This was a fantastic listening. First, the story takes place in my home town Zürich. Second, the reading is a mix between German and Yiddish and I love this kind of mixed language. Third, it gaves a kind of insight how marriages are arranged in the Jewish culture. Wolkenbruch's mother is trying to find a wife for him. However, he has other plans for his life. Therefore he doesn't buy new galsses anymore from a Jewish shop, he doesn't like to wear black and white clothes and to the dismay of his family he is deeply in love with a non Jewish girl. He is struggling with his feelings for his family and a free life of convention. ( )

Ich habe das Buch zuerst als Hörbuch gehört, was gut war. Denn ansonsten wäre es mir sicherlich schwerer gefallen, mich in das Jiddisch hineinzulesen. Man sollte also für die Print-Version allerdings etwas Geduld mitbringen, denn man braucht ein paar Seiten, um das Jiddisch zu verstehen. Ich habe mich prächtig amüsiert, ein wirklich großartiges Buch und schöne Unterhaltungslektüre. ( )

A hilarious account of a young Orthodox Jew growing up in Zurich's closed Jewish Orthodox community who discovers the pleasures of life and freedom with the friendly assistance of some liberal friends in Zurich and Israel, partially based on the author's own life. As always, a woman, a Gentile Schickse no less, is the temptation that distracts the author from faith and family. His mother is the guardian of his purity and orthodoxy. Will the temptress or the mother succeed? A great Woody Allen-like read, liberally sprinkled with Yddish expressions. The author, however, does not fully make use of the Zurich's Orthodox Jewish community's true linguistic complexity of parallel use of Yiddish, Swiss German, German, English and Hebrew. I am looking forward to the next installment on the life of Herrn Wolkenbruch. Hopefully, it will be turned into a film too. ( )