Judy Gold:
Jewish Mothers, New Jersey, and Sexuality
Exhibit by Mia Russman and India Yeoh
Introduction
Judy Gold is a Jewish lesbian comedian who often references Judaism and her connection to it in her comedy. Judy grew up in an Ashkenazi environment in New Jersey where her mother spoke Yiddish, and she often incorporates Yiddish loanwords into her comedy. She believes that Yiddish is an incredible language to use in comedy because it is colorful and descriptive. The Jewish American respondent we interviewed is Nina, who grew up in New Jersey as well and was exposed to many of the same aspects of a Jewish environment as Judy was. Nina enjoyed Judy’s comedy and did not feel as if Judy’s accent imitations of her own mother were problematic, but she felt less comfortable with Judy’s imitations of Israelis.
Judy Gold - My Mother Would Make a Great GPS Woman
Analysis of video
In this video, Judy Gold imitates the accent of her Jewish mother. Judy makes the timbre of her voice whinier and speaks more slowly than usual. There are many vowel changes that she makes during her imitation, pronouncing the “a” in “ass” more like the vowel sound in the word “yeah.” She also elongates other vowels, such as the “a” in “talk” and the “i” in “miles.” In addition, she uses postvocalic r-deletion in the words “there” and “prepared,” which is a stereotypical feature of New York Jews. Many people consider an “American Jewish” accent to be synonymous with a New York accent, and since Judy is from New Jersey, this regional accent stereotype holds true.
Not only does Judy play up the linguistic aspect of imitating her mother, but she plays into the stereotypes that are held against Jews as well. Older Jewish women, particularly Jewish mothers, are thought of as cranky and argumentative. Judy tells specific stories that play up her mother’s stereotypically “Jewish” nature in order to garner more laughs from the audience. However, since most stereotypes are based in a little bit of truth, Judy’s Jewish audience (or anyone who grew up with a Jewish mother) can relate to her set.
Analysis of comments
The comments of this video are a mixed bag. Half the comments are positive and praise Judy’s sense of humor and delivery. Some of the remarks are commentary on the Jewish aspects of Judy’s comedy, such as one comment that says: “One Jewish mum is quite a handful, but two? plus a bubbe too? oy vey1.” The use of the Yiddish-origin words “bubbe” and “oy vey” indicates that the commenter is likely Jewish, and the tone of the comment suggests that they relate to her comedy. However, the other half of Judy’s comments are surprisingly negative, with many making fun of her height or appearance and others dictating vulgar orders and obscenities. One comment attacked her approach to comedy, saying: “how she spurts all the cliches begging for sympathy.”
Judy Gold - Dresscodes in Israel
Analysis of video
In this video, Judy imitates some Israeli producers who she interacted with on a trip to Israel. This accent is completely different from the New York Jewish accent because these Israelis did not speak English as their first language. Judy begins to use a throatier pronunciation for the letter “r,” as well as turning the “i” in “listen” into more of an “ee” sound. In addition, she includes a throaty “rrrrr” at the end of her imitation, not part of any word, in order to emphasize the way Israelis pronounce their “r”s and to highlight the comedic nature of her imitation. All of these characteristics, in addition to Judy’s more guttural timbre, are common to a stereotypical Israeli accent. She also uses awkward English grammar when she says, “It is so wonderful that you come to perform here.” This grammar, while not technically incorrect, feels clunky within the sentence and is not the way that a native English speaker would phrase this sentiment. Using present tense verbs in place of other, more natural tenses, as well as a lack of contractions, are two common ways to identify non-native English speakers, and Judy Gold makes use of these phenomena in her imitation.
This imitation calls into question the issues of whether or not it was okay for Judy, as an American Jewish woman, to impersonate an Israeli accent. Judy herself speaks English as her first language and does not have an Israeli accent. She completely changes her accent to impersonate them (as opposed to the times when she imitates her mom, in which she only slightly changes her accent). The context of the video includes her poking fun at the producers, which also changes the way audiences might interpret her imitations of them.
Analysis of comments
There are no comments on this video, so we searched for comments on other YouTube videos featuring Judy Gold. Most of these videos have comments that are split (half positive, half negative), which is a surprising amount of hate for a comedian to receive. Negative comments such as “Wow. A loud jew. Hysterical.” are balanced out by positive comments such as “‘we were talking about something other than my mother, so my mother got up from the table and fell…’ LMAO. Any Jew can relate to this. Jewish Mother’s are all the same !!!!” There are also a significant number of Jewish commenters, as can be inferred by this comment: “ugh how did this conventional yenta end up in a Carlin doc.” The use of the word “yenta,” which refers to a gossipy woman and has Yiddish origins, indicates that Jews are most likely watching Judy Gold’s videos and don’t always love her content.
