MODI:
"I only understood 80%, but I was laughing the whole time"
Exhibit by Daniel Paek and Ryan Saywitz
Introduction
The Jewish people come from varying linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Jewish comedians are no different and express their Jewish background through intertwining various Jewish languages and rituals in their comedic skits. One comedian that does this extremely well is Modi Rosenfield. MODI was born in Tel-Aviv, Israel, and moved to New York when he was 7, where he continued to speak Hebrew and Yiddish in his household throughout his childhood. MODI still maintains these languages in the vernacular sense as aspects of his identity by incorporating them into his comedic routines at varying rates through the use of translanguaging, code-switching, and loan words in his Jewish American English. MODI manages to get a laugh out of his audiences through crowd work as well as the timing of his utilization of Jewish languages and is especially praised by his Jewish fans for the accuracy of his impersonations of Jewish people of all denominations and heritages. One fan, in particular, Michael, enjoyed Modi’s accurate depictions of Ashkenazi and Sephardic culture as well as his use of Hebrew and offered thoughts on Modi’s vast knowledge of Jewish culture that he presents in his own unique comedic style.
MODI on Hatzalah
Analysis of video
MODI’s set takes place at The Laugh Factory in Los Angeles. Immediately the audience is met with something unique to the Jewish Community, Hatzalah (Jewish Ambulance Service). Despite the sudden introduction of the word Hatzalah, which would only be recognizable to a subset of the Jewish audience and to members of the audience with a connection to Jewish culture, this set isn’t designed solely for a Jewish audience. This is evident through MODI’s decision to provide a brief explanation of what Hatzalah is for those unfamiliar with the concept. He cleverly utilizes words and phrases such as “us” when referring to Jewish people and “you’re probably wondering” when referring to the audience, signifying that he understands that the audience contains members that are unfamiliar with the Jewish community and customs and that he is a member of the Jewish community, which permits him to make jokes about Hatzalah. He even asks the audience if Los Angeles has Hatzalah and if there are any members of the audience who are a part of the Hatzalah to get a gauge of the depth of knowledge and familiarity the audience has of that specific topic.
After MODI has introduced Hatzalah, he talks about how there’s an excessive number of names on the side of the Hatzalah vans. He utilizes the Yiddish word geshribn, meaning written, spouts a list of names in Yiddish/Ashkenazi Hebrew, and refers to Yad Vashem (Israel’s memorial to Holocaust victims). The names that MODI lists are Chani bas Gittel, Gitti bas Tzimi, Hoige bas Tzimmes, with the last name listed using the word for sweet potato stew, tzimmes, a parody of Jewish names that would only be recognized by Ashkenazi Jewry. This is his first instance of utilizing Hebrew and Yiddish. These languages signify his heritage and also his association with the Jewish community as well as his Israeli roots. An interesting feature of his Yiddish is the Hasidic pronunciation of geshribn, which stems from his vernacular connection to Yiddish. His usage of the word geshribn was not meant to be understood without context, but rather to express his Ashkenazi heritage and his knowledge of Ashkenazi Orthodox culture. MODI’s accent is also unique in the sense that he is not a Hasid, so one would expect him to utilize Yiddish loanwords with an American accent rather than a Yiddish word not morphologically or phonologically integrated into American English with a Hasidic accent. This is due to MODI’s decision to learn Yiddish from the teachings of the Ludavitcher Rebbe (Rabbi of Lubavitch Hasidism), which is uncommon among Ashkenazi Jews outside of Hasidic and other orthodox communities. Another interesting choice he made was to use Yad Vashem in his joke but not provide an explanation of the memorial to his audience in Los Angeles. Another noticeable feature of his speech is his heavy New York accent. His accent is especially noticeable when he says “dollars.” He deletes the r and extends the vowel o in the word “dollars,” which are common characteristics of a New York accent.
MODI then begins to describe the Hatzalah in an emergency scenario. A part of his act is to impersonate Hatzalah volunteers during a theoretical scenario of them in action. He doesn’t utilize an accent, but instead, he changes his demeanor and delivery of words to portray a member of the Hatzalah. One of the specific habits of the Hatazalah that he chooses to focus on was the Hatzalah volunteers' tendency to give an appraisal of the house that they visit. His imitation highlights his familiarity with Hatzalah volunteers, specifically their mannerisms and intonations that they exude when conversing with people that utilize their service.
Analysis of comments
The comments about MODI’s set about Hatzalah are mostly commenting on the accuracy of his imitation of Hatzalah volunteers. The comments come to a consensus that MODI’s imitation of Hatzalah was accurate. The comments are from the perspective of people that have actually had first-hand experience with the Hatzalah and are able to discern between accurate and inaccurate impersonations. One of the comments specifically focuses on when MODI imitated a Hatzalah volunteer giving an amateur appraisal of the house that they are working at. The commentator utilizes a personal anecdote of their experience as a volunteer of Hatzalah and confirms MODI’s impersonation. Another comment focused on MODI’s joke about the excessive amount of volunteers that are present for a single emergency. They also utilized a personal anecdote of their experience of utilizing the services of Hatzalah.
