[1] Schmekel made their audiences more comfortable with transgender topics through jokes, but also often included lyrical references to obscure queer, Jewish, and punk content that only cultural insiders would recognize.

[6] Schmekel performed with other Jewish punk bands local to Brooklyn, such as The Shondes,[9][10] at New York City venues like the Knitting Factory,[11] the Delancey,[12] Public Assembly,[13] and Otto's Shrunken Head.

"[22] Schmekel's lyrics frequently referred to Jewish holidays, and their first album started with Kahn sounding the Yom Kippur "tekiah" and bassist Nogga Schwartz blowing a shofar[23] before launching into a punk song.

[24] Professor of Musicology Edwin Seroussi compared Schmekel's tongue-in-cheek allusions to prayers to similar inside jokes in Yiddish theatre and vaudeville at the turn of the 20th century.

[26] Susanne Mayer of Die Zeit contrasted the celebrities at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's fashion exhibit PUNK: Chaos to Couture[27] with Schmekel's dirty song lyrics, antimilitarism, and criticism of same-sex marriage as bourgeois.