There was nothing conspicuously Jewish about Your Show of Shows. There were no Jewish jokes or Jewish characters, as there were, say, on The Goldbergs (at least the original Goldbergs). Only occasionally did some Yiddish word slip in, and it was always well-camouflaged, either appearing as pidgin-German or tossed off sotto voce in some rapid-fire dialog.
Of all the languages Sid Caesar imitated, Hebrew most certainly wasn’t one. Not once in its four-year run were words like “Jew” and “Jewish” ever uttered. The State of Israel, newly born, went unmentioned. Caesar and his colleagues saved their Jewish material for private moments, far off camera. America never got to hear Caesar’s imitation of a Jewish labor leader riding the subway to a strike. When Carl Reiner interviewed Mel Brooks’ 2000-Year-Old Man, it was strictly at parties, for friends.
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