Don’t Send a Goy to Do a Mensch Job

When I loaded up the Born to Kvetch website (left), I thought I recognized the voice of HarperCollins executive editor David Hirshey behind its all-encompassing sales pitch (“Don’t read this book on Shabbos! It’s the perfect book for Shabbos!”). Once I got confirmation that it was really him doing all the Oy vey! and the nu?, I sent a quick note asking what the recording process was like, and how he cherry-picked from the rich Yiddish vocabulary. “I took the Yiddish for Dumkopfs approach,” he quipped via BlackBerry. “In other words, any expressions that your average pisher or goyim would know. If it helped sell books, that would give me nachas, but basically it was just another pain in my tuchus.” He also explained how he was tapped for the voiceover work in the first place: “I guess I was the obvious choice because I’m the biggest kvetcher anyone knows at HarperCollins—and beyond—and I can do it in several different languages.”