The commenters seem to all be of Jewish heritage. No one comments negatively or even mentions MODI’s use of language and the decision to use Hebrew. Based on the positive response MODI received, one can assume that he utilized Hebrew accurately and at the right moments to make his impersonations even more accurate and relatable to the Jewish community. All the commentators find humor in MODI poking fun at the Hatzalah, a uniquely Jewish service, which highlights their positive views and the security they feel about their identity as a member of Jewish society.
MODI on the differences between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews
Analysis of video
MODI’s set takes place at the Comedy Cellar in New York. MODI opens up his set by identifying his audience’s composition. He first asks where the Sephardic people are, and after he knows of their presence he utilizes the Hebrew phrase am echad, meaning one nation. MODI’s emphasis on knowing his crowd shines through again, and this allows him to understand which jokes and languages he can use so that he can determine how much he can intertwine his jokes with Jewish references, while still allowing the crowd to understand his jokes. This leads to the introduction of the emphasis of his set, which is the differences between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews and their culture. Rather than listing the religious or cultural differences between the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, he emphasizes the difference in mannerisms between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews through the impersonation of the blessing on Challah in both cultures.
The main difference he explains in his set is the speed at which Ashkenazi Jews do tasks compared to Sephardic Jews. MODI is Ashkenazi and has exposure to all varieties of Ashkenazi communities so it's unsurprising that he knows that Ashkenazi Jews tend to finish everything as quickly as possible. He isn’t Sephardic, but he has experienced Sephardic culture firsthand and affirms that by telling the crowd that he has been to a Sephardic Shabbat dinner. He further highlights that Ashkenazi people do everything hastily by imitating an Ashkenazi family blessing the bread quickly during Shabbat and then eating the bread before the blessing is completely finished. He then imitates a Sephardic family also blessing the bread for Shabbat and emphasizes the length of the blessing by singing a Hebrew blessing with stretched syllables. In both imitations, he utilizes a prayer in Hebrew, which points back to his Jewish heritage and also emphasizes that MODI assumes that the crowd, or a significant portion of them, will be familiar with Jewish prayers in Hebrew. He then talks about the reading of the Torah, and when imitating the Sephardic Jews he again sings in Hebrew with stretched syllables. At the same time, for the Ashkenazi Jews, he recites a line comically fast from the Torah. An interesting choice he makes is to only speak in Hebrew when impersonating both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews instead of vernacular languages such as Ashkenazi’s traditional Yiddish and the Sephardic’s traditional Ladino. This decision reflects Hebrew serving as a unifying force amongst all Jews despite their cultural distinctions.
MODI interestingly utilizes Yiddish words such as schlep sprinkled throughout his set. He says geshribn in a Hasidic accent but utilizes other Yiddish words as loanwords. This means that Yiddish words in his speech aren’t meant to be used in a vernacular sense or in a way to make his impersonation more Ashkenazi but to express his New York Jewish upbringing, Ashkenazi heritage, and knowledge of Ashkenazi culture. MODI’s knowledge of the crowd and his knowledge of crowd work is prevalent throughout this entire set. This appears to be one of his trademarks. He always checks with his crowd throughout the set for cues to see if they are comprehending his material and finding his material entertaining. His utilization of Hebrew along with how he spoke or sang the Hebrew truly conveyed his deep understanding of Jewish culture and his abundance of experiences with different Jewish cultures ranging from his own New York Ashkenazi upbringing to that of the Sephardic community. MODI’s knowledge of different Jewish cultures goes even beyond just simple copying of phonological differences as he is able to pick up on speech intonations and express them accurately in his work.
Analysis of comments
The comments about MODI’s set about the differences between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews mainly comment on other differences and tendencies that MODI may have missed in his set. One of the comments is from an Ashkenazi Jew who mentions some habits he has noticed about Ashkenazi Jews that MODI didn’t mention. They specifically mention the Ashkenazi’s tendency to be sarcastic and say that they cannot comment on Sephardic traditions as they aren’t Sephardic nor familiar with Sephardic traditions. One of the other comments is from a Sephardic Jew who comments on the accuracy of the mannerisms of Sephardic Jews that MODI emphasized in his set. They utilize a personal anecdote of how MODI’s impersonation directly matches their habits during Shabbat. There are also comments about MODI’s performance in Spanish and Hebrew. They both follow the trend of commenting about the accuracy of MODI’s comments in a positive fashion.
Only one comment is about MODI’s language, focusing not on his impersonation skills but on Ashkenazi-accented Hebrew. The commentator states that they are from New York but have lived in Israel. They then say that Ashkenazi-accented Hebrew makes their “skin crawl” whenever they hear it. Their language ideology about Ashkenazi-accented Hebrew was influenced by spending an extended period of time in Israel surrounded by Israeli-accented Hebrew.