Respondent interview
Nina was our Jewish-American respondent for this project. Nina is an Ashkenazi Jew from Montclair, New Jersey, who grew up in a Reform community with a lot of Jewish people. She went to temple and was Bat Mitzvahed, in addition to going to Jewish summer camp. Her community was very culturally Jewish, but she did not interact with a lot of Orthodox people.
Nina is a native English speaker but grew up around a lot of Yiddish loanwords in her family environment. Her parents and grandparents would kiss her on the “keppy,” and call her “meshugenah,” and tell her that it’s time for her to “schluffen.” She believes the use of these Yiddish loanwords connects her to her immigrant ancestors and culture more. Now that she is at college in a less Jewish community, she notices a drop in the use of Yiddish loanwords around her, and that non-Jews who use Yiddish loanwords do not even know that they are Yiddish! (Benor, 2022). Hearing these words reminds her of home.
Nina believes that as long as it is your language and your culture, imitating an accent or language is acceptable (Chun, 2004). As a Jewish person, she was not offended while watching Judy Gold imitate a Jewish American, because Judy Gold is as well. She thinks that it could have been an issue if Judy imitated another group that she was not a part of, but the thought of Judy being offensive while imitating her own people did not even cross her mind until she was asked about it. She was confused and surprised when Judy imitated an Israeli and felt less comfortable with it than with her imitations of her American Jewish mother.
Comedian interview
Did you go to temple growing up in Clark, New Jersey?
Yes, every week. Kosher. Every week, temple. Every holiday, my mother was so Jew-y.
How did growing up in New Jersey influence your identity?
Well, I’m just writing about this now, which is so interesting. My mother was from Manhattan, she grew up on 94th Street. My father was from Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and they picked the halfway point. My mother would always say to me, it’s too quiet here, I would rather pitch a tent in Times Square and live in there, you know. So it wasn’t like I was living in New Jersey and was like “oh, this is great.” I grew up in a small town, and they were very racist. I was 6 feet tall when I was 13, and it was like bullying 24/7. I was such an outsider in this town, and I think because I grew up like that, because fitting in was really important because it was a small town, and where people sort of thought the same. A lot of racist people there, and there wasn’t a lot of diversity. I think part of it was that there was the closed-mindedness, but it was combined with parents who didn’t buy into that, and taught me that this wasn’t the real world. I mean New Jersey is the outsider, and the state that everyone wants to make fun of, and we all know that there are some really great things about New Jersey. It was like I was the Jersey inside New Jersey. My therapist tells me that I should’ve used my wicked sense of humor to get back at them, but now, god forbid someone heckles me at a show, they better watch out.
Was there a Jewish community in Clark?
Yes, there was a Jewish community, but they also had a KKK. There was one side of town that was pretty much Jews and Italians. But the town, on the other side, had a lot of German people. There was antisemitism. To put it into perspective, the Holocaust ended 17 years before I was born. To me, at that time, it was eons ago. But it wasn’t! And there were signs of it everywhere. My mother’s friends had tattoos, people had accents, and people talked about the war. I was always reminded of the Holocaust, and my parents ingrained in me that everyone hates us. There was definitely racism, and antisemitism, but there was no social media. I was called names, but I could go home and go to my room to get away from it. But now kids go to their room and get on the computer, and it’s 1000 times worse, I think. All of this has informed my comedy, because that’s what I know. A comedian talks about what they know, and their life experiences.
You need an audience to tell you where the line is, and if something’s funny. Say you’re in the middle of a mural, you don’t invite an audience over to say, “Hey, this tree here, should I move it”. Nobody does that. But with comedy, you need the audience to tell you what’s funny, and so much of it is so personal because we write about what we know. And when you leave a comedian’s set, you leave thinking that you know so much more about that person. This doesn’t happen in other art forms and is a reason why it’s so hard for people to separate a comedian from their act. When a comedian in real life does bad things, you remember that they made you laugh, and you’re confused.
How did growing up in a community with a lot of Jews influence your connection to religion, and what was the type of Judaism seen in your community?
