Sects, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll
By Symi Rom-Rymer
A group of young Hasidic men hang out at the foot of the subway stairs at a station in Brooklyn, New York. Soon, another one joins them and the conversation quickly turns heated. “Do you bite your thumb at us sir?/I do bite my thumb, sir./Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?/No sir, I do not bite my thumb at you sir, but I bite my thumb sir.” These lines may seem familiar, as they open one of the most famous plays ever written: William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. But would they seem as familiar in Yiddish?
That is a question tackled in “Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish,” a film by Eve Annenberg now playing as part of the 2011 New York Jewish Film...