"His books have not just been good for the Jews; they have been great." – Joel Yanofsky, Literary Review of Canada
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!At Klezkamp last December Wex was interviewed by Pauline Katz as part of the Wexler Oral History Project for the Yiddish Book Center.
In this short clip he tells the story of how Esther Shumiatcher, a Yiddish poet from Calgary, funded her career through the sale of cowboy... 
It must be this year’s yontoyvim, because it sure isn’t my fault. First I lose my position as gabbai for giving hagbeh to a trombenik on Rosh Hashana and now I’m stuck in England, watching rain filter through the roof of one of my in-law’s sukkes while being told, quietly but often, that the proper spelling of the Yiddish word for “rag” is shmatter and that I can leave if I don’t... 
I might be wrong, but I think that Rosh Hashana has made me a hero.
I’m gabbai––a synagogue valet––at an orthodox shul in Toronto where I’m in charge of kibbudim, the distribution of such honors as opening the ark, being called to the Torah, and so on.
On the second day of Rosh Hashanah this year, a candidate in the forthcoming provincial elections burst into shul with a police escort instead... 
We like to help people who've half-remembered a Yiddish expression they heard in their family. Here's one example.
There is a saying my family and I can't find and hope you can give us the meaning. I'll try to get it out....sounds like goota or guta nishuma. Can you help?
Guteh neshomeh (or neshumeh) means "good soul." Atlhough you can say that somebody has one, it's much more common to describe a person... 
Along with the shone toyves that I’ve been sending out to friends and family this year, I’ve been receiving New Year’s cards of another kind from politicians and Jewish communal figures whom I’ve been peppering with what are best described as instructional letters and e-mails. These cards implore me to be sure to go to shul this year, in order to be sure to have a chance to gey shray khay ve-kayem,... 