«زَيِّ الْيَهُودْ وِشِّ نْضِيفْ وِجِبَّهْ زَيِّ الْكَنِيفْ»

The saying mocks a person who looks after only the part of themselves that others see first. The face is washed and tidy, yet the garment covering the rest, standing for everything beyond the face, is left as dirty as a latrine. It jabs at superficial care hiding neglect.

The mockery rests on a hostile ethnic stereotype that attributes hypocrisy and hidden filth to Jews as a group; it is prejudice, not neutral folk wisdom. Its two halves are tied by the rhyme of nḍīf, 'clean', with kanīf, 'latrine', which sharpens the contrast.

Belongs to insult speech: it mocks a person who keeps up a presentable front while neglecting what lies behind it. It is best treated as a specimen of antisemitic folk speech, examined critically or in scholarship, not repeated as a casual remark about anyone's character.