Kvetching is to the Jewish soul what breathing is to the Jewish body.
Complaining seems to be Yiddish’s major claim to fame.
For Jews, kvetching is a way of understanding the world, as recognised by Michael Wex in Born To Kvetch. It is rooted, like so much of Jewish culture, in the Bible where the Israelites grumble endlessly. They complain about their problems, and complain about the solutions. They kvetch in Egypt and they kvetch in the desert; no matter what God does, it’s wrong.
Born To Kvetch is a treasure trove of linguistics, sociology, history and folklore – an inspiring portrait of a people, and a language, in exile.
