Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All Its Moods

Born to Kvetch\ Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods \ \ By Michael Wex \ HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.\ Copyright © 2006 Michael Wex\ All right reserved.\ ISBN: 0061132179 \ \ \ Chapter One\ Kvetch Que C'est?\ The Origins of Yiddish\ A man boards a Chicago-bound train in Grand Central Station and sits down across from an old man reading a Yiddish newspaper. Half an hour after the train has left the station, the old man puts down his paper and starts to whine like a frightened child. "Oy, am I thirsty. . . . Oy, am I thirsty. . . . Oy, am I thirsty. . . ."\ The other man is at the end of his rope inside of five minutes. He makes his way to the water cooler at the far end of the car, fills a cup with water, and starts walking back to his seat. He pauses after a few steps, goes back to the cooler, fills a second cup with water and walks gingerly down the aisle, trying to keep the cups from spilling. He stops in front the old man and clears his throat. The old man looks up in midoy, his eyes beam with gratitude as he drains the first cup in a single gulp. Before he can say or do anything else, the man hands him the second cup, then sits back down and closes his eyes, hoping to catch a bit of a nap. As he sits back, the old man allows himself a sigh of thanks. He leans into his own seat, tilts his forehead toward the ceiling, and says, just as loudly as before, "Oy,was I thirsty. . . ."\ If you can understand this joke, you'll have no trouble learning Yiddish. It contains virtually every important element of the Yiddish-speaking mind-set in easily accessible form: the constant tension between the Jewish and the non-Jewish; the faux naivete that allows the old man to pretend that he isn't disturbing anyone; the deflation of the other passenger's hopes, the disappointment of all his expectations after he has watered the Jew; and most importantly of all, the underlying assumption, the fundamental idea that kvetching--complaining--is not only a pastime, not only a response to adverse or imperfect circumstance, but a way of life that has nothing to do with the fulfillment or frustration of desire. Kvetching can be applied indifferently to hunger or satiety, satisfaction or disappointment: it is a way of knowing, a means of apprehension that sees the world through cataract-colored glasses.\ The old man's initial kvetches are a means to an end. He's thirsty, he's lazy, he figures that if he yells loudly enough he's going to get what he wants. But these first few oys are only the setup; the quintessentially Yiddish aspect--what Yiddish would call dos pintele yidish, the essence of Yiddish--appears only in the joke's last line. The old man knows what's happening; he knows that he could have died of thirst for all that his seatmate cared, as long as he did so quietly. He knows that the water is a sign of contempt, not a gesture of mercy, and he also knows that in a world where indifference is the best that can be expected, the principle of aftselakhis (very literally, "in order to provoke anger"), the impulse to do things only because someone else doesn't want you to, is sometimes essential to the world's moral balance. And the old man understands how aftselakhis works: alone in the history of the world, Yiddish-speaking Jews long ago broke the satisfaction barrier and figured out how to express contentment by means of complaint: kvetching becomes a way of exercising some small measure of control over an otherwise hostile environment. If the Stones's "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" had been written in Yiddish, it would have been called "(I Love to Keep Telling You that I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (Because Telling You that I'm Not Satisfied Is All that Can Satisfy Me)."\ Like so much of Jewish culture, kvetching has its roots in the Bible, which devotes a great deal of time to the nonstop grumbling of the Israelites, who find fault with everything under the sun. They kvetch about their problems and they kvetch about the solutions. They kvetch in Egypt and they kvetch in the desert. No matter what God does, it's wrong; whatever favors He bestows, they're never enough.\ So, for example, the Israelites are on the edge of the Red Sea, with Pharaoh and his hosts closing fast behind them. God has been plaguing the Egyptians left and right and has just finished killing every one of their firstborn males. The Israelites are understandably nervous, but there's a big difference between being slightly apprehensive and insulting the agent of your deliverance: "And they said to Moses: 'What? There's no graves in Egypt, you had to take us into the desert to die. . . . What did we tell you in Egypt? Get off our backs and let us serve the Egyptians, because serving the Egyptians is better than dying in the desert' " (Exod. 14:11-12).\ This sort of thing constitutes what might be called the basic kvetch, the initial declaration of unhappiness that identifies the general area of complaint. Had Isaac Newton been struck by a potato kugel instead of an apple, the whole world would now know that for every basic kvetch there is also an equal and opposite counterkvetch, a retaliation in kind provoked by the original complaint. Such counterkvetching also appears in the Bible, most notably when God decides to answer the Israelites' complaints about the food in the desert by giving them something to kvetch about. The Jews want meat instead of the manna that they've been getting? Moses tells them:\ God's going to give you meat and you're going to eat it.\ Not one day\ Or two days;\ Not five days\ Or ten days\ Or twenty days.\ But for a month you're going to eat it, until it's coming out of your noses (Num. 11:19-20).\ They get meat, all right--quails, hundreds and hundreds of quails--and for dessert they get a plague. . . .\ \ Continues... \ \ \ \ Excerpted from Born to Kvetch by Michael Wex Copyright © 2006 by Michael Wex. Excerpted by permission.\ All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.\ Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. \ \

