Neal Karlen

“This lighthearted and irreverent history of Yiddish depicts the language as an unlikely survivor of the ages. Karlen charts Yiddish from its beginnings as a minor dialect in the 11th century to its peak in World War II and revival in recent years.”

“New York Times contributor Karlen (Shanda: The Making and Breaking of a Self-Loathing Jew, 2004, etc.) proffers an idiosyncratic take on Yiddish, the heroic vernacular that gets no respect. This wide-ranging survey rejoices in Jewishness rather than Judaism. The author sporadically quotes Lenny Bruce, Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Nobel speech and Three Stooges movies to support his notions. He attempts, with easygoing chutzpah (you know, “nerve”) to draw apt lessons in linguistics and philology from history, philosophy, sports, literature and showbiz in the old countries as well as here in the goldene medina (“golden country).” –  [full text]

“The Story of Yiddish is a book that you will pick up and browse for a while, and come back to later for some more histori-cal/hysterical stories of Jews as they wandered through the world, speaking the only language that tied them together.”

“Karlen [was] born a skeptic and a rebel, a rabble-rouser and a maverick. Karlen’s Jewish soul is evident on every page of his new book, an interesting and quirky and sometimes irreverent look at how the Yiddish language has survived all over the world. He describes Yiddish as trying ‘to live life as a mentsh, a human being, not a vilde chaya, a wild beast.’ We readers are the lucky beneficiaries of his journey.”