Sentence:  And then a year later some young American-born <WSD>"shmekl</WSD>" who doesn't know the first thing about Hebrew, who obviously hasn't devoted his life to it — I had never even heard of him then — comes along and translates “The Yemenite Girl” into English. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  a fool, a jerk, a contemptible person