1Kvetch Que C'Est? : the origins of Yiddish12Six feet under, baking bagels : Yiddish in action293Something else to kvetch about : Yiddish dialects474Pigs, poultry, and pampers : the religious roots of Yiddish595Discouraging words : Yiddish and the forces of darkness916You should grow like an onion : the Yiddish curse1177If it wasn't for bad luck : Mazl, misery, and money1418"Bupkes means a lot of nothing" : Yiddish and nature1599Making a tsimmes : food - kosher and treyf17510A slap in the tukhes and hello : Yiddish life from birth to bar mitzvah19711More difficult than splitting the Red Sea : courtship and marriage22112The good for the goyim : sex in Yiddish24913It should happen to you : death in Yiddish265

\ From Barnes & NobleYiddish doesn't need apologies. Once dismissed as a derivative vernacular language, the lingua franca of millions of Jews has recently gained just recognition for its richness and strikingly apt idioms, phrases, and metaphors. Michael Wex's Born to Kvetch combines the lively accessibility of Leo Rosten's The New Joys of Yiddish with the insightfulness of a serious inquiry into Yiddish culture. Anyone who loves wordplay or enjoys Jewish humor will appreciate this book.\ \ \ \ \ William GrimesMr. Wex, a Yiddish translator, university teacher, novelist and stand-up comic, has many such examples up his sleeve, but Born to Kvetch is much more than a greatest-hits collection of colorful Yiddish expressions. It is a thoughtful inquiry into the religious and cultural substrata of Yiddish, the underlying harmonic structure that allows the language to sing, usually in a mournful minor key.\ — The New York Times\ \ \ Publishers WeeklyMost people's view of Yiddish is likely one of innocuous humor, whining and over-the-top curses. This extremely engaging portrait of a language reveals the droller, sharper and even more hilarious side of Yiddishkite. Like any truly excellent biographer, Wex delves deeply into aspects of Yiddish hidden in plain sight, exposing a richness and history all but lost today. Insults and kvetches (complaints) are the only way an oppressed exile can cope: an art form of cutting down the very essence of the thing that is being insulted all the while hiding the true level of insult from anyone not steeped in the culture. The audio format adds life as intonation and pronunciation are clear but the loss of a glossary is a small misfortune. (Although the addition of track listings on the CDs is a plus.) The Canadian author's bizarre, somewhat hypnotic reading style-with its randomly elongated vowels-is a cross between Dustin Hoffman's Rain Man character and a classic Yiddish whine. It will either continually amuse or drive listeners up the wall. Far more engrossing than linguistics should be, this audio will educate, entertain and enrich the perceptions of its listeners. Simultaneous release with the St. Martin's hardcover (Reviews, July 11, 2005). (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalFrank, tough-minded, and profoundly honest, Wex (Shlepping the Exile)-who grew up an Orthodox, Yiddish-speaking Jew-examines the Yiddish language from an insider's point of view. He describes the development of Yiddish throughout its history, explains the nature of the separation of Jews from gentiles as reflected in the ritual laws of kosher, and illustrates the harsh reality of European Jewish life, which is mirrored in the Yiddish language itself. Paradox, poverty, irony, and superstition (the secret heart of Yiddish) are described by example and through comparison to present-day popular culture. Other topics include the development of Yiddish words, expressions, and idioms; the nature of Jewish exile; kvetching (or complaining); and the life and religion of the Jewish people from birth to death, as evident in the Yiddish tongue. All the wonderful elements of Yiddish language and culture are humorously presented here. Highly recommended for Jewish studies collections.-Gene Shaw, NYPL Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.\ \ \ \ \ New York Post"Required reading."\ \ \ \ \ New York Times"Wise, witty and altogether wonderful...."\ \ \ \ \ From the Publisher"...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\ \ \