by Wex | May 17, 2010 | Jewish Week, Yiddish
In anticipation of Shavuos, my favorite Yiddish idiom this week is blaybn af der milkhiker bank, “to stay [be left] on the dairy bench.” A bank, literally “bench,” was what would now be called a counter or food preparation area, and every kosher home had both a...
by Wex | Apr 29, 2010 | Jewish Week, Yiddish
I received an e-mail recently from a reader who says, “My parents both came from Russia and I grew up in Brooklyn. I spoke nothing but Yiddish at home and I like to think that I can still speak it pretty well. My question is about the word schlock. I know what it...
by Wex | Apr 5, 2010 | Jewish Week, Yiddish
The idea crops up periodically, generally on Passover, when the khomets-starved brains of certain West Coast executives––addled, some say, by a surfeit of matzoh-brei––go into overdrive and begin to smell money where the rest of us see nothing but Nyafat: “Why don’t...
by Wex | Apr 1, 2010 | Jewish Week, Yiddish
Passover is all about the breaking of unwanted bonds: three different people have e-mailed me this week about an idiom that likens the dissolution of a business relationship to the breakdown of a marriage.If things go wrong between partners or associates, you can say...
by Wex | Mar 24, 2010 | Jewish Week, Yiddish
It happens every year. The lines in the Passover-shopping section last night awakened long dormant memories of Roller Derby and kheyder. There was plenty of shoving in both, but the Roller Derby players made a better living than my rebbes, even though they all engaged...
by Wex | Mar 23, 2010 | Jewish Week, Yiddish
I saw it. I bought it. I ate it after Pesach and I loved it. I’d dreamed of it for years and it didn’t disappoint. A chocolate Easter bunny with a hekhsher is exactly the sort of thing that led my family out of Europe: full participation in general society without any...
