"Busting balls"--translations in Hebrew, Spanish, (others)?

To bust balls is a slang, vulgar phrase that can have two uses: overly, obnoxiously, insistently complaining, importuning, or annoying somebody about something, or, as a teasing version of that.

Locus classicus: Goodfellas
Mobster 1 to Mobster 2: You used to be a great shoe shine boy.
Mobster 2: Motherfucker!
Mobster 1: Hey, calm down, I’m just busting your balls here.
Mobster 2: OK
Mobster 1: Now go get your fucking shine box.
Mobster 2: (Beats Mobster 1 to near-death, some time later stabs him.)

An Israeli friend suggested “lezayen basechel” which sounds like “fuck with [someone’s] head.”

Does that sound right? And Spanish has the word-for-word equivalent “rompe cojones?”

And, as usual (I have to add this to similar OPs) dollars to donuts Brits have some version unique to them.

I doubt dollars to donuts is often used in conversation of Brits and their Anglo brethren.

Rompehuevos. Single word. It’s got both the meaning of “fucking with one’s head in a way that’s really not funny” and that of being a very agressive, bossy person (often but nor always a woman).

Paco es un rompehuevos: Paco’s sense of humor is a pain in the ass, it’s very agressive and he’s the only one who finds his jokes funny.
Mi jefe es un rompehuevos: my boss is a slavedriver.

A milder version is tocahuevos, tocapelotas or tocacojones, which do have the separate form and can be used in the first person when separate: oh vamos, sólo estoy tocándote un poco los huevos - awww, I’m just busting your balls a little.

Nava, thank you so much. I could sit around and talk to you all day about stuff like this. Every day at my favorite coffee hangout I ask (not bust balls :)) a Puerto Rican friend similar questions; I then compare them with a Mexican cook here, but whose English is not fluent by any means, so he misses any nuance.

To that Israeli in OP, who didn’t know the English, I suggested “being a nudnik exponentiated.” Israelis by and large know less Yiddish vocabulary than a random New York African American, but nudnick (pest) is one of them.

Your answer on ball busters reminds me of when I asked for Spanish for, simply, “he’s an asshole.” Obviously many nuances of assholery exist in every culture, cross-checked with Spanish region.

About OP phrase and Yiddish, since I brought up that language, and since you mention women as being more likely for a version of it, a false-friend is in Yiddish–“She’s a real balebustah”–a compliment meaning “she knows how to run a household” (cleanliness, order, kids healthy and well-brought up.)

For years I always heard this as saying she was a real ball buster, and wondering why it was said with evident approval.

NB: this is from the small Yiddish vocabulary of 20 words and expressions (?) still known and used, broadly speaking, by Americans descendants of mother-tongue Yiddish-speakers). Unlike nudnick, however, it is less common in urban English and deserves typographic distinction in italics.

(I see here there is a Wiki entry on it, which I cite here sight unseen (heh): Balabusta - Wikipedia

I’m not sure. Is there crime between Israelis in Israel? Has one citizen ever ventilated another like Tommy DeVito did to Spider?

I’m assuming you’re serious, but you can’t be serious…

Your dollars are safe in Australia, Mr Bloom.

After confusing it with a knee to the groin, we might call it ‘sledging’, particularly in a sport context, while older Australians might dust off the almost extinct ‘chayacking’.

Chayacking (or a host of other spellings) is less about verbal abuse, involves more humour and disruptive behaviour and having a go at someone, but so that any physical response is seen as the other person’s over-reaction. The only honourable defence against chayacking is to give as good as you get. Often a sign (and test) of close friendship.

In Italian, there’s a phrase (spelled mainly phonetically here) No me rompio lo coglioni, meaning Don’t break my balls. Pretty direct.