It was Conservative and observant. There were also some Orthodox families mixed in there. Also, women could not go on the bima for a really long time. And I was such a rebel. That’s really what comedy is: questioning authority and speaking truth to power. There were Jewish women comedians when I was growing up, and I thought that they were speaking for me, and that they’re speaking like me. You feel represented. My parents went to synagogue every week. They were very involved. My dad was the treasurer at my synagogue and my mother was co-president at Hadassah, and they were really involved. People often ask me, well, “You’re a lesbian, and you’re a Jew. So are you more of a lesbian comedian or a Jewish comedian?” And I hate that question, but a lot of people ask it. Being gay is a part of me, it’s who I love, it’s how my family is. But, being Jewish is all of me. It’s how I think, it’s what I eat, how I talk, my hair. So yes, the Jewish community and being Jewish is a huge part of who I am, but when I began doing standup, the majority of the feedback I got would be telling me that I’m too Jewish. They would tell me to stop being so Jewish and to straighten my hair. My Judaism is so much a part of my comedy. I also think that there is a reason that there are so many Jewish comedians. Think about your Bat Mitzvah. You take a passage from a book that is thousands of years old, that people are sitting around all day arguing about. Jews are taught to ask questions and taught to argue. Everything is a question, it is truly a thinking person’s religion. They give you this passage, and say, connect this to yourself. They ask you to make it personal, and draw questions from it. That’s what a joke is. It’s taking a situation and looking at it from a different perspective. It’s looking at something from a different perspective and revealing something that people haven’t really thought about. As marginalized people, we had to use comedy to disarm people because they had preconceived notions about us. We had to make them laugh so that they could say, “Oh, Jews aren’t so bad.” That’s the power of comedy.
Did you go to a Jewish school or Jewish summer camp? Were you Bat Mitzvahed?
I went to a public school, and Hebrew school 3 times a week, and Jewish summer camp. The camp was really Jew-y. It was kosher. I was educated and socialized by Jews. Yes, I was Bat Mitzvahed, and I really felt like on the bima was my first performance. I had the command of the room, and I said a few things to get a laugh. Next Bat or Bar Mitzvah you go to, pay attention: the kid will always say something at the beginning of the speech to get a laugh.
How do you think the intersectionality of your Jewish identity and your lesbian identity shows in your comedy?
That’s such a great question. My sense of humor comes from being Jewish, but my sense of who I am in the world, and how I’m treated in the world, has a lot to do with my sexuality. They definitely intersect. For a great comic, you see the world through their eyes. Immigrants, gay people, people of color, women, their comedy is really a culmination of their experiences in society and how they communicated in their family. When I first started, I spent so much time talking about my Jewish mother, for years and years. And everybody really related, Jewish or not, because it’s a universal thing. And the way I presented it is such a Jewish way, because of the way I think. I feel like the way I present my material is very Jewish, and the way I talk is very Jewish. Or, as they like to say, “You’re very New York.” That’s the code word for antisemitism. They would say, “Oh, are you from New York?” but they were really asking if I was Jewish. But I have this Jewish way of speaking, and I now am an out lesbian comedian with a family and a queer household, and that also informs my comedy. It’s hard to separate them now. I address my sexuality in my comedy in a very Jewish way. I’m talking about my Jewish mother, and now that I have kids, I’m the Jewish mother!
Also, there’s a disconnect between when I have a Jewish audience and when I have a non-Jewish audience. I can say things to a Jewish audience that I don’t have to explain, and I also can talk about being Jewish to them in a way that I can’t talk about being Jewish to a non-Jewish audience. I mean I can, but I want to be careful and draw the line, so I can make sure that they’re laughing for the right reasons. Making sure they’re not laughing AT Jews, which is why I hate JAP (Jewish American Princess) jokes, and jokes that Jews are cheap. It’s important to know your audience.
Judy Gold: comedy with Jewish and non-Jewish audiences
How do you think your use of language and accents influences your comedy, in particular when you do imitations of your mom?
My mother was the funniest person, and she really did talk the way that I mimicked her, and would say everything that I said she said. I used to play recordings during my stand up from my answering machine and would show the audience messages she left me, and it really was how she talked! Someone from the Jewish press had written that I was promoting a stereotype. I am doing my mother. I am saying exactly what she said the way that she said it, and that is not a stereotype, that is my mother. If you think that my mother is a stereotype, that’s on you. My mother had the cadence, and I have the cadence of a Jew. You read out of the Torah, and there are the trope instructions on how to say it. It ends in a question and leaves people room to think. I think that it’s great that I talk like my mother.
Judy Gold: Stereotypes and impersonations
Did your mom come from a Yiddish background and incorporate Yiddish loanwords a lot into your childhood?
Yes. Both sides of my family were Ashkenazi. My grandmother and mother used to sit at the table, and I thought they were talking in Spanish, but of course they were speaking Yiddish. They would speak Yiddish with some crappy German when they didn’t want me to know what was going on. The thing about Yiddish words is that they are so descriptive. So many of my favorite words are Yiddish, and they are so much fun to teach to non-Jews. Like ungapatchka, which is “overdressed,” too much; tchotchke, I love that world. My mother used to say, “Oh they’re broigus [angry].” It’s so colorful, and it’s so funny when a non-Jew says it and they don’t have it! They can’t say challah with the CH sound! It is such a descriptive language. Yiddish is so musical, and comedy is so musical. Comedy is all about timing, and the way that Jews speak, I mean Jews have really great timing!
Do you try to incorporate Jewish language into your comedy?
