What the Boop?!

The list of "Famous Female Cartoon Characters" makes a magillah like "Jewish Sports Heroes" look as long as the Torah. And the majority of its members can be dismissed as merely the wives/girlfriends of even more famous male characters. Minnie and Mickey. Wilma and Fred. Marge and Homer. Hillary and Bill (whaddaya mean they're not fictional?), etc.

The search for an independent, hard-working, animated (in both senses of the word) female role model basically leads to two places — the goyishe Wonder Woman and the (you guessed it!) Jewish Betty Boop.

For those of you too young to remember (i.e., anyone with the skill-set to actually visit this website), Betty Boop was the can-do heroine of a series of Depression-era cartoon shorts a la Mickey and Bugs, though currently less well known (but certainly not obscure). And don't let the looks fool you, Betty Boop is no black-and-white bimbo, but a modern, independent woman worthy of anyone's admiration.

As for her Kosher certification, the films themselves provide an ark's-worth of evidence. From her yiddish-peppered patois to her yarmulke-wearing abba, this hip cat's a no-doubter.

In other words, she's not just the most famous, respectable female Jewish cartoon out there. She might be the best one, period.

Boop-oop-a-doop, indeed.