starfishred wrote on Jul 19, ’08

oh how wonderful I feel so at home here it is uncanny sue-is there an explanation-

millimusings wrote on Jul 19, ’08

Fantastic Sue and the poem….I can not describe the impact that it leaves with in me, with it’s harsh truths and reality.

lauritasita wrote on Jul 20, ’08, edited on Jul 20, ’08

Oy vey, that Gertrude is a scream !!! I remember Joan Rivers, but especially Gilda Ratner. I miss Gilda. She was great. Wonderful post, and I enjoyed the poem at the end.

brian51 wrote on Jul 21, ’08

You forgot Howie Mandel and Eugene Levy, from my home town Toronto!!

sanssouciblogs wrote on Jul 21, ’08

You forgot Howie Mandel and Eugene Levy, from my home town Toronto!!

But they are not funny WOMEN! nyah, nyah! 🙂

rxproff wrote on Apr 19, ’10

Day 2 at the National Yiddish Book Center: Funny Jewish Women Now you listen to me, dahlinks, you must, I sed you MUST be vatching these videos, you’ll plotz! >>So go here already!
But don’t forget, there are more trip things before this! >>Go here! Part 1 >>Now go here! Part 2 So DO it already!!!
Now for some delightful memories.
1. Episodes of the 1950’s series, “The Goldbergs,” featuring Gertrude Berg.  I was able to find a comparable video for you to enjoy. From my childhood, I can still hear Gertrude Berg yell out the window (vinder) to her neighbor, “Yoo hoo, Mrs. Bloom! Get S.O.S.! I’m tellink you, with more soap it’s loaded!”

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2. Here is a trailer to a fun movie, “Making Trouble.” Funny Jewish women were featured: Molly Picon, Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, Joan Rivers, Wendy Wasserstein, and Gilda Radner. (Dedicated to Seth–Katz’s famous Deli–“Remember When Harry Met Sally? “I’ll have what she’s having” was filmed here. One hot pastrami on rye with a kasha knish, coming right up!)
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You may have heard of Michael Wex, he is the author of the best sellers, “Born to Kvetch,”
and “Just Say Nu.”

 

Mr. Wex is one of the funniest speakers I have ever heard.
On the evolution of Yiddish, from “Born to Kvetch:”
“The French and Italian Jews who began to settle in the German-speaking areas mentioned above were quick to replace the vernaculars they had brought with them with the German spoken by their new neighbors. Although certain affectively charged terms from the earlier Romance languages were absorbed into the Jew’s new vernacular, these did not amount to much more than islands in a sea of German.  Yet, as the Romance influence continued to shrink, the Semitic elements that had crept into those Romance vernaculars not only held their own on German soil, they increased and multiplied, in accordance with the very first comandment of the Torah. Although Hebrew and Aramaic had not been spoken languages for centuries, the Jews living in Germany had the same access to classical sources as their French and Italian forebears, and they were producing large amounts of religious literature of every type, culminating in the virtual golden age of German-Jewish thought in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. German was able to efface almost any trace of the Romance languages spoken by the Jews, even as the other foreign componentt of Jewish speech, far more exotic stew of Hebrew and Aramaic known as loshn-koydesh, the holy tongue, took root and flourished in German linguistic soil.”
From, “Just Say Nu,” some Yiddish for you.
““Hak Meer Nisht Ken Tshelnik“, or, Don’t knock me a tea kettle, which means “please stop boring me with incessant talk on a subject of no interest to anybody but yourself.” The idea is, “Please stop banging away at me like the lid on a kettle that has long since boiled out.”
Oy Vay Iz Meer=Oh, woe is me!
I will close this part of the series with a poem by Yiddish poet, Anna Margolin, translated by Ruth Whitman. Years

Like women who are loved very much and are still not sated,
who walk through life with laughter and anger,
and in their eyes shine fire and agate–
that’s how our years were.

and they were like actors, playing
Hamlet out of the side of their mouths in the square;
like grandees in a land, a proud land,
who seize rebellion by the scruff of the neck.

But now see how submissive they are, my God,
as silent as a smashed piano,
and they take each blow and taunt as a caress,
and seek you, not believing in you.

There is more coming…