At least not the ones called “Zohan”, which is really easy considering it’s not a real name in Hebrew and I have never heard of any Israeli called Zohan. Just got back home from “You don’t mess with the Zohan”, the Adam Sandler movie. It was even weirder than seeing Sacha Baron Cohen speak Hebrew in Borat! It was nice in that it had Israeli music through out, and fascinating to see how Israelis come across in the movie. So, yes, it’s a slapstick comedy, with a ridiculous plot and even more ridiculous characters, but still some interesting points. According to the movie -
Israelis are extremely brave and active, never afraid of taking on an enemy. What’s more, in every Israeli, there’s a hidden warrior, with body armor, grenades and guns stashed away within easy reach. To this I have to say, what about us Israeli women soldiers?? I really missed an Israeli woman soldier character in the movie – it was all men, except for one beautiful Palestinian girl.
Israelis are stuck in the 80′s. Hairdos, clothing style, music. Not sure where that came from, really? Anyone who can shed some light on that aspect of the image of Israelis in American culture, please do share.
Israelis speak Yiddish, or at least Hebrew sounds a lot like Yiddish. Not only did the Israeli characters use real Yiddish words (“You’re a real mentch”), which Israelis that I know rarely use, but the made-up words all sounded like Yiddish. Weird. Even the made-up Arab name of the Phantom’s restaurants chain: Toukhen Moukhen (or however you want to spell that) sounded like Yiddish to me.
Israelis, at least the ones living in America, are all dark, hairy and vulgar. They’re also very aggressive sales people, not to mention downright cheaters. Now, not having been to America (yet!), I can’t comment a lot about the Israelis living there, but surely they’re not ALL like that?
I think it was good they had those Israeli actors though. At least they got the accent right! Adam Sandler sounded like he was a French Borat or something.
Oh, with all this talk about Israelis, I almost forgot -
