''Yidlife Crisis'' is a webTV comedy series starring Jamie Elman and Eli Batalion and launched in 2014.

Background

The comedians of the show grew up together and studied Yiddish at Bialik High School in

Côte Saint-Luc Côte Saint-Luc (; also spelled Côte-Saint-Luc, and known historically in English as Cote St. Luke) is a city on the island of Montreal in Quebec, Canada. Geography Along with Hampstead and Montreal West, Côte Saint-Luc forms an enclave within ...

in the suburbs of Montreal. Eli Batalion's elders spoke Yiddish at home. The show launched on YouTube in September 2014. The duo decided to make this show in a move to do something related to their Judaism. In April 2022, the show premiered its first episode in French.

Description

''Yidlife crisis'' consists of short comedy sketches about two 30-something Jewish friends. Most of the dialog is in

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

, which the two use as a secret language, but subtitles are provided in English and French. The show evolves around the 21st century Jewish culture, and sometimes tackles topics such as antisemitism, Jewish food, Christmas versus Hanukkah or marijuana with a typical Yiddish satire. The comedians were directly inspired by the sitcom ''

Seinfeld ''Seinfeld'' ( ) is an American television sitcom created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. It aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, over nine seasons and List of Seinfeld episodes, 180 episodes. It stars Seinfeld as Jerry Seinfeld ( ...

''. The slogan of the show is "Sex, Drugs, and Milk & Meat. In Yiddish". The series is humorously rated '' Chai'' (18 and over) and gathered 200,000 views on YouTube for its first season. Originally, Jamie Elman does not speak Yiddish (he speaks Hebrew), but he learned the phonetics in four days to act as if he did.

Characters

* Chaimi ( Jamie Elman) * Leyzer (Eli Batalion) Mayim Bialik featured in one episode.

Live performance

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. The duo also performed in Krakow, Tel Aviv, Toronto, Montreal, Los Angeles and Birmingham (England).

Awards

* 2015: Best comedy series at Toronto's WebFest * 2016: Canadian Screen Award nomination * 2016: Recipients of the Natan Fund ($40,000)

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, tt4035864, Yidlife Crisis
Official website
2014 web series debuts Canadian comedy web series Comedy-related YouTube channels Yiddish culture in Quebec Yiddish-language mass media Jewish comedy and humor Ashkenazi Jewish culture in Montreal Comedians from Montreal Canadian comedy duos Secular Jewish culture in Canada