Respondent interview
To see MODI’s comedy through the eyes of someone who is a member of the American Jewish community, we interviewed Michael. Michael is an Ashkenazi Jew. His grandparents on his father's side were from Lithuania and left in the early 1900s to avoid the pogroms. His mother came from Galicia, which is now part of modern-day Ukraine. Galician Jews practiced different variations of Judaism than Lithuanian Jews and spoke with different pronunciations and intonations in the Jewish language of Ashkenazi Jews, Yiddish. Both families moved to Brooklyn, New York, and his grandparents ended up living next door to each other, and eventually, they had kids who got married and gave birth to Michael. Michael attended Hebrew school extensively from age 6 to age 13 due to his level of religiosity. Yiddish was also extremely prominent in his Ashkenazi household, which contributed to him being mostly fluent in Yiddish. He met his wife in Detroit in college and they ended up going to synagogue together. They then moved to Chicago, and eventually had children of their own. As his kids grew up, and even now with his grandchildren, he tried his best to have as much Jewish influence in their lives in order to keep his family’s Jewish traditions alive.
Michael appreciated MODI’s set on the differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews more so than his set on Hatzalah. While he thought both were funny, he thought that the set on the Hatzalah was geared towards a broader audience because Jewish language was not very prominent in this set. However, he appreciated the heavy use of Jewish language, mainly Hebrew, in the set about the differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. He thought that MODI’s impression of Jewish davening was especially funny because of how relatable it is to him since that is something he incorporates into his religious routine frequently. Despite him being an Ashkenazi Jew, he has many Sephardic friends and is able to discuss their differences in religious practice with them, and because of this he is knowledgeable about the different and unique religious rituals from both Jewish communities, and therefore he found MODI’s comparison especially funny.
When we asked Michael if he thought that MODI crossed the line between funny and offensive at any point in either of these two videos, he thought that MODI was not offensive in any way. Michael believes that because MODI is part of the Jewish community, he has done his research on the practices of each sect and has practiced his routine enough in order to phrase his jokes correctly so that they are not inaccurate and therefore not offensive. He thinks that if someone outside of the Jewish community were to attempt to tell the same jokes as MODI, they would not have put as much effort and care into perfecting their comedic routine and the accuracy of their impersonations and therefore would have offended the audience, whether that was their intention or not.
Comedian interview
[00:00:33] Daniel Paek: So I'm Daniel Pack. I'm a student at USC for Professor Benor's Jewish languages class, and we will be interviewing you about your use of language and comedy, your thoughts about imitation in comedy about other people's cultures and languages.
[00:00:51] So my first question is, I know that you grew up in Tel Aviv, Israel and you moved to New York at a young age. So what languages were you exposed to and what languages did you speak while growing up?
[00:01:02] MODI: First language is Hebrew at home. And even when we moved to America, it was still Hebrew at home and there was obviously English because we were living in America and going to American schools.
[00:01:14] And then we also had Yiddish in the house for my grandparents. So it was kind of three languages that were there.
[00:01:23] Daniel Paek: Interesting. So are you an Ashkenazi Jew then?
[00:01:26] MODI: I'm an Ashkenazi Jew, yes.
[00:01:27] Daniel Paek: Okay. So I watched one of your videos about Sephardi versus Ashkenazi Jews and, I noticed that you used a lot of Hebrew as well as some Yiddish words.
[00:01:40] Can you explain how you incorporate your language into your comedy, and why do you choose to use those languages?
[00:01:49] MODI: It makes it funnier. The people that know it really get a big laugh. And then I always translate right afterward. If I say something in another language, I'll right away translate.
[00:02:01] So whoever doesn't know it, if I'm usually using a word that's Hebrew or Yiddish, I will then, it almost just makes sense to. Do you understand? The joke doesn't hinge on the word, but it definitely accents it and makes it more of a Jewish feel.
[00:02:28] Daniel Paek: Interesting. So when you decide to use these languages how important is the audience, like knowing your audience to your decision?
[00:02:39] MODI: Obviously you have to feel out the audience and see where you can go with the material. And that's actually the name of my show. Know your audience, and, so you feel what they're looking for, what you can get away with, how specific you can be on a certain subject.
[00:03:00] Daniel Paek: And getting away with it, do you mean like if it's acceptable or anything like that?
[00:03:12] MODI: Get away with it is more, that they're gonna understand it, not so much if it's dirty or racy or, or that type of thing. It's like, am I gonna be able to get this laugh out of them?
[00:03:28] Are they gonna be that, is this too specific of a topic?
[00:03:36] Daniel Paek: Interesting. Yeah. So what have you gotten feedback at all about? Like from people who may not be so Jewish and they may be like, Oh, I didn't really understand, or something like that?
[00:03:47] MODI: Not really. Some of them say, “I wanna tell you, I understood only 80%, but I was laughing the whole time.
