move sooner rather than later. Enjajinj even a temporary replacement is joinj to be a challenge with the usual replacement away for the summer.”

Mr. Medakdek observed that this is the second time in as many years the synagogue has parted ways with a longtime member amid controversy: two summers ago an Education Committee co-chair was forced to step down after referring to a hot dog as a sandwich.

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