Born To Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All Its Moods (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "A man boards a Chicago-bound train in Grand Central Station and sits down across from an old man reading a Yiddish newspaper..." (more)
Key Phrases: dover akher, eyshes khayel, nifter vern, Angel of Death, Yom Kippur, Yiddish-speaking Jews (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Fortunately, despite its title and cover photo, this is not a kitschy book about a folksy language spoken by quaint, elderly Jews. It is, rather, an earthy romp through the lingua franca of Jews, which has roots reaching back to the Hebrew Bible and which continues to thrive in 21st-century America. Canadian professor, translator and performer Wex has an academic's breadth of knowledge, and while he doesn't ignore your bubbe's tsimmes, he gives equal time to the semantic nuances of putz, schmuck, shlong and shvants. Wex organizes his material around broad, idiosyncratic categories, but like the authors of the Talmud (the source for a large number of Yiddish idioms), he strays irrepressibly beyond the confines of any given topic. His lively wit roams freely, and Rabbi Akiva and Sholem Aleichem collide happily with Chaucer, Elvis and Robert Petrie. Academics, and others, will be disappointed at the lack of source notes, and a few errors have crept in (the fifth day of Sukkot is not Hoshana Rabba, for instance). Overall, however, this treasure trove of linguistics, sociology, history and folklore offers a fascinating look at how, through the centuries, a unique and enduring language has reflected an equally unique and enduring culture.
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Review

"...an earthy romp through the lingua franca of Jews, which has roots reaching back to the Hebrew Bible and which continues to thrive in 21st-century America. Canadian professor, translator and performer Wex has an academic's breadth of knowledge, and while he doesn't ignore your bubbe's tsimmes, he gives equal time to the semantic nuances of putz, schmuck, shlong and shvants. Wex organizes his material around broad, idiosyncratic categories, but like the authors of the Talmud (the source for a large number of Yiddish idioms), he strays irrepressibly beyond the confines of any given topic. His lively wit roams freely, and Rabbi Akiva and Sholem Aleichem collide happily with Chaucer, Elvis and Robert Petrie. . . . this treasure trove of linguistics, sociology, history and folklore offers a fascinating look at how, through the centuries, a unique and enduring language has reflected an equally unique and enduring culture."

---Publishers Weekly

 

"Wise, witty and altogether wonderful…. Mr. Wex has perfect pitch. He always finds the precise word, the most vivid metaphor, for his juicy Yiddishisms, and he enjoys teasing out complexities. "
---William Grimes, The New York Times

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 303 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (August 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312307411
• ISBN-13: 978-0312307417
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #213,164 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

135 of 142 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What every jew needs to know, September 24, 2005

By	Rachael Kafrissen "Rootless Cosmopolitan" (NY, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

You can buy a book about Yiddish. You can buy a book about Jewish life. You can buy a book about religious observance. Or you can save the shipping costs and buy Born To Kvetch, one of the best books I've ever read about the Ashkenazi Jewish experience. I would compare this wonderful new book to Maurice Samuel's The Gentleman and the Jew for it's erudition and vision.

And Michael Wex is a whole lot funnier than Maurice Samuel. You will be laughing uncontrollably (WARNING: may cause embarrassment if you read this on the subway in the morning, as I did) while you learn more than you ever wanted to about the Talmud, the yiddish word for toilet paper and the REAL meaning of kvetching.

Don't hesitate, buy it today and be cursing your friends in yiddish tomorrow.

40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The one thing you will have not to kvetch about is this book, September 28, 2005

By	Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

Aside from the rave reviews on this site I have read two other longer rave reviews, William Grimes in the 'New York Times' and Josh Lambert in J-books. Both claim that this book is not only tremendously funny but a very deep probe into the nature of Yiddish, and in fact Diaspora Ashkenazi experience.
This is what Lambert has to say about the lead idea of the book.
"Yiddish, Wex argues, is most comfortable when it's complaining. It's "a language that likes to argue with everybody about everything." He explains this as consistent with the Mishnaic scholars (who "disagree 99.8 percent of the time") and the principle of "aftselakhis"-"the impulse to do things only because someone else doesn't want you to." The kvetch, or complaint, is thus the basic unit of Yiddish thought, as developed over hundreds of years of Diaspora living: "kvetching becomes a way of exercising some small measure of control over an otherwise hostile environment."
It is rare when we find a book which not only enriches our thought but makes us laugh outloud.

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hits the nail on the head, October 31, 2005

By	moose_of_many_waters (Palo Alto, CA United States) - See all my reviews

English books on Yiddish generally fall into two categories: the oh isn't it a cute colorful language angle; the scholarly tome that sucks the life out of the language.

Mr. Wex has done Yiddish a great service and has written a book that avoids both of these pitfalls. Beneath the humor - and this is a very funny, well written book - is a very serious examination of Yiddish as a language inextricably tied to its religion. Very few people could have written a book as insightful as this one and still made it entertaining. Mr. Wex has the background - a Yeshiva bocher turned secularist - and mindset to carry it off with aplomb.

Some people might complain that the examination of Yiddish language and culture in this book is too harsh and well... kvetchadik. But there is pride for a language and culture long gone throughout this book. More than any book on Yiddish that I've read, this one rings true. The description of the culture of Chasidic education of children is particularly unflinching and mordantly accurate. Footnotes would help this book a great deal. But this is a fine achievement. Now if only they wouldn't have put someone else's photo next to the NY Times review. ;)