[00:03:53] It was so funny”. Don't forget you're in a room of other people laughing. So it's, there's that energy in it, and then there's, then you get many times people just saying that, “wow, I forgot how much I knew about Jewish culture and all of that”. And so you get that, but nobody's walked out like “I don't know what the hell you were talking about”.
[00:04:12] I never had that.
[00:04:15] Daniel Paek: So have you gotten any other type of feedback, especially about like if you did certain imitation, have you been told that like it may not be acceptable or anything like that?
[00:04:28] MODI: No, I don't usually do imitations. I do accents and characters, which is different from imitations. And no, as long as it's appropriate and funny it works.
[00:04:46] Daniel Paek: So, I was watching one of your comedy shows and I think it was about the Hatzalah and I noticed that you impersonated one of them, like if you were a Hatzalah member and I noticed that you didn't use Hebrew and instead you used an accent in English, was that a choice because you were doing it in LA or in America also?
[00:05:05] MODI: Those guys speak English.
[00:05:06] Daniel Paek: Oh, interesting.
[00:05:08] MODI: Why would they, why would I speak in another language? The members of Hatzalah in America speak English.
[00:05:19] Daniel Paek: Interesting.
[00:05:20] MODI: Yeah. Sorry. No, no, I'm just saying that's, that's why I would speak like them.
[00:05:28] Daniel Paek: But if you were, let's say, doing a show in Israel, would you be, would it be completely different?
[00:05:33] Would it, would you be using Hebrew?
[00:05:35] MODI: Like everywhere? I could throw Hebrew around a little bit more, but the show I just did two shows in Israel and they were in English. Because that's what my, what I do my comedy in, I do it in English, but they understood. Obviously, otherwise I wouldn't have done it.
[00:05:58] But I do perform in English and just pepper it up, season it up with Yiddish and Hebrew words.
[00:06:07] Daniel Paek: Would you say that you feel comfortable doing shows in Hebrew just as much as you are comfortable doing it in English?
[00:06:15] MODI: No, no. My act is written out in English, and if I had to do a show in Hebrew, I could probably figure it out and prepare it and do that.
[00:06:23] But why do that? I do my show in English.
[00:06:28] Daniel Paek: Yeah. To what extent do you, what is the extent of your knowledge in Yiddish and how much does it play into your comedy at all?
[00:06:38] MODI: I speak Yiddish, I understand much more than I speak. But I can hold a conversation in Yiddish. It's a very funny language, a very expressive language.
[00:06:51] It's a very, emotional language. There are many words that mean a million other things. I use it, you know, again for punching up. It's great for conversations with friends and stuff. And, it's fun when you can throw in a saying or something.
[00:07:21] It's very useful. It's very funny.
[00:07:24] Ryan Saywitz: I'm sorry I joined the meeting late, but I'm Ryan by the way. It's really nice to meet you. Wanted to say I'm a huge fan of your videos and I’m really, really grateful that you could take the time to talk to us today.
[00:07:34] MODI: Of course.
[00:07:39] Daniel Paek: Would you say that growing up in New York around such a large Ashkenazi Jewish community also helped with your development with Yiddish as well as just being able to use it?
[00:07:54] MODI: To use it?
[00:07:56] Well, I didn't grow up with Yiddish speakers. But the Yiddish I learned the most was, I don't know if you know who the Lubavitcher Rebbe is, he's a big rabbi, very worthwhile Googling him. And his teachings, many of them are in Yiddish, and I love to learn those in Yiddish and that's how I learned most of my Yiddish.
[00:08:25] And so it's, it's a choice. You know, when you're not in a Hasidic community, when they only speak Yiddish, then you are picking, it's a choice whether you wanna pick it up or not, and focus on it. And learn it. Yeah.
[00:08:49] Ryan Saywitz: Yeah. My question would be how did you, so you said you grew up in like with that, not with Yiddish speakers. So how did you learn necessarily ... learn those accents growing up to perfect them to where they are today?
[00:09:19] MODI: I'm very good at picking up accents and picking up the way people speak and all that. And so being around them was later on in life. It wasn't where, where I grew up, I picked it up, and then I had the knowledge of the addition, was able to imitate them in ways that are very accurate.
[00:09:45] Ryan Saywitz: Awesome.
[00:09:47] Daniel Paek: When you imitate Sephardic Jews - I don't think there's a large community of them in the US - correct me if I'm wrong, but-
[00:09:58] MODI: There's a community in the US.
[00:09:59] Daniel Paek: Oh, there is. Okay. So when you, like, what things have you noticed that are different about their culture and how did you pick them up?
[00:10:10] It's just interesting how active you are when it comes to imitating them.
[00:10:14] MODI: I mean, again, as I said to you, I'm very good at imitating. I pick up accents, I pick up languages, I pick up intonations people have. The same with the Sephardic community, the same with French people, the same with English people.
