November 21, 2006
Welcome to the fourth 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. This e-book is only available to Vekslblat subscribers and so the link to download it has been removed.
This edition of Vekslblat includes news, plenty of gift ideas for the holiday season with a special free shipping offer from our online store, articles, Wex's Kvetch of the Month and much more. Enjoy!
News
Where's Wex?
After a packed schedule since the last newsletter (explaining why this one is slightly late) Wex now has two weeks off over Thanksgiving to recover, recuperate and prepare for the pre-holiday onslaught. From December 6th to 13th Michael will be appearing in Akron, OH, Boston, MA, Norfolk, VA, Denver, CO and Allentown, PA. Then, after a brief respite, the entire Wex family will be going to Klezkamp for their annual sojourn to the Hudson Valley to immerse themselves in all things Yiddish.
Mr and Mrs Wex lighting their Chanukah candles at Klezkamp 2005
Mr Wex will be teaching his "Wexology" class - this year, to follow the theme of Klezkamp, the class is called Drey that Spodek - A look at Hasidism, Hasidic Yiddish and the Hasidic influence on Yiddish in general. The mysteries of Hasidic dress? No mystery any more.
Mrs Wex is co-director of the Klezkamp Children's Program and will be directing the play that she and Mr Wex have written for the 7-10 year olds.
Miss Wex can be seen conducting her fearless and insightful interviews for the Klezkamp radio show or hanging out with other terrifyingly bright preteens in the hotel lobby.
For more details about Klezkamp, please see The Yiddish World of
Michael Wex Recommends section later in this newsletter or click on the Klezkamp link above.
Click
here
to see where else Wex will be appearing in the coming months.
It's the Holiday Season - find unique gifts and get free shipping from our online store!
Limited edition holiday merchandise - only available in our online store!
Our online store has had a complete overhaul in time for the holiday season. With new departments for Chanukah, new designs and new products, you're sure to be able to find something for everyone!
And Cafepress, our store host, is very kindly offering free ground shipping on all orders of $50 or more within the United States (sorry Canada and the rest of the world!) from November 16 – December 20.
Hurry, hurry, hurry - the
Chanukah-themed gifts are only around for a limited time! Click on the shirt image above or
here
to browse the store and grab those gifts for the holidays!
Wex's Interview by Terry Gross for Fresh Air is re-broadcast
On Friday 10th November NPR re-broadcast Wex's interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air that he recorded shortly after the publication of Born to Kvetch. This caused a huge spike in book sales and website hits and has grown our newsletter substantially! To hear this and other interviews, go to the Wex in Action page.Articles
The following are three articles previously published in Wex’s Kvetch column in the Jewish Week.Between ritualized gluttony, ritualized fasting, hours and hours of ritual prayer and almost as many hours of trying to sleep in a Succah (often preceded by even more hours of ritual cursing while trying to build the Succah), the average observant Jew looks and feels vi an opgeshlogene heshayne, a beat-out willow twig, by the time Hoshana Rabba rolls around.
The idiom is based on one of the plants used as part of the Sukkes (or Succoth) ritual. The fifth day of the festival is known as Hoshana Rabba, the great Hoshana, when worshippers recite a large number of supplicatory prayers called Hoshanas (whence the English word Hosanna). When all the Hoshanas have been concluded, each worshipper takes a bundle of five willow twigs (which have come to be called heshaynes by association with the prayers) and strikes it against the ground five times.
By the end of the fifth stroke, these dainty little twigs look even worse than the rooster mentioned in a synonymous idiom, oyszen vi a hon nokh tashmish, “to look like a rooster who’s just trodden his hens.” Yiddish takes the image of the rooster and combines it with the idea of punctilious performance of a religious duty--the sort of thing that still keeps many Jews from a full night's sleep. The rooster is turned into a Jew, and a Jew--for the sake of this expression--is always losing sleep because there are so many mitsves to fulfill.
