Esther Paik Goodhart says that her kids, 18-year- old Isaac and 16-year-old Jacob, “have the double whammy. They have a Korean-Jewish mother.”

Goodhart, a Dernarest resident, was born in Texas to a farnous Korean preacher and converted to Judaism 18 years ago. Now she is something of a jack-of-all trades. She’s a Hebrew teacher who has taught at several Hebrew schools in the area, she’s beginning a foray into politics, and she’s a comedian, a member of the prestigious Friar’s Club.

“Teaching Hebrew and teaching Korean are basically the same thing,” she said. “They’re both languages of coughing and spitting. The kids think that I am teaching them Hebrew, but I am actually teaching them how to order a better cut of meat in a Korean restaurant.”

So too, she says, are Korean mothers and Jewish mothers similar.

“They both say, 1 will give you the best pieces of meat; oh, don’t worry, no shoes for me, I don’t need shoes, so long as we can have money for you to learn; or no... no... eat this one full piece of bread. I am not hungry. My mother never ate” said Goodhart.

Goodhart (who was born with dystonia, a disorder of the legs — “a familial disorder shockingly found mostly among Russian Jews,” she says) notes that she and her husband have been able to raise fairly courteous kids, who are smart and respectful, mostly by doting on the good things that they did when they were younger as opposed to harping on their misbehavior.

This, though, has become more difficult as her children have hit their teens.

“You’ve got to love your kids even when they are stupid,” she said —jokingly. “When you think there is nothing they can do wrong, they love you. When they are naive and don’t know the word ‘no’ you get the most wonderful, unconditional love — almost as much as you get from the Puerto Ricans in New York, who always say, ‘Mami, I love you,’ when you walk past.

“But now I understand why God created teenagers — because now you realize you are ready to let them go.”