We've recently added this neat widget to the website care of St. Martin's Press. You can visit the widget at the website, or if you have your own website or blog you can click on "Add this to my site" and follow the easy-to-follow instructions for embedding the widget into your site or blog. Every week it delivers a new lesson in Yiddish care of Michael Wex and the inimitable Joanne Borts. And it's free! Enjoy.

Our FAQs Page Has Been Updated

Wex deep in thought....

Do you have a burning question about anything Yiddish that you can't find the answer to anywhere else? The check out our FAQs page. Mrs. Wex has recently been going through our virtual mounds of email correspondence to pick out the most interesting and intriguing questions from the hundreds we receive every month. The results can be found here - check them out or ask your own question!

The French Edition of Born to Kvetch is Imminent

We're thrilled to be able to tell you that Born to Kvetchis being published in France in 2008. It will be available from 7th February. Now the French will be able to echo fan Carol Wizig, whose classic comment after reading the bookis one of our favorites: "Now I know what's wrong with me."

Where's Wex?

As Mrs. Wex is writing this newsletter, Mr. Wex is returning from his reading at the Bayview library in Toronto. Tomorrow he'll be appearing at the Barbara Frum library then on Sunday 2nd December he'll be at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. Then on 21st December all of the Wexes are off to the Hudson Valley for their annual trip to Klezkamp where Mr. Wex will be giving his acclaimed Wexology lectures, Mrs. Wex will be co-directing the children's program and Miss Wex will be avoiding Mr. and Mrs. Wex to hang with her homies. Scroll down for full details of how you can attend this incredible Yiddish cultural event. 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

The following is an article previously published in Wex’s Kvetch column in the Jewish Week.

---

I’ve been doing a great deal of research lately into the origins and history of the Yiddish word nu and have made a discovery that has changed my whole outlook on life.

If you think that nu comes from German, you’re wrong; if you try to trace it back to Slavic, you’re going to hit a dead end. As I’ve just found out, we’ve been nu-ing since we were slaves in Egypt, and maybe even before.

It turns out that Nu (with a capital “N”) was the Egyptian name for the limitless cosmic waters that precede creation; ancient Egyptian texts describe the creator as being alone with Nu before the work of creation had even begun. They also tell us that creation will one day be destroyed and all will be returned to Nu.

Nu, what does this teach us? We’ve always known that the spirit of the Lord moved over the face of the waters; now we know the sound that that spirit must have made at the instant when it hit those waters. The Egyptians seem to have misunderstood the nature of that Israelite nu . “Nu, yehi or, let there be light”: G-d wasn’t talking to the waters, He––Who is sometimes said to speak Yiddish during the week and Hebrew only on Shabbes––was simply speaking the way that He speaks.

And now we know how this world will come to an end. When the Lord utters the final nu, the one that lets meshiekh know that he’d best get a move on.

---

For a guide to Yiddish pronunciation, click here.

The Yiddish World of Michael Wex Recommends - Klezkamp!

Founder and Director of Klezkamp, Henry Sapoznik, writes: To understand the centrality of women in the world of Yiddish, one need only look to the title of this year’s theme, the coziest and most intimate expression used to describe our language: Mame Loshn: Mother Tongue.

For from its earliest incarnations ­ one of the first books published in Yiddish was the Tzena-Rena (a translation for women of Torah lore, prayers and commentary) - to the unprecedented number of women on today’s klezmer bandstands, the contributions of women to the vitality of Yiddish culture are undiminished.

Beyond the Mame Loshn theme, Klezkamp offers its vast array of Yiddish arts including multi-tiered music classes, an expanded vocal program, all-Yiddish offerings, more general interest classes and the second-to-none KlezKids program and teen theater troupe.

The venue, the Hudson Valley Resort and Spa, offers luxury in the Catskill tradition, with a kitchen run by celebrated Culinary Institute of American graduate Chef Ed Kelly under the shtreng Glatt Kosher hashgokhe of Ha-rov Gershon Kreuser.

Now in its 23rd year, Klezkamp continues to innovate and inspire as a model for the vigorous and widespread resurgence of Yiddish culture around the world. Be one of thousands who, over the years, have made KlezKamp the Capitol of Yiddishland.

And Finally....Wex’s Kvetch of the Month:

The war on Chanukah continues. I was asked to appear on a local television show to talk about "that big Jewish holiday." When I told the pre-interviewer that it wasn't really such a big deal holiday for anybody over the age of about ten; that it got popular primarily because of its North American function as Jewish Xmas and that the compiler of the Mishna, Rabbi Judah, didn't even want it to be a holiday, she asked me if I still get a different present every night.

Not quite, I told her; each night I open a different window on my Chanukadvent calendar and pull out another sack of gold. Happy Flanken Holidays.

---

A likhtikn un freylekhn khanike! Look out for your next edition of Vekslblat in January.