Yup...it's true...Brooklyn's own Judge Judy is a real, real great little lady..even The Wall Street Journal sez so:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/judge-judys-brooklyn-attitude-1442936534
Judge Judy’s Brooklyn Attitude
TV Judge Judith Sheindlin recalls the talk that led her to the bench
Judith Sheindlin, 72, stars on the syndicated TV show “Judge Judy,” the highest-rated program on daytime television—now in its 20th season. Last year, she created a new courtroom show, “Hot Bench.” She spoke with Marc Myers.
"The first thing I learned as a child in Brooklyn was to look both ways before crossing the street outside my family’s house. It was a simple judgment lesson, but it taught me to think before I put my foot out in life and to be sure to get both sides of every story.
If you come from Brooklyn, you have a certain way of looking at the world. Street smarts matter. You can have all the academic gifts in the world, but if you’re not street smart, you’re not smart. Street smarts is about questioning what you’re told and studying people and their behavior.
I was born on Quincy Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. My mother and father lived with their parents then. A year after I was born, my father, Murry, was drafted into the Army during World War II. He was a dentist, so we moved to military bases in Texas and Virginia. My only memory of that time is being taught dirty songs by the soldiers. I liked performing.
When I was 3, we returned to Brooklyn and lived at 225 Parkside Ave. in the Flatbush section. It was an apartment building where my grandparents and my mother’s two sisters lived. The building gave me a sense of community and provided protection.
Then in 1952, we moved from the bosom of a maternal family to a single-family house at 2420 Ocean Ave., where my dad had his private practice. For a time, I was miserable.
I still stay in touch with neighbors from Brooklyn. We’re a tribe and understand each other. I don’t have to speak in whole sentences. Half of what we communicate is done with facial expressions, like the “Are you for real?” look.
I knew from age 12 that I didn’t want to become a dentist like my father, but I knew I needed a profession. I used to listen to my mother, Ethel, and her friends talk. Most of them didn’t work outside the home, and they all talked about an allowance. Children get an allowance, and here were grown women waiting for their husbands to give them money. I told myself I’d never be in a position where I’d be an adult waiting for someone to give me something.
I needed a profession, but nothing inspired me. My father said, “Why don’t you become a senator?” That sounded great, but I didn’t know where to start. First, he said, you have to go to law school.
From that moment on, I really wanted to be a lawyer. In high school, I did relatively well thanks to Cliffs Notes. Reading them in high school wound up helping me in law school. Their push-comes-to-shove approach taught me to process key information quickly—what’s the issue, the question, the decision and the reasoning.
My sense of outrage originates with my family’s way of looking at life. We were taught that if you do the right thing, the right thing will happen.
After law school in 1965, I became an attorney and then a prosecutor. I was appointed a family-court judge in 1982 and a supervising judge in 1986. I noticed that someone always winds up controlling the courtroom—litigants, attorneys, prosecutors, someone. I made sure that that someone was me.
Back then, many judges in family court kept the press out of their courtrooms. I liked allowing the press in to cover what was going on. I thought the public should be allowed to see if they’re getting a bang for their buck.
n 1993, I was profiled on “60 Minutes” and I let them shoot in my courtroom. When TV’s “People’s Court” was canceled the same year, two of the show’s producers were going to be without jobs. One said, “Let me call this judge in New York who was on ‘60 Minutes.’ ” And that’s how “Judge Judy” started in 1996.
To do what I do on TV, you need a sense of humor. You also need timing, which I got from my father. He was a great storyteller.
When I’m working, my husband, Jerry, and I live in Los Angeles in a hotel with residential floors. In the summer, we live in Greenwich, Conn. In the winter, we live in Naples, Fla., in a high-rise with a lovely view of the Gulf of Mexico. It’s a little different from the apartment building in Brooklyn. Now, the elevator only goes to my apartment, and I rarely see anyone in the building. But it’s nice to know there are people upstairs and downstairs..."