"I don't want a niche – I want an empire!" – Michael Wex, Globe and Mail
How to Be a Mentsh (and Not a Shmuck) is reviewed in the winter edition of Jewish Book World.
"Wex uses traditional sources, like the Talmud’s stories about the great Hillel, to define ‘mentshhood’ as empathetic awareness of the feelings and needs of others combined with principled avoidance of inflicting harm and shame on others."
To read the review in full go to the How to Be a Mentsh page.
Born to Kvetch was published in England for the first time a couple of weeks ago and has just received its first review in the Jewish Chronicle.
Some academics have been complaining about Born to Kvetch. This is, after all, a book that has zero inhibition regarding vulgarity. It is, moreover, quite politically incorrect and provocative.
For example, there is plenty and more on the traditional anti-Christian motifs embedded in many Yiddish phrases, enough to make a modern Jewish person (or Yiddish teacher of “multicultural” students) want to tsiter (tremble), khalesh (faint), pretend the book doesn’t exist (nisht geshtoygn, nit gefloygn), or makhn pleyte (run for it), as if from a sreyfe (fire).
But none of that is the fault of the author, Canadian-born Michael Wex, whose book renders him heir to Lenny Bruce, Leo Rosten and your favourite Yiddish teacher, all rolled into one. (more...)
How to Be a Mentsh (and Not a Shmuck) got a starred review in Publishers Weekly this week.
Publishers Weekly is widely considered the publishing industry's bible and every writer hopes for a starred review. And Mentsh got one!
"...this lesson in language and culture is rooted in a shocking degree of scholarship; happily, it’s also blessed with humor, grace and a well-developed sense of contemporary pop culture ...The end result is a consistent pleasure..."
To read the review in full go to the How to Be a Mentsh page.
'And why,' you might ask, 'do I need to pepper my conversations with words, phrases, entire sentences and paragraphs in a language that almost nobody really knows anymore?' " asks Michael Wex in the introduction to his guide to Yiddish, Just Say Nu. His answer, "Why not?" comes straight out of the Borscht Belt, as does much of his book. (more...)
Did you come from one of those families where you walked off to kindergarten not knowing if you were speaking English or Yiddish? If the teacher held up a fork for identification, did you raise your hand and proudly — but wrongly — announce, “gupple”? How could gupple be wrong? It sounds just like “apple,” as in “apple pie.” (more...)
