Jamie Elman and Eli Batalion are not your ordinary pair of friends. For starters, the short comedy videos posted to their YouTube channel are mostly in Yiddish. In the summer of 2014, the duo, who grew up in Montreal’s Jewish community together, set off on a labor of love to pay tribute to the Yiddish language, culture and comedic tradition they had been reared on. Calling it “YidLife Crisis,” they hatched the world’s first Yiddish sitcom for the web, where questions of religion, faith and identity in a modern, multicultural society are explored with a characteristic mix of comedy and inclusiveness. The results have been staggering: to date, the series has a global viewership of over 2,000,000 video views, received excellent worldwide press, won Best Comedy at the 2015 Toronto Web Fest and has been nominated for four prestigious Canadian Screen Awards. The series has taken the duo across North America, to Europe and to Israel, where they have refined their talks into a touring presentation called YidLive! Elman and Eli are two multi-talented entertainers with many credits to their collective names, including starring in Curb Your Enthusiasm, Mad Men, CSI, and writing and producing short and feature films that have appeared at Sundance, Toronto, Berlin and South by Southwest… all while having taught Jewish education at various points throughout their careers. They’re also both accomplished musicians, singers, composers and lyricist.