I do! Yiddish in my comedy is a descriptor a lot of the time. I’ll say a Yiddish word, and then I’ll always explain what it means. The Jews in the audience will get defensive and go “I know!” I had a joke about my son wanting to get a tattoo, and I told him that he’s not getting a tattoo. He wanted something that said he was from New York, so he wanted to get our zip code tattooed on his arm. And I told him, “Henry, you’re a Jew, you’re not getting numbers tattooed on your arm.” People went crazy. I would have Jews that would say that it made them uncomfortable. I would wonder why, because I’m not diminishing the Holocaust. If anything, I’m acknowledging and reminding people that Jews got tattooed a serial number on their arm.
Do you think that you’ve ever crossed the line in your comedy when using accents?
I wrote a book about free speech, called “Yes, I Can Say That.” I don’t think I have crossed the line ever intentionally, but considering the antisemitic atmosphere right now, I’m a little more careful. I’ve never been like that before, but I have definitely gotten backlash. My backlash mostly comes from other Jews.
Implications
Judy Gold’s use of accent imitation reflects the historical migration pattern of Jews to the United States, specifically the greater New York area. Many Jews immigrated to New York and New Jersey in the 19th century, and the Jewish population in the area is very prominent. Jews from the greater New York area picked up many distinctive linguistic features that Judy plays up in her imitation of her mom’s accent, such as the postvocalic r-deletion and elongated vowels. Since Judy does not really use any loanwords or engage with another language when imitating her mother in these videos, her accent imitation would not be considered post-vernacular engagement (Shandler, 2008). Judy’s Ashkenazi background and her mother’s use of Yiddish loanwords (as Judy indicated in her interview) also reflects how Jews migrated to Central Europe and engaged in language contact with Germans that eventually resulted in the development of Yiddish (Rubin & Kahn, 2021).
There are a lot of negative stereotypes associated with Jews that the contents of Judy’s comedy highlight. As a Jewish comedian, Judy acknowledges that her mother can be manipulative, as shown by the example in which her mother plants a doily behind a picture to see if her home health aide had dusted properly. She also calls her mother “annoying” and “negative,” two traits that many non-Jews apply to Jews around the world. Although she doesn’t use any loanwords from Hebrew or Yiddish when imitating her mother, Judy still indicates that her mother covers many topics that only Jews would discuss, exemplified by the fact that her mother wouldn’t let her inside a Dairy Queen because “they’re antisemitic.” Her tone is also slow and a little grating when imitating her mother, which could reflect the ideology that Jews are annoying and negative. Judy also mentioned in her interview that her mother frequently used Yiddish loanwords while Judy was growing up, highlighting the fact that Yiddish is most commonly used by older generations (Benor, 2008).
Judy’s videos reflect language contact because Jews in the New York area picked up many features that a stereotypical New York accent has, so much so that a New York accent is commonly associated with Jews. Jewish English, the mix of languages created by this migration, is what Judy and her mom both use in a vernacular manner. There are no loanwords in the first video, but she does use a couple in the second video that are integrated morphologically and phonologically into English, such as “yarmulke” and “tzitzit.” She uses these loanwords with a very Americanized accent instead of a Hebrew accent, proving that they are integrated into her English use. Her use of these Hebrew words would be considered loanwords and not translanguaging because of how they are integrated into the rest of her English set. Judy also uses many features from the Jewish ethnolinguistic repertoire when she speaks, including the words mentioned above and her own slight New York accent, which features drawn-out vowels and some postvocalic r-deletion.
Overall, Judy Gold’s comedy covers many levels of her connection to Judaism, including her experience having a Jewish mother, her interactions with Jews in Israel, and being a Jewish woman and lesbian in a patriarchal and homophobic society. Her use of Hebrew loanwords and discussion of Jewish-focused topics make her a particularly important figure in the world of Jewish comedy. The comments on Judy’s videos demonstrate the hostile and antisemitic environment that she, as a Jewish lesbian, unfortunately has to face in the world of comedy. However, her comedy seems to resonate with many Jews, and her use of stereotypes and accent imitation play a large role in her rise to success.
Bibliography
Benor, S. B. (2008). Towards a new understanding of Jewish language in the twenty-first century. Religion Compass, 2(6), 1062–1080. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00108.x
Benor, S. B. (2022). Pastrami, verklempt, and tshootspa: Non-jews’ use of Jewish language in the United States. American Jewish Year Book, 3–69. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78706-6_1
Chun, E. W. (2004). Ideologies of Legitimate Mockery: Margaret Cho’s Revoicings of Mock Asian. Pragmatics 14(2-3). 263-289.
Rubin, A. D., & Kahn, L. (2021). Jewish languages from A to Z. Routledge.
Shandler, J. (2008). Adventures in Yiddishland: Postvernacular language and culture. University of California Press.