Word: yiddishisms
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Another type of inhibition has been banished by the considerable Yiddishization of American comedy. Before the Tonight show, the only Jewish comics most of America knew were simply comedians who happened to be Jews, few of whom would risk their inside Yiddish humor on a general audience. But as the funnymen limbered and loosened up on late-night TV, they began to use Jewish words, phrases and jokes, many of which made Bloomington laugh as hard as The Bronx. Jewish humor has penetrated strongly into print as well. How to Be a Jewish Mother became a big seller, bought...
...time when assimilation, intermarriage and secularism are eroding U.S. Judaism, religious education has become a major Jewish tool for survival. The Jewish school system in the U.S.-Hebrew-or Yiddish-language day schools, plus afternoon and Sunday schools that teach only religion-is now a $100 million operation with 700,000 students and 17,000 teachers...
CHOI Oi (as in the Yiddish expletive oy oy!) is an all-purpose Vietnamese phrase of uncertain origin, meaning, at best, good grief...
...singing voice is far better. He handles himself with grace and gallantry despite some crippling vulgarities in the Dale Wasserman script. Considering the pitch of her voice and the plunge of her neckline, Joan Diener is less an auditory than a visual treat. Irving Jacobson's Yiddish-accent Sancho Panza presents another problem...
...Zulu and the Zayda. Zayda means grandfather in Yiddish, and a pixyish, diminutive grandpa (Menasha Skulnik) is the hero of this "play with music" set in Johannesburg. This Zayda speaks three languages-Zulu Yiddish, English Yiddish, and Yiddish Yiddish. He has a black African friend and com panion, a tall, open-faced child of good nature (Louis Gossett), who strangely enough also speaks Yiddish a good deal of the time. Playgoers who know only English may feel a sneaking desire to hear their mother tongue, but that would be a questionable mercy when the dialogue runs to such dire profundities...