Marilla

Schott’s Yiddish Vocab

Today on the New York Times Ben Schott's Vocab Blog is tackling Yiddish. And Wex is the moderator! At the time of writing (less than 24 hours after the blog went live) there are over 380 comments where readers have asked questions, answered questions and added their voice. Who said Yiddish is dead? So go to this page on the New York Times website to add your voice to the question and answer...

Wex

Passover, roller derby and khad gadye

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 in behavior that would have landed them in the Haggadah had they done so anywhere else. The Yiddish version of Jimmie Rodgers' "He's in the...

Wex

Michael Wex and the Kosher Easter bunny

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 sacrifice of Jewish integrity. A hekhsher (plural, hekhsheyrim) indicates that something is kosher; it’s a warrant that validates the...

Wex

Hernias in Yiddish

I’ve been lifting weights like a madman lately, trying to work off the winter’s tsholnt before bikini season hits, and so far all I’ve got is a kileh, the most-beloved Yiddish word for “hernia.” Old school Yiddish-speakers will be quick to tell you that the two afflictions that once characterized Yiddish and were apparently endemic to its speakers, are the hernia and hemorrhoids, which both enjoy...

Wex

Lacrosse at Jewish Summer Camp?

The list of what to send to camp with my daughter arrived this week. They want her to bring a lacrosse stick. Tsaytn derlebt, as my parents used to say, “Look what we’ve lived to see”: a Jewish camp where they play lacrosse, a sport that exists only in order to realize all of my mother’s worst fears for my health. I’m from Canada and I know from lacrosse: you could poke an eye out, break an arm...