In my book Ach ich fühl’s—German for Opera Singers which was published in 2014 I wondered what article should be given to a bagel. The bagel had been introduced to German café menues by American expats (or better: their desire to eat it) a few years earlier and the Duden, the standard dictionary for German orthography, had not cought up with the trend. Now it has been decided: The bagel is masculine—der Bagel.
As it turns out, der Bagel has not just appeared in Europe. Is has returned. The word Bagel stems from the Jiddish baygel or bejgel and was originated in Jewish communities in Poland. It was mentioned for the first time in Krakow in 1610.
As a rule of thumb, we find the article for a foreign word by translating it and by applying the gender accordingly. Electronic mail means elektronische Post which is feminine—die E-Mail (For some reason the Duden allows also der and das). Car-Sharing is an English word that ends with -ing. These English nouns adapted into German are always neuter.
das Car-Sharing, das Shopping
Some words resist a translation and so, they get their gender as mysteriously as many German nouns: der Chip, der Blues, or—the latest entry into the Duden—der Haferdrink (das Hafer = oat).
Ach ich fühl's 