Chutzpah

A delightful word of Yiddish, 'chutzpah' is in the semantic vicinity of 'insolence,' 'effrontery,' 'impudence,' 'gall.'  An excellent contemporary example of chutzpah: building a mosque and huge Islamic center a couple of blocks from where nearly three thousand Americans were slaughtered in the name of Islam.   As we say in the Southwest, that takes cojones!