"Odessa dialect", which borrows chiefly from the characteristic speech of the Odessan Jews, and is enriched by a plethora of influences common for the port city. The "Odessite speech" became a staple of the "Soviet Jew" depicted in a multitude of jokes and comedy acts, in which the Jew served as a wise and subtle dissenter and opportunist, always pursuing his own well-being, but unwittingly pointing out the flaws and absurdities of the Soviet regime. The Jew in the jokes always "came out clean" and was, in the end, a lovable character � unlike some of other jocular nation stereotypes such as The Chukcha, The Ukrainian, The Estonian or The American.
Frank Cass, the founder of Frank Cass & Co. was a noted publisher in United Kingdom, specialising in the social sciences and humanities subject areas and publishing military and strategic studies titles and journals, until bought by Taylor & Francis Publishers on 28 July 2003. He was the unofficial publisher of the Anglo-Jewish community, and retained the Vallentine Mitchell Publisher even after the sale of Frank Cass & Co.
Art and music
Jacob Adler, the major star of the Yiddish Theater in New York and father of the actor, director and teacher Stella Adler, was born in and spent his youth in Odessa. The most popular Russian show-business people from Odessa are Yakov Smirnoff (comedian), Mikhail Zhvanetsky (legendary humorist writer, who began his career as port engineer) and Roman Kartsev (comedian). Zhvanetsky's and Kartsev's success in 1970s, together with Odessa's KVN team, much contributed to Odessa's established status of a "capital of Soviet humour", culminating in the annual Humoryna festival, carried out on and around the April Fools' Day. Odessa was also the home of the late Armenian painter Sarkis Ordyan (1918�2003), the Ukrainian painter Mickola Vorokhta and the Greek philologist, author and promoter of Demotic Greek Ioannis Psycharis (1854�1929). Yuri Siritsov, bass
