chutzpa

<![CDATA[ Activists urge Netanyahu, ministers to stand firm in the face of US pressure: "Obama's demands are 'chutzpa'.' ]]>

Wacky, irreverent and surprisingly literary, Artie Moffa is a poet who's made a big splash on the Boston scene, and deservingly so: it takes a certain chutzpa to launch into a parody of a Gilbert & Sullivan song in public: "I am the very image of a modern college graduate/My breadth of understanding is immensely more than adequate./I'm good at solving problems, both the simple and labyrinthine./I know my marble columns from ionic to Corinthian." If you're looking for a dull, predictable reading, go somewhere else, because Moffa's a blast.

Almost anyone with a basic education and sufficient chutzpa could practice law or medicine at the lower levels, and many did, especially clergymen who sometimes practised both.