Scandals? Lies? Midterm elections? Nu? It’s time to go Yiddish on all that hot air and prick those balloons with the sharpest verbal pin in the language. Roughly translatable as “so?” nu conveys so very much more. In the context of political debate it means: “What you’re saying is either irrelevant or painfully obvious. Maybe you’d like to get to the point”; or, “So why have you still not done what you just promised to do again?” or, “You call that an excuse? Whatever you’ve done is bad enough; don’t make it worse by lying.” The old Peggy Lee song, “Is That All There Is?” would have a one-word title in Yiddish.
Nu is the implacable parent of Yiddish speech. It allows no exceptions and accepts no apologies. Used interrogatively, it can make the most accomplished liar go weak in the knees.
Yiddish, which has already contributed so much to our cultural life, can now serve as a stepped-up border patrol protecting American public life from the encroachments of prevarication, temporizing and deliberate misinformation. If you’re looking for honest government that reflects the will of the people not to have to listen to any more crap, just say nu.
I’m afraid that my nephew’s about to get married. My sister got him a tallis for his bar mitzvah last week. In the traditional environment in which we were raised, the tallis is worn only after marriage. An unmarried male wears one only to go up to the Torah or lead prayers, and you can imagine the stigma attached to not wearing one after a certain age. Indeed, the tallis was considered the sign par excellence of Jewish burgherhood, so much so that the phrase vifl taleysim zenen do bay aykh, “How many tallises are there by you,” means “How many Jewish families are there in your community?”
There are a couple of explanations for this custom. The first is found in the Talmud (Kiddushin, 29b), where one rabbi asks another why his head isn’t covered with a shawl--which, according to Rashi, was the way of married men at the time. The rabbi replies that he isn’t married. The commentators all interpret “shawl” as “prayer shawl” and take the question to mean, “Why isn’t your head covered with a tallis?” Similarly, the Maharil, one of the most influential figures in Ashkenazic Judaism, points out that the commandment, “You shall make fringes for yourselves” is followed immediately by the proto-Percy Sledge verse, “If a man marries a woman” (Deut. 22:12-3); the proximity is taken to mean that the fringes have something to do with being married.
I’m afraid that my nephew’s in for a big surprise.
For a guide to Yiddish pronunciation, click here.
The Yiddish World of Michael Wex Recommends - Klezkamp - The original Yiddish cultural festival!
From December 24th to 29th come and immerse yourself in community-based Yiddish folk culture in the Hudson Valley, New York. Klezkamp has a huge array of exciting and diverse offerings: music, theater and literature classes, Yiddish language offerings including classes taught by Michael Wex, expanded visual arts and vocal programs for rank beginners all the way to seasoned full time professionals and an introduction to and preview of Living Traditions' exciting new project, an online archive of Yiddish recordings from the early 20th century. And do not forget our amazing KlezKids program, co-directed by Marilla Wex, where Yiddish finds its rightful place with the next generation.
Click here to find out more and register.
And Finally.....Wex’s Kvetch of the Month:
One of my favourite Yiddish ways of telling somebody that you're not buying the b.s. that they're shoveling at you is the increasingly rare expression, veys ikh vos, which--to judge from the rarity with which I hear it these days--must be getting short shrift in college courses and summer institutes. Veys ikh vos (literally, "know I what") has an air of contempt that is positively menacing,to your interlocutor’s self-regard, if nothing else. It’s never pronounced as clearly as it’s written here; it is spat—ideally, it’s sneezed out, slow-roasted over the adenoids before being projected through the nose, and sounds more like VEI-KH-OO-EHS than a series of separate words, each with a meaning of its own. It doesn't quite mean “tell it to the marines”; veys ikh vos is closer to “For this”–the crap that you’ve just heard–“For this God gave you a mouth?!” It consists of equal parts disbelief, contempt and impatience—practically a Yiddish trifecta. While not recommended for telephone use–people are likely to say “Gesundheit” or ask if you’re all right–it’s perfect for dealing with any idiot separated from you by a counter or desk (so long as that idiot isn’t wearing judge’s robes); the air of bubbling menace will get them even if they don’t understand a word.Happy Thanksgiving! Look out for your next edition of Vekslblat in December!