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Articles by Michael Wex
Galilee goes free, or the tetragrammaton only knows why a poem in Adeena Karasick’s Aerotomania: The Book of Lumenations is dedicated to me
0 Flares 0 Flares × According to the Babylonian Talmud (Eruvin 53b), the Hebrew-speakers of ancient Judea were so precise in their speech that they would never describe a cloak they were trying to sell as merely green, but would tell you instead that it was the colour of newly sprouted beet greens trailing along the ground. Galileans, on the other hand, were less punctilious: “What do you mean when you say that Galileans are not careful in speaking?
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The Great American Deception by Scott Stein is only $0.99 - BookBub
In the near-future US, grumpy PI Frank Harken and his peppy coffee machine robot set out to find a missing woman — and accidentally uncover a conspiracy… “Chock-full of rapid-fire wit… Sure to appeal to fans of Douglas Adams, this zany, uproarious mystery is a constant delight” (Publishers Weekly starred review). A damsel in distress. A dangerous dame. A metric-ton of coffee... Private Investigator Frank Harken’s worldwide fame has only made him more cynical.
Review of Yiddish: A Biography of a Language by Jeffrey Shandler
Jeffrey Shandler, Yiddish: A Biography of a Language. (Oxford University Press, 2020). 264 pp. $27.95. In 1977 I informed my father that I was thinking of transferring from a Ph.D program in Mediaeval Studies to one in Yiddish at Columbia. He responded immediately. “Shoyte, vus darfsti in yidish? Idiot, what do you need Yiddish for?
Yiddish Language and... book by Michael Wex
I Tip My Yarmulke to Michael Wex Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 14 years ago Here's MY "kvetch": Till now I thought my book on Yiddish, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Yiddish" was the very best book on the subject. Who told Wex to write such a funny, brilliant, erudite, insightful book - did I need this kind of competition? But I "fargin" him - and all you lovers of Yiddish out there.
The Jewish Roots of Esperanto
BRIDGE OF WORDS Esperanto and the Dream of a Universal Language By Esther Schor 364 pp. Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Company. $32. There’s an old Yiddish joke about an Esperanto convention where participants were given license to “crocodile” — speak their native languages — during a break in the proceedings. After a long day of speaking Esperanto, listening to speeches in Esperanto, singing songs and reading signs in Esperanto, they were relieved to be able to stop reaching for words.
Just Say 'Nu?': Nu!
Among the best-known words in the language, nu is sometimes heard in English these days, but rarely among non-Jews and never with the vast range of meaning that it can have in Yiddish. Things have changed considerably since 1958 or ’59 when I went tearing out of the room where I’d been watching “December Bride” in order to inform my mother that Pete Porter, one of the regular characters, had to be Jewish.
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