SOme help with the abstract pick:
From the Jewish Museum site
One of the many issues that Seinfeld did (or did not) engage was the Jewish sensibility epitomized by the series' title character, who was (and was not) the same as stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld. As with every other aspect of the series, Seinfeld's presentation of Jewishness was never straightforward — beginning with the identities of its protagonists. Although of the four main characters only Jerry Seinfeld was identified as a Jew, all the characters have been understood — at least by many Jewish viewers — as crypto-Jews deliberately, playfully, and transparently disguised.
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Lost in New York: The Schlemiel and the Schlimazel in Seinfeld
This essay was originally published as “The Schlemiel and the Schlimazl in Seinfeld.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 22.3 (1994): 116-124. Reprinted here with permission from Heldref Publications.
Someone has stolen George's glasses, or so he thinks. He has actually left them on top of his locker at the health club. He steps out from the optical shop, where he is trying on new frames, squints down the street, and "sees" Jerry's girlfriend Amy kissing Jerry's cousin. Never mind that the frames he is wearing have no lenses. He reports the sighting to Jerry. Despite Elaine's caution ("He couldn't tell an apple from an onion, and he's your star witness!"), Jerry believes George. Confronting Amy, Jerry says, "Let's cut the bull, sister!" In the process of trying to extract the supposed truth from Amy, Jerry loses her. Eventually, George realizes that he actually saw a police officer kissing her horse. "I was an idiot for listening to you," Jerry complains.
If Jerry is an "idiot," he is a special kind of idiot. The hit show Seinfeld regularly employs the schlemiel/schlimazel shtick evolved from Yiddish folklore and literature. In Joys of Yiddish, Leo Rosten defines the two types of classic Yiddish fools: "the schlimazel is the one who gets soup spilt on him. . . . It is the schlemiel, of course, whose 'accident' spills the soup . . . onto others" (quoted in Pinkser 6). In the above episode ("The Glasses" [5003]), Jerry plays the schlimazel to George's schlemiel. Over nine seasons, in episode after well-watched episode, America witnessed the schlemiel-and-schlimazel style idiocies of sidekicks Jerry, George, and Elaine. Whereas George Costanza, Elaine Benes, and Jerry Seinfeld exemplify the luckless Jewish fools, the man with one name—Kramer—has all the luck. The predominant comic business of the show resides in the lucklessness of its presumably Jewish characters contrasted with the uncanny luck of the lone gentile-apparent. In The Schlemiel as Modern Hero, Ruth R. Wisse contends that "chlemiel humor . . . would have been as unpalatable to earlier generations of Americans as gefilte fish, a similar device for camouflaging rotten leavings for a delicacy" (74). The show's roots in Jewish folklore, literature, and humor may, ironically, explain its current popularity with mainstream America.
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From the St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture:
...Seinfeld however adds an element that neither Benny nor Burns ever dared venture. As a bridge in his physical movement between the nightclub stage and the apartment, he walks a balancing act of personal identities. He is, to most appearances, Jerry the American, one of TV's "us," a televisually acceptable, conventionally well-dressed single white male. But Jerry is also, by turns of emphasis, one of "them," a New York Jew, a sarcastic wisecracking cynic with an overbite, living on the margin of the American middle class. He can be funny, weird, exotic, lively, obnoxious, or any of the other qualities American ethnic mythology has tagged on to Jewishness.
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From tvdvd reviews:
On July 5, 1989, NBC unceremoniously dumped a pilot called The Seinfeld Chronicles onto its primetime lineup. The sitcom, created by frequent Tonight Show guest Jerry Seinfeld and fellow comedian Larry David (Curb Your Enthusiasm), had met with poor reactions when shown to test audiences. It was "too New York." It was "too Jewish." ...
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I guess I did really underestimate my ausience on this pick.
Didn't really come across to me. I always thought the show was overwhelmingly blithe.
Wish I could get a Utah plate with that.
thanks!
I'm okay with it too, btw.