Kvetch

Author : Michael Wex
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
ISBN 13 : 1429909900
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Born to Kvetch written by Michael Wex and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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, idioms, and expressions paint a comprehensive picture of the mind-set that enabled the Jews of Europe to survive a millennium of unrelenting persecution: they never stopped kvetching---about God, gentiles, children, food, and everything (and anything) else. They even learned how to smile through their kvetching and express satisfaction in the form of complaint. 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 (which get a chapter all to themselves). Born to Kvetch includes a wealth of material that's never appeared in English before. You'll find information on the Yiddish relationship to food, nature, divinity, and humanity. There's even a chapter about sex. 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 that both shaped and was shaped by those who spoke it. From tukhes to goy,meshugener to kvetch, Yiddish words have permeated and transformed English as well. Through the idioms, phrases, metaphors, and fascinating history of this kvetch-full tongue, Michael Wex gives us a moving and inspiring portrait of a people, and a language, in exile.

Author : Caroline Kusin Pritchard
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1534478272
Total Pages : 48 pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Gitty and Kvetch written by Caroline Kusin Pritchard and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this hilariously sweet story about an opposites-attract friendship, chock-full of Yiddish humor, a girl and her best bird friend’s perfect day turns into a perfect opportunity to see things differently. Gitty and her feathered-friend Kvetch couldn’t be more different: Gitty always sees the bright side of life, while her curmudgeonly friend Kvetch is always complaining and, well, kvetching about the trouble they get into. One perfect day, Gitty ropes Kvetch into shlepping off on a new adventure to their perfect purple treehouse. Even when Kvetch sees signs of impending doom everywhere, Gitty finds silver linings and holds onto her super special surprise reason for completing their mission. But when her perfect plan goes awry, oy vey, suddenly it’s Gitty who’s down in the dumps. Can Kvetch come out of his funk to lift Gitty’s spirits back up?

Author : Carol Chapman
Publisher : Puffin
ISBN 13 : 9780525444947
Total Pages : 32 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Tale of Meshka the Kvetch written by Carol Chapman and published by Puffin. This book was released on 1989-04-27 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The complaints of a kvetch come true.

Author : Joseph Dorinson
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 0786494824
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Kvetching and Shpritzing written by Joseph Dorinson and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jewish humor, with its rational skepticism and cutting social criticism, permeates American popular culture. Scholars of humor--from Sigmund Freud to Woody Allen--have studied the essence of the Jewish joke, at once a defense mechanism against a hostile world and a means of cultural affirmation. Where did this wit originate? Why do Jewish humorists work at the margins of so many diverse cultures? What accounts for the longevity of the Jewish joke? Do oppressed people, as African American author Ralph Ellison suggested, slip their yoke when they change the joke? Citing examples from prominent humorists and stand-up comics, this book examines the phenomenon of Jewish humor from its biblical origins to its prevalence in the modern diaspora, revealing a mother lode of wit in language, literature, folklore, music and history.

Author : Ken Krimstein
Publisher : Clarkson Potter
ISBN 13 : 0307588882
Total Pages : 96 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Kvetch as Kvetch Can written by Ken Krimstein and published by Clarkson Potter. This book was released on 2010 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of Jewish cartoons covering topics ranging from food and family to holidays and guilt.

Author : Barbara S. Held
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 9780312283513
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Stop Smiling, Start Kvetching written by Barbara S. Held and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2001-09-04 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are you sick of being told "Smile-look on the bright side"? Do you feel guilty when you admit you're having a bad day? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are a victim of the "don't worry, be happy" mentality that is pervading America. Dr. Held, convinced that having to smile through life's problems only adds insult to injury, is here to tell you that you have the right, the need, to kvetch! As she walks you through the five steps of creative kvetching, Dr. Held will show you that the right kind of complaining can help you to feel better and attract others to you instead of driving them away. So get ready to take off your smiley face and be liberated from the "tyranny of the positive attitude."

