by Wex | Aug 9, 2010 | Jewish Week, Yiddish
We’re into the month of Elul now, when we’re supposed to begin examining our deeds and telling the truth to God and ourselves. Contempt for the kind of b.s. that we use to justify our dodgier actions has given rise to one of the most remarkable, not to mention useful,...
by Wex | Jul 6, 2010 | Jewish Week, Yiddish
A little more on weddings.If someone complains about tantsn af tsvey khasenes (mit eyn por fis), “dancing at two weddings (with one pair of legs),” they’re saying that they can’t do two things or be in two places at once. You can talk about tantsn af fremde khasenes,...
by Wex | Jul 5, 2010 | Jewish Week, Yiddish
The Fourth of July was the second day of rosh-khoydesh Tammuz, which means that there’s a sudden rush on weddings before the mid-summer hiatus that we call the dray vokhn, a period of mourning during which all celebrations are banned. Wedding planners and anxious...
by Wex | Jun 28, 2010 | Jewish Week, Yiddish
Zimer-leyb, as Mendele Moykher Sforim used to say, “Sweet, sweet summer”; me’ shikt di kinder avek in di kontris, the children are off in the country, rusticating under the watchful eyes of experienced, specially trained college students from Europe and the Antipodes,...
by Wex | Jun 1, 2010 | Jewish Week, Yiddish
Summer, when people who have been dragging themselves from exile to exile for nearly two thousand years inexplicably betake themselves to airports, where they seem surprised to find themselves chanting, almost compulsively davening, the Yiddish monosyllable of...
by Wex | May 21, 2010 | Jewish Week, Yiddish
Now that Shavues has put an end to the enforced sobriety of the omer period, my relatives––many of whom still dress in leisure suits designed in eighteenth century Poland-–are getting their glad rags out of mothballs in preparation for Jewish wedding season. A man who...
