Thursday, October 08, 2009

Jewish humour

As part of my predilection for American Jews and jewish humour, I have decided to create a glossary of Yiddish terminology to make life a little easier, and to aid in my research into the phenomenon of Shix appeal as evidenced by Elaine's experiences with the Rabbi in Seinfeld?

Of course, moving to Munich was probably not the best bet for finding a hot Jewish husband (hanging around outside Dachau or the Holocaust museum is probably not the best place to pick up) but hey, there you go. Incidentally, my name does mean "perfect" in Hebrew, so this is probably a good place to start for the glossary.

Chutzpah: audacity
Meshugenah: crazy person
Mishugas: nonesense
Kosher: on the level, legitimate
Mazltov: good luck
Schmuck: idiot, fool

Saturday, October 03, 2009

Late Show with Letterman

This is the second time that David Letterman has been faced with extortion. The first instance was in 2005 when his house painter was charged with plotting to kidnap his son. This time around, Letterman was blackmailed by a CBS producer who demanded a cool 2 million in exchange for keeping quiet about Letterman's previous dalliances with staff on The Late Show . How pathetic! How this guy ever landed a job at CBS, I'll never know. Thanks to a successful Sting operation he has now been arrested, and will hopefully never set foot within a 20 mile radius of the CBS studios again.

For all the money that they earn, household names like Letterman and TV news anchors like Jill Dando never get the level of protection they need, and are the recipients of frequent death threats and blackmail. The whole industry must be totally screwed up if self-righteous Hollywood movie stars can rally around to protect monsters like Polanski and his 'lifetime achievements', while other, innocent entertainers are left completely vulnerable to people machinating against them - both outside and inside the industry.

Letterman Blackmail

Chocolate

A self-confessed chocoholic, it took me about a week to consume Chocolate Girls after my Mum had recommended it. A very sweet piece of chick-lit set in wartime Birmingham, about the lives of three women who work at the Bournville chocolate factory.

The story resonated with me because I could recall childhood trips to the Cadbury factory, but it was really the subplot about David; an exiled German Jew who was found as a child and adopted by one of the women, that was the most arresting part of the story. The descriptions of the burnt out synagogue in Berlin, and the family's house in Charlottenburg set memories flooding back to me. David is estranged from his Jewish heritage, and makes Aliyah back to Israel to reunite with his father, who suffered in a concentration camp under the Nazi regime.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to reconnect with my own family, the missing half of my own identity - out of Africa, in Australia, and coldest Scotland. The voices and faces which keep people asking questions "your accent sounds American/Australian/kind of lazy/very English" or to comment "you don't look at all like your mother" and "that's an unusual name, what's the story". Sometimes, it is hard to forge a coherent identity and easier to lie to people about my origin than to admit the fuzziness, the lack that faces me in the mirror. Ultimately though, I decided to create my self through the life I choose to lead, and my identity is not stamped upon me according to the experiences of my family. Maybe this is true for everyone?