Pickled in Translation

Episodes, the joint BBC/Showtime sitcom, recently aired an episode featuring a scene at a Jewish grave. The tombstone reads in English “Beloved husband and father dearly missed”. But the Hebrew engraving tells a different story.

Firstly it is not readable Hebrew, as the Semitic language is read from right to left. But for some strange reason, Google Translate changes what is purported to be “Dearly Missed” into a phrase that kind of means “Pickled with great expense”.

This Hollywood faux pax has gone viral in Israel. Shalar Golar quips that this mistranslation proves that Jews do not run Hollywood.

It would not be surprising if this intentionally was not a faithful translation. While this smarmy secularism is expected with Showtime, it blows the high-brow quality aura of the BBC.