Mandy Patinkin Sang Pop Hit In Yiddish On The Late, Late Show

Mandy Patinkin, star and Yiddishist. Image by Getty Images

By Jenny Singer June 6, 2018

Well, it’s been a big week for Irving Berlin.

Berlin, the master songwriter who immigrated to America with his family at the turn of the century to escape pogroms, was named on Tuesday in a national conversation about whether our president knows the lyrics to his song “God Bless America.”

On the very same day, performer Mandy Patinkin invoked Berlin in a very extended joke about the role of Yiddish in American music. This, he did on national television.

To see it is to believe it. Here’s Patinkin with musician Shawn Mendes, actress Lucy Liu, and talkshow host James Corden, holding forth on Yiddish

The best parts about this: 1. Watching Mandy Patinkin trying to avoid going into a reverie about Irving Berlin’s legacy 2. Imagining Mandy Patinkin practicing this bit 3. Mandy Patinkin singing “Stitches” in Yiddish 4. The tortured look of concentration Mandy Patinkin has to assume to sing, even to sing “Stitches” in Yiddish. 5. Celebrities clapping joyfully to the sounds of Yiddish 6. Screaming fans overpowering the sound of Mandy Patinkin singing “Stitches” in Yiddish 7. Imagining Mandy Patinkin pitching James Corden’s producers: “A cool thing might be if I sang a few numbers in Yiddish”

In another priceless moment, Patinkin tells the story of meeting his wife to an attentive Mendes.

“I’m gonna marry you,” he claims he told his future wife on their first date.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she apparently replied. “You’re an actor and a baby and you’re going to get hurt.” (This is how I will now shut down all men who say things I disagree with.)

Patinkin also offered the youthful Mendes thoughtful advice about courtship gifts: “Pick a cheap flower so you can afford it all through your life.”

So, we all learned something. Especially me, who thought Shawn Mendes was the kid from “Modern Family” this entire time:

On the left, Shawn Mendes. On the right, Nolan Gould of “Modern Family.” Image by GETTY IMAGES/FORWARD MONTAGE

But the main lesson is take care of your heart and buy the right flowers, or you may find that someone will, in the words of Mendes via Patinkin, “du zeyst mayn blit biz ikh khalesh.”

Jenny Singer is the deputy Lifestyle editor for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Jenny Singer is a freelance writer with pieces in Vox, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, and more. She was previously a staff writer at Glamour and the Forward, and she’s currently getting an MFA in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

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.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO