Are you sure it doesn’t go “A zombie on a train walked up …”
I was just going to post this. It of course is a reference to that joke.
A problem I have is whenever the word comes up in conversation, say when discussing the shade of a color, I stop and make this joke.
A Druish Princess.
Or as said to Sitting Bull: “Funny, you don’t look Siouxish.”
Nm
Mel Brooks in Blazing Saddles as Indian Chiefwith other tribal members encountering frightened Negro share-croppers. His ritual wailing cry to all his tribe (in Yiddish): “Let them go.” (Other Yiddish includes “Be in good health” (a common Yiddish expression know by even non-Yiddish speaking Jews).
He’s stunned that they don’t look Siouxish.
Not sure what the issue is in the OP.
There’s a “stereotypical look” which is based on a prejudicial impression of a subgroup of the Jewish population, and is as valid as any stereotype of any ethnic group. (i.e. - not very) In the 1800s and early 1900s prejudice against jews was such that often people would change names (i.e. Greenberg to Green) and otherwise hide their heritage from the prejudiced majority when necessary to get by. remember, this was the time when places like law schools and medical schools could have quotas, country clubs did not want them, etc.
Part of the problem in the 1930’s was that a number of western countries were reluctant to even admit refugees from Germany despite the obvious persecution - simply because they were Jewish. No surprise people who didn’t “look Jewsish” might not advertise their religion/ethnicity.
Since the stereotype have very limited validity, but the ignorant bought it hook line and sinker, they would express astonishment when they discovered someone did not fit their preconceived notions. I assume the Jewish subculture very quickly created a cliche line about outsiders’ expressions of surprise to discover their heritage; with a large population of comedians, should we be surprised it turned into a punchline quickly?
(As a similar example, North American conception of Italians is formed by the wave of poor immigrans from the south and Sicily. Many would probably be surprised even today to find that Italy, in the north, has a substantial blonde population. )
I thought it was when I (American of South Asian origin) used to play #2 doubles for the JCC tennis team in Kansas City. Every time I showed up on the courts, one of my opposition players would say this, and my teammates would laugh. I never knew it was an old joke.
Bolding mine.
, says Bob Dylan. Look up current and even post 1945-born Hollywood and TV, for the most obvious examples, in the hundreds, at least. Including such a recent, certain-type Zeitgeist representative hipster as Jon Stewart.
A joke I heard (multi-purpose) was that a certain actor/psychiatrist named Christianssen moved to Hollywood/New York and changed his name to Goldstein for professional reasons.
The question is when did this become a pop culture meme rather than just an honest reaction to learning someone was Jewish. And did it originate with anti-semites or did it originate with Jewish people?
I would be willing to bet the andwer is neither. Rather, that it was/is-for-many-people an innocuous comment, which only (lately? See this thread) has become deprecated.
Similarly, many non-Jews have best friends who are Jewish. Comments above are exactly applicable to this phrase/“meme.”
In the context of historical anti-Semitism in American society, I don’t buy that the origin of this can be entirely innocuous. I’m certain that it constituted an expression of surprise either on the part of someone wishing to discriminate against Jews or a Jewish person expressing doubt as to someone’s bonafides as a fellow Jew.
I’m sorry, but I can’t make sense of these sentences.
Saxophonist Bud Freeman (né Lawrence Friedman), a Jewish tailor’s son from Chicago, wrote an autobiography he titled You Don’t Look Like a Musician. He didn’t, either - he was a complete Anglophile and quite tweedy. Nor did he look terribly Jewish, as it happens.
Well, I disagree with your first comment.
As to the second, sorry about the poor writing. I mean that sometimes–but rarely now–a person alleged to have some sort of anti-Jew animus will reply “some of my best friends are Jews.”
If that’s said in defense for such an accusation, as if that alone precludes him from guilt, it is clearly repellant. But, or perhaps “so,” the phrase is unfortunately a no-no for non-Jews to say, simply as a statement of fact.
Not unlike, but far more offensive because the “best friends” expression has been examined in humor by now, and by its association, are the words “final solution” in conversation or writing about Jews. I cannot imagine how many times someone has had to quickly mentally revise those words when discussing Israel-Palestinian peace initiatives. I have had to do it myself many times. It’s a shame, really, but politics has done such things regularly to language.
ETA: reply to Ascenray:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leo Bloom
I would be willing to bet the andwer is neither. Rather, that it was/is-for-many-people an innocuous comment, which only (lately? See this thread) has become deprecated.
In the context of historical anti-Semitism in American society, I don’t buy that the origin of this can be entirely innocuous. I’m certain that it constituted an expression of surprise either on the part of someone wishing to discriminate against Jews or a Jewish person expressing doubt as to someone’s bonafides as a fellow Jew.
Quote:
Similarly, many non-Jews have best friends who are Jewish. Comments above are exactly applicable to this phrase/“meme.”
I’m sorry, but I can’t make sense of these sentences.
There must be a reason those people don’t just use the common term - “endgame.” You never hear “FS” in other contexts.
Never heard “final solution” used in any other context. And, really, it shouldn’t be used with regard to the Wannsee Conference. A better rendering would be “total solution.” But, it entered the (English) lexicon as “final solution,” and thus it will be.
Two comments, and it would be a shame if this thread veered this way…:).
"An “Endlösung to the Jewish Problem” was a trope/wording used long before the Nazis; the word “Endlösung” means, literally, “final solution.” the Nazis just answered it–and affixed a nearly irreducible evil meaning to the word, as they did as well with the words “Jewish Problem,” not always used previously in an anti-Semitic sense. (You can also chalk up the word, to those attuned to such things, “Selektion” (selection). It was the word for the separation of Jews for immediate murder at the concentration camps. The English word would never be used in relation to people in English language material in Israel, for example.
Also, as to your post: the Wansee Conference is, exactly opposite to your comment (if I got it right) generally recognized as the precise moment when the wholesale, complete killing of every Jew in Europe and elsewhere was decided upon by the German government, as opposed to the expulsions and mass-slaughter that had been accepted and proposed earlier.
Thought it was Jonny Carson.
Ed Ames Teaches Johnny Carson to Throw a Tomahawk
There was a Get Smart episode where two Arab KAOS agents dressed in sheik’s robes were rhapsodizing about the impending destruction of several free world capitals:
ARAB 1: “New York.”
ARAB 2: “Gone!”
ARAB 1: “London.”
ARAB 2: “Vaporized!”
ARAB 1: “Paris”
ARAB 2: “Obliterated!”
ARAB 1: “Tel Aviv”
ARAB 2: “Uh, no. Not Tel Aviv.”
ARAB 1: “Why not?”
ARAB 2 whispers something in ARAB 1’s ear.
ARAB 1: “Funny, you don’t look it.”
I didn’t get that joke when I was 8, but picked up on it when I saw a rerun a few years later.
I miss that show. Did Mel Brooks write for it, or was he already independent by then?