In this book, "Wex is a rare combination of Jewish comic and scholarly cultural analyst".
[4] The book is about cultural and religious influences in the Yiddish language and how the Jewish worldview is reflected in Yiddish, putting the main focus on Yiddish as a language of opposition (or "language of aggravation, of exile and alienation" as Allan Nadler puts it)[3] during their life in diaspora, often within hostile cultures.
[4] The Yiddish word "kvetch" in the book title means "to complain", "to whine", expressing Wex's idea that Yiddish is the language of complaint, which is rooted in millennia of Jewish exile.
[5] As Wex wittingly notes: "A simple kvetch is a descriptive activity that conveys disapproval... a 'knole' ("curse"), on the other hand, is a 'kvetch' with a mission".
The book received an honourable mention from the ALA in the Sophie Brody Award 2006.