[00:10:29] When I imitate them it's very accurate. So it gets its laughs and then you have to make it funny, obvious. There's a big Sephardic community in America and in Israel and you know, I don't know that you guys are in LA and Los Angeles. There's a lot of US Persian Jews, Jews that came from Iran, which are Sephardic Jews in New York.
[00:10:54] There’s a lot of Syrian Jews. There's a lot of that. They're all over. So, yeah.
[00:11:00] Ryan Saywitz: My question, I had another question. So we talked about this a little bit in our class. Obviously during all of your comedic skits, like they're obviously hilarious. Like no one takes any offense to them.
[00:11:14] I was wondering, where do you think that line would be, between funny and then offensive? Because you do it very well and you do it in a way that just comes off as straight funny. So I was wondering as you were crafting your skits and as you write them, what do you think the criteria is for it to be funny rather than offensive?
MODI on what is considered offensive in comedy
[00:13:46] Daniel Paek: So have you ever tried to imitate, like . . . someone outside of the Jewish community at all? Have you gotten feedback about that?
[00:14:01] MODI: What do you mean?
[00:14:03] Daniel Paek: Have you tried, let's say, have you tried to imitate,
[00:14:07] I'm not like, let's say just an Asian person or something like that. Like just because like you ran across.
[00:14:12] MODI: Yes, I have. I've done, like I said, I do a lot of, a lot of accents. German people, French people, English people, Russian people. I've done a whole bunch of, you know, where you punch it up with a little accent on the, on what the German guy would say and what the English guy would say and what the Asian guy would say.
[00:14:30] To be very careful, obviously. But, it's, you know, it's different, it's a different game today. It's a different arena with everybody filming and everybody so touchy and so offended. You have to just keep an eye on it, you know?
[00:14:58] Ryan Saywitz: My follow-up question to that would be: has that caused you, like today's day and age, as more and more people become more and more offended and there's more kind of inclusivity and acceptance of different things.
[00:15:17] Has that caused you to tone back any of your comedic skits and the material that you use? Does that put any restrictions on your content?
[00:15:27] MODI: Look, I'm not out there to offend people. I was never very offensive to begin with. But, you always keep in mind and how, how to phrase things rightly, correctly.
[00:15:45] I check with people . . . if there's a way I can say something without offending somebody, I would do it.
[00:15:56] Ryan Saywitz: Right. Yeah. No, I, No, I didn't mean that you -
[00:15:59] MODI: Little things like Black people or People of Color. There's a way you can phrase it in the right way, you know, Asian, you know, there's ways of saying it in the right way, where you don't come off sounding like a complete racist.
[00:16:18] Cause the joke isn't landing on the fact that I'm saying it as getting the laugh on the
[00:16:32] a Black rather than Person of Color. You know, the joke is something else, but phrasing and setting it up is very important
[00:16:40] Ryan Saywitz: That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:45] Daniel Paek: Would you say growing up in such a big city like New York has helped you like. Like, understand these other cultures and, and people's opinions about like impersonating other people.
[00:16:59] MODI: Growing up in New York? Well, living in New York, it definitely helps comedy. I lived three years in LA and it's just, there's nothing worse than living in LA for comedy. I live here and you know, you're out all the time. Wherever you are, and wherever you land is foreigners and people and languages.
[00:17:18] And in LA you're sitting in your car the whole time meeting nobody. And if you finally do meet somebody, it's somebody who's American and in the industry and, and just, so living in New York definitely helps. Yeah, definitely helps.
[00:17:41] Ryan Saywitz: I would say . . . in New York, were there specific comedians, whether like you met them in person and you were surrounded by them or just videos you watched that, inspired you to be a comedian? Like which, what Jewish comedians were your biggest inspirations?
[00:18:00] MODI: Um, comics?
[00:18:02] When you say Jewish comedian, it's very, it's not - you know, I'm a Jewish comedian. Jerry Seinfeld is a comedian who's Jewish. Do you understand the difference? It’s a big difference. So, some of the comedians I watched, I dunno if you'd categorize them as Jewish comedians, but they would definitely have very Jewish intonations.
[00:18:31] One of my favorites was Allen King. I don’t know if you've ever heard of him, but if you Google, you'll see a very, very funny comedian. Obviously I love a smart, fast, I love David Tell, I love Jeff Ross. I love Jim Norton. And they're not all Jewish, but you know, it’s comedy, my mind just happens to, to go on a Jewish, it just, it's an insight into the Jewish mind.
[00:19:07] Right. You know, I have a bit, I talk about the Queen's funeral, right? The queen who just died in England and, you know, it's me observing the funeral in the way a Jewish person's head works when you're watching something like, observational and you know, to that event where somebody else would just talk about, I don't know, something else that happened with the Queen.
[00:19:38] Ryan Saywitz: Of course. Yeah, yeah.
[00:19:42] Daniel Paek: From these comedians that you've just listed, what have you, what do you think you've picked up from them? The most important like, assets.
[00:19:52] MODI: Picked up from them? I don’t know, you ask who I enjoy watching, I don't really pick up, from Alan King, I watched his cadence. His cadence is very good.
