Born To Kvetch

By: Michael Wex

Narrated by: Michael Wex

As the main spoken language of the Jews for more than a thousand years, Yiddish has had plenty to lament, plenty to conceal. Its phrases and expressions paint a comprehensive picture of the mind-set that enabled the Jews of Europe to survive persecution: they never stopped kvetching about God, gentiles, children, and everything else.

In Born to Kvetch, Michael Wex looks at the ingredients that went into this buffet of disenchantment and examines how they were mixed together to produce an almost limitless supply of striking idioms and withering curses. Born to Kvetch includes a wealth of material that's never appeared in English before.

This is no bobe mayse (cock-and-bull story) from a khokhem be-layle (idiot, literally a ""sage at night"" when no one's looking), but a serious yet fun and funny look at a language. From tukhes to goy, meshugener to kvetch, Yiddish words have permeated and transformed English as well. Through the fascinating history of this kvetch-full tongue, Michael Wex gives us a moving and inspiring portrait of a people, and a language, in exile.

©2006 Michael Wex; (P)2006 HarperCollinsPublishers, Inc.

Listened to it twice so far!

Really enjoyed this book that I thought was about linguistics, but delivered so much more. The previous mentions of the harsh narration are right, and at first it is pretty hard to take, but I got used to it after awhile. And, there are times when Mr. Wex drops the extreme accent and reveals a pleasant reading voice. The choice not to use that all the time is rather baffling, but the book itself was so enjoyable that I got over it and I didn't even notice how much I was learning. I am still laughing about the place of the chicken in Yiddish culture. Terrific.

It took me a while to get used to Michael’s voice, but when I did...

I totally enjoyed listening and learning and appreciating Yiddish, as a culture, a language, it’s humor, it’s curses and blessings!! Thanks, Michael!! LOVED IT!

fantastic look into a world that is sadly, nearly

loved it. Wex has great skill as a narrator one you get used to his rhythm and rhyme.

Great info, nauseating narration.

The information was great. Learned a lot. But the narrators droning, nauseating voice at the end of each sentence made it very difficult to continue reading the book. I think perhaps, a different performer might change the overall acceptance of the material. I do appreciate the Jewish quality of his voice, as I am a Jew too, but the excessive use of drawing out the end of each and every sentence is not an aesthetic that is pleasing to the ear.

Fascinating and Foul

Wex gives a "warts & all" look into eastern European Jewish culture through its language. The first part of the book made me laugh out loud much to the surprise of fellow commuters. Unfortunately, he soon descended into scatology and profanity.