Jewish TV Lawyer Judge Judy Is Retiring

Judge Judy — the 83-year-old Jewish judge and TV star whose real name is Judith Sheindlin — is retiring.

Sheindlin is currently the star of “Judy Justice” on Prime Video, but she became a beloved figure during the 20-plus year run of her daytime TV show “Judge Judy,” which stopped releasing new episodes in 2021. “Judy Justice” and Sheindlin’s onscreen career will come to an end this October, but Sheindlin isn’t disappearing from the scene completely. She’ll serve as a producer for a new syndicated court show starring her son Adam Levy, whose daughter, Sarah Rose, is currently the law clerk on “Judy Justice” — l’dor vador vador. She’s also helping to create (prepare yourself for a truly wild series of words) an adult animated series based on viral AI videos of a baby that looks like Judge Judy.

Fans of Judge Judy are fans for life, it seems, and there’s a deep well of passion for Sheindlin online. Diehards often share their favorite “Judge Judyisms” — ”Judy-isms, not Judaisms,” as director and producer Stephen Abramson said in his hourlong interview with Sheindlin for the Television Academy Foundation — and a lot of the time, the words or catchphrases are simply Yiddish words that sound beautifully out of place on daytime TV.

One of Sheindlin’s many lifelong fans was RuPaul, who later befriended Sheindlin and spoke with her for Interview Magazine. In a snippet of that interview widely and regularly shared on social media, RuPaul tells Sheindlin that he learned Yiddish from her show:

RUPAUL: You know, I’ve learned so many Yiddish words from watching your television program. One of them is a word that even a lot of people who speak Yiddish don’t know, so I’m going to ask you if I’m saying it correctly: geshikhte… Am I saying it right? Geshikhte? I have an app that gives me a Yiddish word of the day.

JUDGE JUDY: Incorporating Judaism into your personality is maybe something you don’t need.

A perfectly Judy response. Here are 12 Jewish and Yiddish “Judyisms” — you’re free to incorporate them into your personality or not.

Geschikte

“The answer is either a yes or no, not a whole geschikte,” Sheindlin tells a defendant whose dog apparently killed his neighbor’s cat on the episode of Judge Judy that must have captivated RuPaul. Geschikte means “story.”

Chutzpah

Kveller’s Lior Zaltzman wrote recently, “Having chutzpah means being fierce, audacious, daring, motivated — it means being brave enough to be yourself.” It was originally meant in Yiddish to be negative, but has taken on more of a positive connotation — but not in Judith Sheindlin’s courtroom.

As Sheindlin explains it in this clip, it means “a lot of nerve.”

Nudnik

“You know you’re a little bit of a nudnik?” Sheindlin says in a devastating blow to a man who interrupts her. “You may be right, but you’re a nudnik. You know what I mean?”

This was painful to watch. I’ve decided there could be nothing worse than being called a nudnik — a pestering, annoying, nagging or just generally irritating person — by Judge Judy. Maybe it should be its own Yiddish curse: He’s so stupid Judge Judy thinks he’s a nudnik.

Bubbe meise

Don’t try to tell Judge Judy a bubbe meise (old wives’ tale — though technically bubbe means grandmother, so perhaps this is a grandmothers’ tale). She’s too smart for that, and while her usual retorts rotate between aphorisms like “liar, liar, pants on fire” and “don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining,” she has called people out for their bubbe meises on more than one occasion.

Schlep

To schlep is to go a far distance out of your way (although it also has evolved to indicate that you’re just carrying a lot of stuff). As someone who lives in Minnesota, I was personally very excited to find this clip where Sheindlin berates a group of people she “schlepped all the way here from Minnesota” and plan to introduce it into my personal lexicon effective immediately.

Schnorrer

“You’re supposed to provide the food. You’re not supposed to be the schnorrer. Do you know what a schnorrer is?” Sheindlin asks a man at the stand on one episode of her show.

“No ma’am I don’t,” he replies.

“I know you don’t,” Sheindlin says with a mischievous smile. “Schnorrer is a Yiddish word for a taker.”

Schlemiel

The word schlemiel (fool) comes up often in Ashkenazi humor, and, it seems, in small claims court. “If you chose to be a schlemiel and live that way, that’s your issue. She chose not to be a schlemiel,” Sheindlin wisely says in this clip.

Kvetching

As discussed with Amy Poehler on Good Hang earlier this year, Judge Judy loves kvetching — but she will not tolerate it in her courtroom. “Stop kvetching and just tell me what the schmutz is on the floor!” she exclaims about a minute into this clip, clearly exasperated.

Schmearer 

In a case where the owner of an apartment complex says the reason he didn’t pay two painters is because they didn’t finish the job, Sheindlin says, “As my great grandmother used to say, there’s a difference between a schmearer and a painter,” Sheindlin says in an episode of her more recent show, Judy Justice. “Now, I don’t know who would understand that except another Jewish grandmother, but you understand the connotation.”

“I don’t care if it’s a week later. I don’t care if it’s next tisha b’av”

If this isn’t a real saying, can we all agree to incorporate it into conversations, like, yesterday?

Strashe

“There’s a word called strashe — it’s a Yiddish term for giving someone the business,” Sheindlin once told a defendant. The word is perhaps best well known for being part of a Yiddish phrase “Gai strasheh di vantzen!,” or, “Go threaten the bedbugs.” (Read: you don’t scare me.)

Mitzvah

“I want you to understand that I don’t think that this was some kind of mitzvah you were doing for the defendant,” Sheindlin tells a plaintiff on “Judy Justice.” Onscreen, text appears: “Mitzvah. Yiddish for a good deed. Not usually the case in Judy’s court.”