Wex

You could live if they’d let you…

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!I wish that I could say that I’m kvetching in the country, but no––that would be too much of a luxury, that might come too close to entertainment. And God forbid I should have any of that. No, it isn’t I who’s kvetching out here: I’m the victim, I’m the one who’s being kvetched about. Here’s what happened. I...

Wex

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is Jewish

Just the other day, I heard my daughter say “Napoleon Solo.” If these words mean nothing to you, hurry to your local video store and demand copies of all 105 episodes of the ‘sixties television classic, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Napoleon Solo, played by Robert Vaughn, was its major character, though my daughter, a true child of a child of the ‘sixties, insists that David McCallum’s character, Ilya...

Wex

Yiddish insults

Oys businessman! I’m sick of the business world, much of which now seems to be run by people who behave like adolescents— or even fully-grown children––who are busy doing any one of a number of nothings: ER TSELEYGT ZIKH VI BAYM TATN IN VAYNGORTN He’s lying around like he’s in his father’s vineyard when his cell phone begins to ring. Typically for someone VOOS TIT NISHT KA’ HANT IN KALT...

Wex

Oy gevalt!

Thanks to its frequent coupling with oy, gevalt (sometimes transliterated as gevald, which reflects Yiddish spelling rather than pronunciation) is among the most popular words in Yiddish. Oy gevalt can mean anything from “Heavens above” to “Oh, damn,” “Fantastic,” “Far freakin’ out,” or “I’m about to reach a climax,” and is probably second only to oy vey as the Yiddish phrase...

Wex

Bringing in the mendls

While most Jewish Week readers are probably familiar with the term minyen, the quorum of ten traditionally male Jews required for the recitation of certain prayers and the performance of certain rituals, I’m willing to bet that considerably fewer are acquainted with a fantastic but much rarer Yiddish term for a minyen and a half–of eggs rather than people, but a minyen and a half nonetheless. In the...