October 24, 2007
Welcome to the twelfth edition of Vekslblat – The Yiddish World of Michael Wex's monthly e-zine. If this is the first copy you have received, as a special gift to thank you for subscribing to this newsletter we would like to offer you a free download of the e-book version of Wex’s classic The Kugel Story, a Jewish folktale for the 21st century. Please click here to download the e-book. This link has been disabled since the e-book is only available to Vekslblat subscribers. Don't forget to check out the back-issues of Vekslblat.
This edition of Vekslblat includes news, four articles from the Jewish Week, Wex's Kvetch of the Month and much more. Enjoy!
News
Another great review in the New York Times
To order Just Say Nu merchandise from our store, click here or on the images below.
The Adventures of Micah Mushmelon gets its official launch
Tonight in Toronto The Adventures of Micah Mushmelon, Boy Talmudist has its official launch at Heliconian Hall in downtown Toronto. The tale of crime-fighting Hasidic kids from Brooklyn, this novella has already received a great review on Amazon. If you'd like to order your own copy click here
.The holidays are closer than you think!
Yes, we hate to mention this, but the holiday season is approaching fast. If you want to get all of your gifts organized nice and early, look no further than our online store, where we've reopened our holiday departments: Happy Chanukah, Xmas? Not this kid! Happy Chanukah and Happy Chrismukah. Stay ahead of the game and get that fabulous "Where did you find this?" reaction. Click here or on the images above to go to our store.
Where's Wex?
Having had a wonderful trip to the UK (read below for his Sukkes adventures) Wex is back on the book tour trail to promote Just Say Nu and Micah Mushmelon. He will be appearing at Heliconian Hall in Toronto on 24th October (tonight) for the Micah launch and then at the Gladstone, also in Toronto, on 29th October for the Canadian Just Say Nu launch. After that he'll be in San Francisco on 4th November for the Jewish BookFest, then the Toronto and St. Louis Jewish Book Fairs on 7th and 8th November respectively. Wex is the closing act at the Houston Jewish Book Fair on 11th November and then it's back to Toronto for readings at the Bayview and Barbara Frum libraries on 28th and 29th November. Go to our events calendar on the website to keep up to date with all of Wex's gigs, public appearances and book signings.
Articles
Along with the shone toyves that I’ve been sending out to friends and family this year, I’ve been receiving New Year’s cards of another kind from politicians and Jewish communal figures whom I’ve been peppering with what are best described as instructional letters and e-mails. These cards implore me to be sure to go to shul this year, in order to be sure to have a chance to gey shray khay ve-kayem, “go scream ‘living and existing.’”
The phrase comes from the High Holiday liturgy. Right after the cantor recites a passage in which humanity is described as a broken pot, a passing shadow and a dream that flies away, everybody yells out “Ve-ato hu melekh keyl khay ve-kayem, But You [God] are the king, a living and existing God,” a God who is outside of time.
It’s a situation that can never change. We remain transitory, mortal; the eternal, by definition, stays eternal. In idiomatic Yiddish, gey shray khay ve-kayem means, “shout your head off, protest in vain;” as they used to say when I was a kid, “Go fight city hall”: se vet dir helfn vi a toytn bankes, it’ll help you as much as cups on a corpse.”
If the cups were dead, the phrase would be helfn vi a toyte banke or helfn vi toyte bankes. Imagine it as es helft vi bankes (helfn) a toytn, like cups help a corpse, and you’ll have it right (thanks to Dr. Shlomo Karni for this final Yiddish phrase).
I might be wrong, but I think that Rosh Hashana has made me a hero.
I’m gabbai––a synagogue valet––at an orthodox shul in Toronto where I’m in charge of kibbudim, the distribution of such honors as opening the ark, being called to the Torah, and so on.
On the second day of Rosh Hashanah this year, a candidate in the forthcoming provincial elections burst into shul with a police escort instead of a ticket. He has an unmistakably Jewish name and recently got a lot of press for tripping during a charity run and breaking his arm.
He was scurrying around the shul with his arm in a sling, shaking hands like a boy scout, without any regard for davening or decorum. One of his entourage pointed to the candidate’s camera crew and told me what a good idea it’d be to give the candidate some sort of honor.
We were just about to read the Torah; one of the kibbudim still hadn’t been taken. After the fifth aliyah, I saw an air of panic on the candidate’s face. Looking into his sling instead of his eyes, I bade him arise le-hagbohos ha-toyreh, to lift the Torah up before it’s tied and wrapped. He looked at me with hatred, muttered something that sounded like “duck” and stomped out of the shul, his camera crew in tow.
No man is a hero to a salaried minion, but a gabbai can still be esteemed in his minyan.
It must be this year’s yontoyvim, because it sure isn’t my fault. First I lose my position as gabbai for giving hagbeh to a trombenik on Rosh Hashana and now I’m stuck in England, watching rain filter through the roof of one of my in-law’s sukkes while being told, quietly but often, that the proper spelling of the Yiddish word for “rag” is shmatter and that I can leave if I don’t agree.
Someone with the manners of a bull in a china shop, the kind of person who interrupts a couple flirting at a party with, "How about them Yankees, eh?" is said to be acting vi a kozak in sukkeh, "like a Cossack in a sukkeh.” The Cossack is sometimes replaced in this sukkeh-idiom by a yovn, a soldier, especially a Russian soldier.
Yovn comes from yavan, Hebrew for Greece or a Greek, a word with no military associations in the original. It came to mean soldier in Yiddish because it sounds very much like Ivan; a yovn is basically a Czarist G.I. Joe. Ale yevonim hobn eyn ponim, says the proverb; "all soldiers look alike"--you've seen one of them rape and pillage, you've seen all of them rape and pillage. Yevonish, the adjective, can mean the Russian language, while yevonisheh toyreh, "Ivanian Torah,” is filthy language, especially in Russian.
I have been polite since I arrived in England, which is why I’m typing this kvetch on what the English call a kerb, while the local kozak sits quietly in his sukkeh.
Anyone who knows me can tell you, “That Wex is a nice guy, but he’s certainly no Beau Brummell.” Having grown up in the 60’s, when middle-class Jewish boys were dying to look like sharecroppers, I’ve remained opgerisn un opgeshlisn, “ragged and tattered,” ever since, much to the chagrin of my daughter and wife. I still own––forget own, I still wear the shirt in which I saw Jimi Hendrix.
“Se past nisht,” said Mrs. Wex in her inimitable Birmingham Yiddish. “It just isn’t appropriate. That shirt is older than I am.”
“So?”
“Bist mer nish’ ka’ shleper, You’re not a shlepper anymore.” And just like that she grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and shlepped me of to a mall, while my daughter capered about, chanting, “Abba’s gonna look cool, Abba’s gonna look cool,” as if I ever looked anything else.
After paying a premium for on-the-spot alterations, we emerged from the mall, two women in jeans leading a glatt-kosher Lord Fauntleory afraid to bend his knees lest he ruin the crease of his new Italian suit pants.
We went straight to our favorite restaurant to celebrate; within three minutes, I’d dripped cholent onto my designer pants.
I looked at my wife and shrugged. “Di zelbe Yente, nor andersh geshlayert,” I said. “The same old Yente in a brand new package.” You can take the boy out of the shmattes, but you can’t take the shmattes out of the boy.
For a guide to Yiddish pronunciation, click here.
And Finally....Wex’s Kvetch of the Month:
Don't forget to start ordering your Chanukah gifts from our online store! Look out for your next edition of Vekslblat in November.