[00:20:04] So, I watch that, but the other ones I watch more just for entertainment.
[00:20:13] Daniel Paek: Okay, then in general, where . . . have you picked up your skills as a comedian? Was it just experience?
[00:20:23] MODI: You just do comedy. Yeah. You can't pick up skills as a comedian. There’s no, uh, class at USC for comedy.
[00:20:32] You either have it or you don't, and you can develop it into a craft. You have to just work on it. It becomes a profession. Yeah. I mean, there's classes for comedy, but it's just basically to help comedians organize their material and, and get a chance to do it on stage. But I don't, uh, I think it's very innate.
[00:20:58] Ryan Saywitz: Have you ever, have you, yourself ever gone down that route of like possibly considering teaching comedy or just mentoring up-and-coming comedians either in your area or that you've just come across?
[00:21:11] MODI: I have not, I have no desire to teach comedy and, um, mentor wise, I have a few comedians that, uh, you know, that they open for me and they ask me for advice and I throw them gigs that they don't pay enough for me.
[00:21:23] Um, they're my friends. I've been doing this for a while, so now I can give some of my information to them and it's more about the gig, about the show. Make sure you have a microphone. Make sure they have the sound, the lighting, 'cause you're doing comedy in a place that's not meant for comedy.
[00:21:43] And if you are doing, maybe do the door deal this way, do the door deal that way. But that's more the business aspect of it. And I give them advice on, you know, if I watch their set, I'll give them advice on different things they can change. And I always take advice. If someone has an extra tagline for me, I'll be happy to incorporate if it's good.
[00:22:08] Of course.
[00:22:08] Ryan Saywitz: Yeah. That's awesome. That must feel, I would think pretty fulfilling to be able to kind of like pass that on, right? On that knowledge.
[00:22:08] MODI: Yeah. That's, that's great.
[00:22:19] Daniel Paek: Bringing it back to about your languages. Do you think that like the languages, the languages that you choose to use in your comedy, do you think that is a main focus?
[00:22:35] MODI: Pardon? What do you mean languages?
[00:22:37] Daniel Paek: Uh, like just Hebrew and stuff like that. Do you think those are the main focus of your comedy or, how significant. . .
[00:22:43] MODI: I, I perform in English, so . . . it's not an issue of what, what languages I'm performing in.
[00:22:59] Daniel Paek: I meant like, how significant do you think it is to your, like punchlines and stuff?
[00:23:05] MODI: Not significant at all.
[00:23:18] Ryan Saywitz: Trying to think what, what other questions would I have? I would ask, is there any new material that has become more of an inspiration to you, like any new insights about Judaism or any other cultures that have become more prominent in your comedy as of late than they were maybe more early?
MODI on recent rise in Antisemitism
[00:26:11] Ryan Saywitz: How often do you come across those crowds? Do crowds actually, like, do they say something to you like after your show and, or, What is that like? What is the Holocaust?
[00:26:19] MODI: Uh, no. They would Google it. They wouldn't come up to me. You know, they wouldn't come up.
[00:26:27] Just like if someone was talking about something with sports. You know? I have no idea. Anything, anything about sports, anything about teams. If someone's mentioning something, I'm not gonna ask him, “who's John Doe and what did he do”, I'll Google it afterwards. I'll figure out what happened and see. It's that kind of vibe.
[00:26:48] Ryan Saywitz: How do you, how do you get that feedback though, that you find out that your crowds didn't know what the Holocaust was?
[00:26:54] MODI: DMs. DMs. People say, “Hey, I didn't know what this was, that's so funny, my friend is this, my mother that, my grandparents knew somebody who was a survivor.”
[00:27:05] You get that. Very important. Yeah.
[00:27:10] Ryan Saywitz: Yeah. And then do you take a lot of insight from those DMs and kind of use that to craft other skits as well?
[00:27:16] MODI: No, but sometimes somebody throws me a tagline, something very funny. And so I could incorporate it. Okay. When someone offers me a joke, I always listen.
[00:27:26] You never know what's what it's gonna be it's gonna be something good. I always listen.
[00:27:36] MODI: Other questions?
[00:27:37] Daniel Paek: Um, I think we're good.
[00:27:40] MODI: Good. Well, I wish you guys the best of luck with the class and I hope this was helpful. Thank you so much.
[00:27:45] And uh, you must have a very good professor because my manager told me he really pushed for this interview and I don't usually do these things.
[00:27:57] Ryan Saywitz: She was really pushing for you. She's a huge fan of you.
[00:28:01] MODI: I hope to see you guys and her at a live show.
[00:28:04] Daniel Paek: That'd be awesome. That'd be cool.
[00:28:07] Ryan Saywitz: Thank you so much.
[00:28:08] MODI: My pleasure. All the best guys. Good luck. Have a great one.
