Marilla

Chutzpah is the new charisma

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Rosa Parks was accused of having chutzpah back in the Civil Rights era. Wex was recently interviewed by Maseena Ziegler for her article in Forbes about chutzpah. He gives the Yiddish perspective of the word (chutzpah being a bad thing - meaning you're ill-mannered and rude) versus the English usage which is usually more...

Wex

Growth of a Tiny Mind

In order to relieve the tedium induced by weeks of reading nothing but the Bible, the Talmud, and sundry commentaries on tractates Avoyde Zoro and Khulin, including some fairly complicated sections of the Shulkhan Orukh and its successors, I've had to pick up the pace of my non-work-related reading. Science fiction has acquired a new allure for me, as have mysteries, westerns and a Yiddish translation of...

Wex

And We Owe It All To Income Tax…

So...much...sponge cake... Passover's done, Bob Hope's on the TV, serenading Jane Russell with "Buttons and Bows," it's overcast and slightly rainy in Toronto, but Jane Russell has just taken over the whole of my fifty-one inch television screen–my ancestors thought that they got manna from heaven?–and life is pretty much back to normal. First thing Monday morning, I'll take another step on my long,...

Wex

Shnortnin’ Bread for Pesach

I'd like to blame Pesach shopping for my failure to write a blog post last week, but Mrs. Wex, a berye of the very first order, has long since had all the makings of kosher-for Passover Farfelroons safely stowed in knotted plastic bags in a corner of our basement, directly beneath a photo of the Strettiner Rebbe in his kitchen ha-kadosh, circa 1977. Pesach shopping takes care of itself, it's the shnorring...

Wex

Let’s Just Say Hors D’Oeuvre

Barth Gimble makes everything better. "I spent Purim at a shiva" is just further proof that phrases that sound great as Country & Western titles are a lot less fun when they describe your life. Four people I know died in the past week, among them an uncle for whom "beloved" was a lot more than a term in an obituary. And we've got Pesach cleaning to look forward to. So praise the Lord for YouTube, which...