Yidlife Crisis
Yidlife Crisis is a webTV comedy series starring Jamie Elman and Eli Batalion and launched in 2014.
Background[edit]
The comedians of the show grew up together and studied Yiddish at Bialik High School in Côte Saint-Luc in the suburbs of Montreal.[1] Eli Batalion's elders spoke Yiddish at home.[2]
The show launched on YouTube in September 2014.[3] The duo decided to make this show in a move to do something related to their Judaism.[4] In April 2022, the show premiered its first episode in French.[5] In 2023, the duo announced they were working on a show that explores the Arab-Israeli conflict.[6]
Description[edit]
Yidlife crisis consists of short comedy sketches about two 30-something Jewish friends. Most of the dialog is in Yiddish, which the two use as a secret language, but subtitles are provided in English and French.[7] The show evolves around the 21st century Jewish culture, and sometimes tackles topics such as antisemitism,[1] Jewish food,[2] Christmas versus Hanukkah[8] or marijuana[9] with a typical Yiddish satire.[1] The comedians were directly inspired by the sitcom Seinfeld.[2][4]
The slogan of the show is "Sex, Drugs, and Milk & Meat. In Yiddish".[4] The series is humorously rated Chai (18 and over)[2] and gathered 200,000 views on YouTube for its first season.[10] Originally, Jamie Elman does not speak Yiddish (he speaks Hebrew), but he learned the phonetics in four days to act as if he did.[4]
Characters[edit]
- Chaimi (Jamie Elman)
- Leyzer (Eli Batalion)
Mayim Bialik featured in one episode.[11]
Live performance[edit]
A live Yidlife crisis show was performed at Montreal's Segal Centre for Performing Arts for a week in January 2022 in front of an empty audience and broadcast online due to pandemic restrictions.[12][13] The duo also performed in Krakow, Tel Aviv, Toronto, Montreal, Los Angeles and Birmingham (England).[11]
Awards[edit]
- 2015: Best comedy series at Toronto's WebFest[10]
- 2016: Canadian Screen Award nomination[11]
- 2016: Recipients of the Natan Fund ($40,000)[11][3]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c Jordan Kutzik (26 September 2019). "How 'YidLife Crisis' Tackled Anti-Semitism". Forward.com. Retrieved 25 March 2022.
- ^ a b c d Renee GHert-Zand (16 September 2014). "Jews on the verge of a 'YidLife Crisis'". Times of Israel. Retrieved 27 March 2022.
- ^ a b Carl Bindman (25 April 2017). "Yidlife Crisis Proves that Yiddish is Hardly a Dead Language". Thelinknewspaper.ca. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
- ^ a b c d Neta Alexander (7 January 2015). "YidLife Crisis: An Internet Series About Nothing and Everything - in Yiddish". Haaretz. Retrieved 11 April 2022.
- ^ Mike Cohen (16 April 2022). "YidLife Crisis is inviting everyone to conclude Passover with them at a special nosh and premiere of French sub-titled episodes". Thesuburban.com. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
- ^ Shannon Chaffers (9 June 2023). "How a Canadian comedy duo are bringing their 'Yidlife crisis' to Germany". The Local. Retrieved 8 April 2024.
- ^ "Irreverent Yiddish comedic web series back for season 'tsvey'". The Times of Israel. 25 September 2015. Retrieved 25 March 2022.
- ^ Bagriela Geselowitz (13 December 2016). "Jewish on Christmas? Sing Along to 'Yingl Belz.'". Tabletmag.com. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
- ^ "'YidLife Crisis' celebrates newly legalized species in 'Sukkannabis' episode". Times of Israel. 23 September 2018. Retrieved 27 March 2022.
- ^ a b Renee Ghert-Zand (25 September 2015). "Irreverent Yiddish comedic web series back for season 'tsvey'". Times of Israel. Retrieved 27 March 2022.
- ^ a b c d Jordan Kutzik (26 February 2016). "'Yidlife Crisis' Takes Off — With Assist From Mayim Bialik". Forward.com. Retrieved 25 March 2022.
- ^ Bill Brownstein (27 January 2022). "Brownstein: It takes more than a pandemic to keep YidLife Crisis duo down". Montreal Gazette. Retrieved 11 April 2022.
- ^ Mike Cohen (29 January 2022). "YidLife Crisis duo of Elman and Batalion score high with pre-recorded edition of Pandemic". Thesuburban.com. Retrieved 11 April 2022.