Analysis of Interview
We asked MODI about his linguistic background, comedy, and incorporation of his arsenal of languages in his work. MODI was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, and moved to New York at the age of 7. He told us that he spoke Hebrew growing up in his household, learned Yiddish because of his grandparents, and learned English because he grew up in New York and attended American schools. We also asked about his cultural background and discovered that he is a non-Hasidic Ashkenazi Jew, which led us to question him about how he has maintained his Yiddish skills throughout the years. He told us that he listens to the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s teachings in Yiddish, resulting in most of his knowledge of Yiddish. He also mentioned that learning Yiddish is a choice and not a necessity outside of Orthodox communities. This reflects recent trends in Jewish languages. Yiddish has massively declined in vernacular use and is no longer a dominant language in Jewish communities. Yiddish is now commonly used in postvernacular ways to connect to Ashkenazi heritage outside of Hasidic communities.
We also asked MODI about comedy and when jokes become offensive rather than funny. He thought that delivery of the joke, membership within the community that is being joked about, and accuracy of the jokes were three major factors in when a joke may become offensive. This aligns with the common belief in America and comedy that membership in a particular group allows one to make jokes about that particular group without receiving backlash. MODI told us about an incident during the New York Marathon, where Hasidim tried to cross the street through the marathon runners. MODI said that he posted a video of the incident on social media as a joke, but he said someone outside of the Jewish community posting the same video on their social media would not send the same message. MODI also believes that accuracy makes the joke “so real,” which contributes to a joke not being offensive. MODI also mentioned that he has a natural tendency to pick up on different people’s mannerisms, which allows him to accurately depict people of various cultures.
MODI also mentioned that his comedy is a gateway to the Jewish world for outsiders who are unfamiliar with Jewish culture. He told us that sometimes he will receive messages from people who heard the word “Holocaust” in a joke telling him that they are unfamiliar with the Holocaust. He told us that his main job is to get laughs, but his insider references in his routine plant curiosity in people and encourage them to learn about topics, such as the Holocaust. He said that the joke goes beyond the scope of just comedy when he is able to enlighten someone on Jewish history and culture through his act, especially with the recent rise in antisemitism.
When asking MODI about using his arsenal of languages in his comedic routines, he told us that he didn’t believe his use of Jewish languages, Hebrew and Yiddish, was significant to the comedic effect of his work. He also mentioned the amount of reference to Jewish culture and the amount of Hebrew/Yiddish he chooses to incorporate in his act depends on the feedback of the crowd. Despite MODI’s focus on crowd work, there are always going to be varying levels of knowledge of Jewish language and culture throughout an audience. MODI said that sometimes audience members tell him that they only understood portions of his jokes and references to Jewish culture, but he has never had an audience member that didn’t understand anything at all. MODI also mentioned that he utilizes elements of Hebrew and Yiddish to add a Jewish feel to his work and express his Jewish background.
Implications
Hebrew and the Jewish people have been inseparable throughout history. The Jewish people were first forcibly removed from their homeland by the Babylonians in 587 BCE and forced to assimilate into Babylonian culture due to external pressures (Lowenstein 2000). Assimilation meant that Hebrew fell out of favor with the more prestigious Aramaic of the Babylonian empire and as a result, the vernacular use of Hebrew began to decline. This pattern of migration and assimilation would continue without change until the creation of the modern state of Israel. A majority of Mizrahi Jews would eventually speak Arabic due to the Muslim conquest of the Middle East. The Sephardic Jews originally thrived on the Iberian peninsula until the Jewish expulsion in 1492. They created their own Romance language, Ladino, due to constant language contact with Spanish, and even after the expulsion Ladino would continue to thrive in Turkey and Northern Africa (Lowenstein 2000). The Ashkenazi Jews originated in Germanic lands until they were forced to Eastern Europe due to persecution. They created a Germanic language, Yiddish, due to constant language contact with German and would continue to speak it in Eastern Europe and Yiddish even developed into multiple dialects (Lowenstein 2000). Despite the mass diaspora of Jews, the many unique languages that were spoken by Jews, and the loss of vernacular Hebrew, they were all able to connect through Hebrew found in the Torah and Rabbinic texts.
Connection to Jewish culture through Hebrew is no different for the American Jewish community than any other Jewish community. The term Hebrew infusion is exposing people to Hebrew to create a connection to Jews in Israel and to Jews around the world through the language of Hebrew, even if the Hebrew language isn’t being utilized in a vernacular way or as a quasilect (Benor 2018). MODI utilizes language in a similar way to language infusion. The main difference is that he isn’t exposing people that aren’t connected to Jewish culture to Jewish languages in order to foster a connection, but rather utilizing Jewish languages in order to express his membership in the Jewish community and to connect to people that are also members of the Jewish community together through uniquely Jewish humor. His Hebrew isn’t meant to be understood but is a supplement in order to make his jokes unique to the Jewish people. MODI said that “If I say something in another language, I'll right away translate” indicating that Hebrew is being used in a postvernacular sense and that is confirmed when he said, “The joke doesn't hinge on the word (Hebrew word), but it definitely accents it and makes it more of a Jewish feel”. Michael, our Jewish American respondent who reviewed MODI’s comedy, also recognized this, particularly in MODI’s set about the Hatzalah, and pointed out that the use of Hebrew in that set was more for secular Jews as the use of Hebrew was less prevalent and used to express Jewishness.
