It's a Jewish Thing (the final word)

Nov 6, 19968 posts by 8 posters
🧠 Theory🔥 Controversial
8 posts
Randy

Look, the writers may or may not make any certain character Jewish or not, but the entire show is based on certain types of people in the Jewish culture, or you might say, how certain types of people are categorized/classified in Euro-Jewish culture.

It's called "schlemiel-schlamazel." Kramer is the happy-go-lucky schlamzel, who, being the Lucky Gentile (non-Jew), falls in manure and comes out smelling like the proverbial roses, while Jerry, Elaine and George are the schlemiels (Jews!!), who can never be happy and just live; they are always striving in life, often unlucky, and cannot believe how the schlamazel does it. (Does George's observation about Kramer ring true or not? I quote George speaking of Kramer: "He gets money without working; he gets sex without dating; he something or other, etc; his whole life is a fantasy camp!")

Or is it the other way around? Is the schlemiel the Lucky Gentile? I disremember. You may remember this schlemiel-schlamazel refrain from the intro to Laverne & Shirley. One was the schlemiel, the other schlamazel. I don't know which; I never really watched it much, but that raucous show intro music could always be heard everywhere, it seemed, a couple of decades ago.

This was the subject of a paper in a scholarly journal in the television area (yeah, there are scholarly journals with TV as the focus, believe it or not).

Anyway, they may or may not be Jewish by the script, but it *is* a "Jewish thing." Period.

And, btw, I'm not Jewish.

Randy

B. DawnRandy

On Wed, 06 Nov 1996 05:16:51 GMT, [email] (Anti-OJ'er) wrote:

we could tell, you idiot. be quiet now.

"Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours." Yogi Berra
NosnivelRandy

The schlmiel and the schlmazl are both unlucky. The difference is that the schlmiel is inept. He makes his own bad luck. The schlmazl just falls into it.

Often the distinction is made this way: "It's the schlmiel who spills the hot soup into the schlmazl's lap." Mark L.
:

I thought the schlmiel pissed in the soup and the schlmazl was the one who drank it.....

-jv/nyc

Gussel TimerRandy

So Let me get this right. Basically, ANYONE who can never be happy and just live, anyone who is always striving in life, anyone who is often unlucky, and who cannot believe how the "schlamazel" does it....these are Jews. So if I have Asian, East Indian, Arab, and black friends like this, then THEY ARE JEWS..EVEN IF THEY SAY THEY'RE NOT. That's what you're saying, right? Elaine says she's not a Jew, yet you say she fits the "profile". So anyone who fits the "profile" must also be Jewish, right? or do only caucasians apply? Asians? Blacks? Sihks?

You know, a non-religioys person can be Jewish if they're from a Jewish ancestry (or join a religion), but I've never heard anyone of belonging to an ethnic group based upon how they BEHAVE.

Some people just don't "get" that statement. Don't be surprised if you get a bunch of email that for some reason is condescending and nasty.