1. terrasig
  2. "What does Jewish look like?" - Vanessa Hidary, The Hebrew Mamita

"What does Jewish look like?" - Vanessa Hidary, The Hebrew Mamita

By terrasig on March 14, 2009.

Even though it's Saturday morning, drinking coffee while getting ready to take the PharmKid to ballet class, I'm not usually one to throw up YouTube videos as blog posts without any context.

However, my dear friend, frequent commenter, and devoted traffic-driver, anjou, passed this along to me.

I've never really gotten into the whole spoken-word / poetry slam movement but maybe it's because I haven't been paying attention. We also don't have HBO so I've never seen Def Poetry, where these Vanessa Hidary performances aired.

Even if you aren't Jewish or a woman, these two are worth every second of the six minutes it'll take to go through both.

Then, go to Vanessa's MySpace site and listen to "Brooklyn," but with earbuds if there are little kids around. (Her personal website is currently being revamped.).

And then, since you're now hooked on Vanessa Hidary, read this 2003 article in Jewish World Review.

How have I missed this woman?

Tags
civil rights
Cool stuff
humor
religion
hebrew mamita
vanessa hidary

More like this

Those Furious Women
As a graduate student at MIT, my daily commute took me past a construction site bordered by the sort of concrete dividers you see along highways. It was a pretty long stretch of concrete dividers, and on it someone had energetically spray-painted the following in large, excited letters: UNLEASH THE…
As long as a Presidential term in office...
For once, I actually managed not to miss it. For once, this day hasn't passed me by, leaving me not to remember its significance for a couple of days. For once, I haven't forgotten my blogiversary. Yes, as hard as it is to believe, I've been at this more or less nonstop just as long as a…
Why we tolerate "mystical mumbo jumbo" in academic medicine
Yet another hat tip this morning to anjou, a regular reader, commenter, and human RSS feed on all things cancer and alternative medicine (not to mention turning me on to Vanessa Hidary, the "Hebrew Mamita" spoken-word artist). Last night anjou brought to me a superb AP Impact article, Alternative…
Graduation 2011
It was the sort of mid-June morning that global warming deniers dream of: cold and threatening rain. the rain held off until all the speakers had spoken, all the graduates had done their walk across the stage, and all the degrees had been passed out. That's as much as you can ask for, really.…

Hadn't seen the second one- made me laugh too....could put an extra PhD after my name too.....

Fanfuckingtastic. I wish I had a dime for every time someone has told me "you don't *look* Jewish..."

By Catharine Zivkovic (not verified) on 15 Mar 2009 #permalink

I'm really puzzled by the audience reaction to "The Hebrew Mamita".

The people looked bored during the onstage, and finally rousing applause. What am I missing?

By Jack Coupal (not verified) on 15 Mar 2009 #permalink

I've gotten the "you don't look Jewish" too...

The most poignant - I went to a snooty private elementary school-- one girl was relating a story about how her Dad hated Jews....I think someone kicked her and she realized I was Jewish-- she stumbled out some sort of comment like-- "uh, not like you, uh I mean the ones with big noses and the ones that talk alot..."

Ouch...