The Nebbish Spectrum

• In Event: New Perspectives on the Shnorrer, the Nebbish, and the Schlemiel

Abstract

Of the Yiddish literary stock types the nebbish may be the most difficult to pin down. The nebbish exists, in some ways, only in relationship to other types. For example, it has been said that “a schlemiel keeps knocking objects off the table. The nebbish always has to pick them up.” The line between the nebbish and the schlemiel or the schnorrer is therefore blurry, at best. The nebbish is helpless and ineffective, but whereas the schlemiel is categorically a loser the nebbish can come out on top. And the nebbish is often on the outside looking in, but unlike the schnorrer the nebbish can also be accepted and even loved.
This paper will look first at examples of nebbishes over the years, including (but not limited to) those Tablet magazine once described as, “the Hipster Nebbish (crumpled tweed jackets and phobic hand-wringing of early Woody Allen); the Slacker Nebbish (one of Judd Apatow’s sheepish heroes, with bong in one hand and an Xbox controller in the other); the Toxic Nebbish (see George Costanza, the most irately Jewish son of Tuscany ever committed to film).” But furthermore, this paper will explore why the nebbish, like most of the Yiddish stock types, has been almost universally depicted as male and will offer two examples of female nebbishes to think about the gender implications of the nebbish spectrum. It will examine the range of nebbishes played by Gilda Radner during her career on Saturday Night Live, from Lisa Loopner to “Gilda Radner,” who was both her and not her. It will also look at the character of Jessica Stein from the film Kissing Jessica Stein. Many people have called that character a “female Woody Allen,” so this paper will look at what that means and whether that places her on the nebbish spectrum.
The paper will ultimately try to situate nebbish-hood as something that is neither uniquely Jewish nor uniquely male, but owes qualities of its definition to both. In some ways the nebbish may be the stock type that transcends boundaries; perhaps we are all nebbishes.

author

• Jennifer Caplan, Syracuse University