Celebrate Yiddish

Michael Wex "kvetches"
at Workmen's Circle fund-
raiser.

Michael Wex, humorist and author of the

bestseller Born to Kvetch, is the program

headliner for Celebrate Yiddish, an event -

to raise funds for Workmen's Cii-cle/Arbeter

Ring.

Michael Wex: "Yiddish is a lot of

things, but innocent isn't one of

them."

the "nonstop grumbling of the
Israelites, who find fault with every-
thingunder the sun"
Wex briefly explains the Jews'
2,500-year history, from the Exodus
to about 1000, when the ideas
upon which Yiddish is based gave
shape to a language. He sees the
Talmud, compiled in the year 500,
as indispensable to the worldview
and development of Yiddish; its
ways of speech and thought were
the "womb and long-term gesta-
tional home of a language that was
waiting to happen, a language that
couldn't help but be born."
Wex writes of curses and their
subtleties. In Yiddish, a curse is
not "a matter of yelling out bad
words; the trick is to put the good
ones together in the most damag-
ing way possible." A curse, he says,
isn't like a telegram — it doesn't
arrive so fast."Ale steyn zolmdir
oysfaln" (All your teeth should fall
out). "Nor eyner zol dir blaybn of
tsonveytik" (But you should keep
one to get a toothache with).
Wex grew up in a Yiddish-speak-
ing home in western Canada. At
university, he studied Old and
Middle English and had to learn
cognate German languages like
Norse. He was struck by similarities
with Yiddish.
Asked about the future of
Yiddish, he replies, "I don't think
Yiddish will go back to being the
language of the vast majority of
world Jewry as it was 100 years
ago." Then he adds, "I think we will
lose it at our peril.
"For one glorious week, Born
to Kvetch was outselling Harry
Potter. If there are that many people
interested, I don't think it's a lost
cause!" ❑

The humorist, whose standup
comedy gives a funny overview o
the Yiddish language and culture
from the Middle Ages to present
times, makes his Metro Detroit
debut during the program that starts
8 p.m. Saturday, April 29, at the
Jewish Community Center in West
Bloomfield.
Celebrate Yiddish, which also fea-
tures a segment of klezmer music
performed by Gabe Bolkosky of Irito
the Freylekh and San Slomovits of
Gemini, presents a serious side as
well by honoring three activists in
the Jewish community. Workmen's
Circle/Arbeter Ring will be giving the
2006 "Besere Velt" (Better World)
Award to Shirley Benyas of West
Bloomfield, Sidney Bolkosky of Oak
Park and Leon Cohan of Ann Arbor.
"We're celebrating people who
have made the world a better
place through commitments to the
Jewish community, Yiddish cul-
ture and social justice," says Ellen
Bates-Brackett, director of Michigan
Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring. The
evening also is a celebration of the
values they represent and the 106thl
anniversary of our organization."
Benyas, an area actress and direc- ,
for has taken on Yiddish roles and
supports Jewish organizations,
including the Sholern Aleichern
institute and the Jewish Historical
Society.
Bolkosky, a social science and
history professor at the University
of Michigan-Dearborn, created and
runs the Voice/Vision Holocaust
Survivor Oral History Project and
wrote Harmony and Dissonance: The
Search for Jewish identity in Detroit,
914-1967.
Cohan, an attorney and former
Michigan deputy attorney general,
has been president of the Jewish
Community Council of Metropolitan
Detroit.
Also on the program will be Robert
Kestenbaum, national executive
director of the organization, and
Peter Pepper, national president.
Capping the evening will be a dessert
reception.

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April 27 • 2006

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