Author Michael Wex Analyzes Yiddish Curses and Jokes

Michael Wex is a Canadian novelist, playwright, translator, lecturer, performer, and author of books on language and literature.His specialty is Yiddish and his book Born to Kvetch was a surprise bestseller in 2005.

He recently participated in a series of lectures sponsored by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. The series, The History of Jews and Comedy in America, included a session on Yiddish Curses and Jokes, which is one of his favorite topics.

In this excerpt, Wex explains the origins and context of some of the more popular Yiddish curses.

Enjoy !

A Seven Week Online Series "Is Anything Okay? The History of Jewish Comedy in America" Launches on Thursday

From the earliest jokes told on the Lower East Side to the comedy routines honed in the Catskills, Ashkenazi Jews developed radically new forms of comedic output in the 20th century. On film and television, pioneering Jewish comics broke norms and challenged taboos of American culture.

In the newest online course from the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, we can delve into the history of Jewish comedy and its explosive development in the United States. We will see hundreds of unique archival objects, including vintage jokebooks, early comedy records, film, television, and radio clips, photographs, and posters, along with interviews and discussions with leading scholars and personalities from the world of Jewish comedy.

The 7-week course, just in time for Purim and co-sponsored by the Catskills Borscht Belt Museum will launch on Thursday, March 20 online, with a new episode coming every week. The course is free but registration is required.

As Alan Zeitlin wrote in The Jewish Journal,

The first of seven episodes will be “Roots: Jewish Humor in Traditional Ashkenazi Jewish Life” and the last one will be “Contemporary Jewish Comedy” while others will explore the Catskills’ and internal Jewish conflict. The course will continue with a new episode dropping every week.

There will be lectures given by scholars and academics; Jewish comedians, writers and producers will also share their insights,. While it will focus on Ashkenazi Jewish humor, there will be some detours to the humor of Sephardic Jews. 

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews Celebrate Ladino Day in New York City

Yesterday was Ladino Day, a celebration of Sephardi culture. Yiddish instructor Moishele Alfonso attended the 7th annual event at the Center for Jewish History in New York City. There, he found several Yiddish speakers and chatted with them in order to find out what brought them there. 

Ladino Day is an educational and celebratory program that centers the Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) language through story and song, and with lectures and reflections from scholars, activists, and community members.

Due to demographic displacement, the destruction wrought by the Holocaust, and the pressures of assimilation, the number of native Ladino speakers has declined rapidly in the last 100 years: UNESCO has even designated Ladino an endangered language.

The language is being kept alive by colleges such as the University of Washington and Jewish organizations such as YIVO which conduct Sephardic Studies programs and annual celebrations with stories and song.

Moishele's video is in Yiddish, with English subtitles.

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

Comedian Robert Klein in Funny Routine About Ordering a Kosher Meal on an Airline

Last year the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research hosted an exhibition and panel discussion at the Center for Jewish History titled Professional Jokers: Jewish Jesters from the Golden Age of American Comedy.

The panel discussion on Jews and comedy featured comedian Robert Klein, comedy writer Alan Zweibel, Old Jewish Comedians artist Drew Friedman, The Comedians author Kliph Nesteroff, Jewish popular culture scholar Dr. Eddy Portnoy, and comedian Gilbert Gottfried. The panel was  moderated by comedy writer Frank Santopadre.

We found the complete panel discussion, running for an hour and 40 minutes, on YouTube. It was very funny, as you might expect. Also, as you might expect, the discussion covered a wide range of the panelists' recollections of their experiences with some of the great comedians of our time, some of which venture into territory that is clearly not family-friendly.

Because we try to post only clean comedy we're sharing a short excerpt from the program in which Robert Klein does a funny routine about the experience of ordering a kosher meal on an airplane. YouTube usage rules don't let us cut pieces from a video, but we're starting the video at the beginning of Klein's routine and ending it at the end. 

If you don't shy away from really funny adult Jewish humor, you can easily find the whole program on YouTube.

Enjoy! 

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.