This brings us to the topic of comedy, specifically Jewish culture, and language in comedy. Before World War II and during World War II, being Jewish was seen as less than acceptable in America and therefore Jewish culture was suppressed within the Jewish American communities (Saposnik 1998). Because of the external oppression and internal need to assimilate into American society, Jewish comedians would hide their Jewishness under their stage personas (Saposnik 1998). Eventually, America would see a rise in the embracement of America’s multicultural background rather than shunning influence from immigrant cultures, and that bled into multicultural American communities. The Jewish community would be no different, and uniquely Jewish comedy became more common. MODI is one of the comedians that focuses on the cultural aspects of Jewish life and is able to perform for audiences ranging from secular to Hasidic Jewry (Lobell 2020). This is interesting because the comments under both sets that we analyzed do not express any concern about MODI impersonating Sephardic Jews or Hatzalah volunteers despite him not having membership within those communities. Michael also felt that MODI’s act was not offensive in any way.
So is MODI’s comedy not offensive because of his accuracy or because of other factors? MODI himself said that “I couldn’t do these jokes if I wasn’t Jewish” and that “I know it’s funny because it’s so real.” There’s a common belief in comedy that mocking your own community and people isn’t offensive because one wouldn’t want to oppress their own people (Chun 2004). But MODI is a non-Hasidic Ashkenazi Jew and doesn’t only mock the habits and intonations of his own communities, but also those of Hasidic and Sephardic Jews. There’s clearly more to MODI’s comedy being acceptable than membership, and accuracy plays a big role in that. People who see his comedy focus on the accuracy of his impersonations and intonation, and because of that they aren’t seeing false stereotypes being perpetuated, but traits that are accurate and recognizable by Jews of diverse backgrounds. Michael also agreed that MODI’s impersonations were clearly accurate and well worded to not come across as offensive in any way. He also thought that being Jewish helped MODI to be immersed in Jewish culture and therefore accurately display diverse Jewish accents and intonations. Another factor is that MODI technically does not commit racial crossing (Chun 2004). Members outside of the Jewish community probably wouldn’t notice the changes in accent or intonation when MODI speaks in Hebrew, much like how members of the Asian community are able to tell the ethnic distinctions of different mock Asian accents (Chun 2004). Michael was also able to recognize MODI’s accuracy in the different ways Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews perform religious practices and recite Hebrew. MODI also considers his crowd’s knowledge of Jewish culture when he selects which language to utilize in order to understand which jokes would be more acceptable in their eyes. This is called situational switching, which is code-switching depending on the audience and situation the speaker is in (Matras 2009).
Language in MODI’s comedy reflects the trends of Jewish languages in the modern world. MODI only utilizes textual Hebrew when impersonating Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews instead of their traditional vernacular languages, Yiddish and Judeo-Arabic. MODI is a fluent speaker of Yiddish, but he mainly learned the language out of choice by listening to Yiddish-speaking rabbis rather than needing the language in order to communicate. When he does utilize Yiddish in his work it is mostly as one-word code-switches and loanwords that are meant to be understood with context. MODI primarily utilizing Hebrew to signify his Jewish heritage and membership in Jewish society matches the pattern of Jewish languages seen today. Most Jews now speak the language of their host country in an unmarked way or modern vernacular Hebrew due to the creation of the modern state of Israel (Lowenstein 2000). Michael has also experienced a similar change within his own family with his family losing touch with Yiddish as more and more generations grew up submerged in American culture. The decline in the variety of Jewish languages doesn’t mean that the cultural differences are completely lost, as expressed by MODI’s ability to discern the two groups through differing intonations and habits. But the loss of ancestral Jewish languages does diminish the cultural heritage and identity that has developed over many generations.
Bibliography
Benor, S. 2018. “Hebrew Infusion in American Jewish Life: Tensions and the Role of Israeli Hebrew.” What We Talk About When We Talk About Hebrew: (and What it Means to Americans).
Chun, E. 2004. “Ideologies of Legitimate Mockery: Margaret Cho’s Revoicings of Mock Asian.” Pragmatics : Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association.
Lobell, K. 2020. “Comedian Modi Entertaining With Original Characters Throughout the Pandemic”. Jewish Journal
Lowenstein, S. 2000. The Jewish Cultural Tapestry: International Jewish Folk Traditions.
Matras, Y. 2009. Language Contact.
Saposnik, I. 1998. “These Serious Jests: American Jews and Jewish Comedy”. Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought.
Tabachnick, T. 2019. "No joke: This Jewish comic got his Start on Wall Street".