Barack Obama Gets All ‘Verklempt’ at Barbra Streisand Medal of Freedom Ceremony
Image by Getty Images
By Anne Cohen November 25, 2015
Barack Obama got his Yiddish on during a Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony for Barbra Streisand.
Honoring the iconic singer/actress, Obama noted her “chutzpah” as a young Jewish-American Broadway star and for selling more albums in the United States than any other woman.
“I’m getting all verklempt just thinking about it,” the president said, using the Yiddish expression for “choked up.”
Our girl Babs was also verklempt — but for a very different reason.
“What if that was Donald Trump up there, I couldn’t help but think, ‘what would he say?’” she told . “The president [Obama] is so eloquent, so dignified.”
“I probably would’ve choked,” she added. “It’s terrifyingly scary, but it’s funny.”
Babs, a long time Hillary Clinton supporter, added that she would find a Clinton/Trump election race riveting. It would be “one of the greatest moments in television history.”
“Everybody would watch,” she said. “I can’t even imagine. I mean, I’m not worried about her.”
16 people received the Medal of Freedom alongside the actress and singer, including fellow members of the tribe Steven Spielberg, Stephen Sondheim and Itzhak Perlman, musician James Taylor, Maryland Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski, and baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays.
With Reuters
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