Author : Michael Wex
Publisher : Knopf Canada
ISBN 13 : 0307373185
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How to Be a Mentsh (And Not a Shmuck) written by Michael Wex and published by Knopf Canada. This book was released on 2009-09-08 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wise and hilarious, this is a book about happiness, your own and that of others. The principles outlined here will work for anyone, Jewish or not, who makes the effort to put them into practice. Drawing on the “wisdom of the ages,” bestselling author Michael Wex shows readers how to figure out the right thing to do in any situation. First he describes the two words “mentsh” and “shmuck.” The former refers most often to an adult who has learned to think of others first; the latter refers to someone who thinks he or she is someone special. In this book, you will learn how to keep yourself from believing you are someone special. You will learn how not to be a shmuck.

Author : Barry Blitt
Publisher : National Geographic Books
ISBN 13 : 0399576665
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.69/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Blitt written by Barry Blitt and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "One of the great political cartoonists of our time." —David Remnick A gorgeous, hilarious, and provocative compendium of the Pulitzer Prize-winning artist’s illustrations for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and more. Barry Blitt’s cartoons have been lampooning American politics and culture for decades. His iconic New Yorker covers are defining images for our times, earning him adoration from critics and fans and piles of hate mail from everyone else. This lavish full-color collection showcases more than a quarter century of Blitt’s work: his wry and provocative New Yorker covers, from the Obama fist bump heard round the world, to George W. Bush’s drowning cabinet, to the myriad (and counting) misadventures of Donald Trump; Blitt’s long-running collaboration with Frank Rich on The New York Times op-ed page; and his work for Vanity Fair, Time, Entertainment Weekly, and others. Blitt also shares his private sketchbooks, drafts, and uproarious rejected illustrations, offering readers an illuminating view into his creative process. Featuring the author's hand-scrawled annotations and self-deprecating witticisms, more than one hundred never-before-seen sketches and drafts, and essays from Blitt’s collaborators and peers, including Frank Rich, Françoise Mouly, and Steve Brodner, Blitt is a visual delight and a rollicking trip into the mind of an utterly original artist.

Author : Michael Wex
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 1429919728
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.22/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Just Say Nu written by Michael Wex and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2007-10-16 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cross between Henry Beard's Latin for All Occasions and Ben Schott's Schott's Original Miscellany, JUST SAY NU is a practical guide to using Yiddish words and expressions in day-to-day situations. Along with enough grammar to enable readers to put together a comprehensible sentence and avoid embarrassing mistakes, Wex also explains the five most useful Yiddish words–shoyn, nu, epes, takeh,and nebakh–what they mean, how and when to use them, and how they can be used to conduct an entire conversation without anybody ever suspecting that the reader doesn't have the vaguest idea of what anyone is actually saying. Readers will learn how to shmooze their way through such activities as meeting and greeting; eating and drinking; praising and finding fault; maintaining personal hygiene; going to the doctor; driving; parenting; getting horoscopes; committing crimes; going to singles bars; having sex; talking politics and talking trash. Now that Stephen Colbert, a Catholic from South Carolina and host of the "Colbert Report," is using Yiddish to wish viewers a bright and happy Chanukah, people have finally started to realize that there's nothing in the world that can't be improved by translating it into Yiddish. Wex's JUST SAY NU is the book that's going to show them how.

Author : Barbara S. Held
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781879418691
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.9X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Stop Smiling, Start Kvetching written by Barbara S. Held and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are you sick of being told "Smile-look on the bright side"? Do you feel guilty when you admit you're having a bad day? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are a victim of the "don't worry, be happy" mentality that is pervading America. Dr. Held, convinced that having to smile through life's problems only adds insult to injury, is here to tell you that you have the right, the need, to kvetch! As she walks you through the five steps of creative kvetching, Dr. Held will show you that the right kind of complaining can help you to feel better and attract others to you instead of driving them away. So get ready to take off your smiley face and be liberated from the "tyranny of the positive attitude."