Jewish Humor

One of my college students noted approvingly that I tell jokes all the time.  He was pleased that I laugh a lot.  I didn’t tell him most of my writing is comedic, too.  I can’t help it.  It’s part of my Jewish cultural heritage. 

I saw the impact first hand while teaching a class on Jewish humor in Stetson University’s Continuing Education program.  I taught it three times. The first class was composed of almost all Jews.  They laughed from breakfast through bedtime.  The next group was about filled with Jews.  The Christian portion sat there quietly and watched me; the Jews in the group couldn’t stop laughing and telling jokes.  

The third class was all Christian.  On the first day of class, midway through my opening monologue, I endured what performers call “flop sweat.”  That happens spontaneously when no one responds. They just didn’t get the jokes.  In fact, they didn’t appreciate the humor at all.   

Pity.   Jewish humor has become an integral part of American humor, something worth recalling as we celebrate this country’s birthday.

The names of Jewish comedians who established what is now known as American humor could fill an encyclopedia:  Jack Benny, George Burns, The Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges, Ed Wynn, Eddie Cantor, Don Rickles, Milton Berle, Gilda Radner, Gene Wilder, Jack E. Leonard, Mort Sahl, Joan Rivers, Billy Crystal, Myron Cohen, Danny Kaye, Adam Sandler, Jerry Lewis and so many more.

Probably without knowing the sources, they simply built on a centuries-old tradition born in the Bible and developed under the cruelest of circumstances.  

To the surprise of many, the Bible is replete with humor.  A sainted teenager in the Middle Ages used to berate Christians for telling jokes because, he pointed out correctly, there’s no humor in the New Testament.  He was right.  That’s not true with the Jewish sacred text.

The humor is often sardonic, even sarcastic.  In Judges, for example, Ehud rescues the Jews from a Canaanite oppressor by stabbing a heavy-set king.  The guards don’t respond despite the resulting smell, because, the text reads, they were used to the stench when the king used the toilet.  That won’t get anyone rolling in the aisle, but raises a wry smile.  So does Haman’s comeuppance versus Mordecai in the book of Esther.  There are also puns, plays on words and much more.

By itself, that did not allow Jewish humor to blossom.  Ghettoes were needed.  Isolated in a Christian world, Jews were forced to live in small communities or walled sections of towns.  There, powerless and impotent to fight back, they used the only weapon readily available – their wit.

They created the Polish joke – and entire city of Chelm populated by dimwits.  They turned the spring holiday of Purim into a time for skits and parodies, all new to the entertainment world.  They came up with the funny emcee, a role Berle perfected; the schnorrer, a man who tries to con everyone, like Phil Silvers; the schlemiel, the clumsy oaf, who invariably trips over the schmazzel.  Think the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges.  All of these concepts infused American culture in time.

Jewish humor traveled here on several currents.  One, of course, was the massive wave of Russian immigration that started around the 1880s.  Emma Lazarus’ famed poem on the Statue of Liberty – “Give me your huddles masses yearning to breathe free” – was originally written to encourage Russian Jews to leave the shtetls of Russia for the United States.  (Note:  I am not related to Emma.)  The Russian Jews brought with them their finely honed humor.  The Broadway show, Fiddler on the Roof, reflects some of those comedic ideas.  

Another avenue was theater.  Abraham Goldfarb, a Russian Jew, took advantage of a thaw in Russian anti-Semitic thinking in the mid-1800s to start a troupe of touring Jewish performers.  Jacob Adler became the most famous of the actors.  They moved eventually to England and then the United States, bringing their uncontrolled, ribald approach to the stage.  In the midst of a play, such as Shakespeare’s King Lear, the cast might break into song or perform other hijinks.  

The concept traveled well in this country.  Singer Al Jolson, for example, became famous for continuing his performance after his allotted time and even inviting the audience to join him after the show.  He would tell them, “You ain’t seen nothing yet” and ignore the pleas of other acts to stop.  He was just following the pattern set by his Russian counterparts.  The Marx Brothers adlibs did that, too.

Finally, the American theater had Jewish stock characters, the Hebe.  Jews who saw the performers decided that if anyone was going to make fun of Jews, they were.  Jewish comedians began to flock to the stage.

Over time, Jewish humor imbued American humor with a robust, nonconventional current.  Their influence was so strong that the late comedian Buddy Hackett said he had to act Jewish to become successful in Hollywood.  And Buddy Hackett was Jewish.

On this most American of holidays, the role Jewish humor has played in the United States is something worth celebrating, both for how it has added joy to our lives and for another reason that transcends comedy.  It serves as an almost daily reminder of the influence of foreign cultures and ideas on the growth and development of our country.  And that, thankfully, is no joke.

Bill Lazarus is been a long-time writer, educator and religious historian.  He started teaching when he was 13 year old and has been rarely out of a classroom since.  He hold an M.A. in communication from Kent State University and is a full-time instructor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.  You can write him via this website or www.williamplazarus.com

A Birthday Greeting

I read through the greeting cards

Hoping to find for you.

I read them all:

Short and tall,

Red, yellow, green and blue.

None seemed to have the right meaning

To express my true thought.

None funny

Or too sunny

Or deserving to be bought.

It's hard to find a card

With the exact, sentimental phrase.

I'm not a sentimental person

Nor given to sentimental ways.

So I did what I had to do

To demonstrate mi amore.

I scrubbed

The tub

And washed the kitchen floor.

Although,

as a writer, I know

To say this is hard:

Sometimes, actions

Speak louder than cards.

 

Bill Lazarus is been a long-time writer, educator and religious historian.  He started teaching when he was 13 year old and has been rarely out of a classroom since.  He hold an M.A. in communication from Kent State University and is a full-time instructor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.  You can write him via this website or www.williamplazarus.com

         

Evolution Made Easy

I really missed a real teaching opportunity in my ninth-grade class two years ago.  It’s bothered me ever since.  The students were debating the Theory of Evolution, a controversial topic well worth discussing in any school.  The student responsible for speaking on behalf of evolution failed to show up that day, so I took the pro side.

While I was speaking, a boy in class, Cory, held up a sign that said “I believe in God.”  That was his way of rejecting the theory.

That’s where I went wrong.  Instead of using that sign to initiate a lesson, I reprimanded him.  I realized later how I should have handled it:  I should have asked him a couple of questions.

“Did God create man?”

Of course, he would have answered yes.

“Did God create man in His own image?”  Cory would have said yes again.  After all, that’s what the Bible reports.

“In that case, are you created in God’s image?”  

Again, Cory must answer yes.  He would have no choice.

Then, I should have asked Derrick, who is an African-American, and Kim, who is Asian-American, to stand.  Then, I should have asked Cory if they, too, were created in God’s image.  

Once again, he would have had no choice but to answer yes.

Then, finally, I could ask him a question he could not answer:  “Why don’t they look like you?”

In fact, no one could answer that question for thousands of years until the Theory of Evolution provided the correct one.  English naturalist Charles Darwin is credited with introducing the theory in 1859, but, actually, that’s not completely right.  More than 2,000 years ago, Greek philosophers suggested that man evolved.  So did Erasmus Darwin, Charles’ famed grandfather.  

What Darwin did was published a book that finally explained the process allowing evolution to take place.  He called it Natural Selection.  

Derrick has black skin because people with darker skin in Africa could endure the sun better and so survived longer to have offspring, who inherited that coloring.  Eventually, people with lighter skin died out.   Kim has a different shape to her eyes because a mutation added fat around her eyes, creating the oval design.  It reduced glare and subsequent eye damage, so people with that trait lived longer and had more offspring.  Eventually, all Asian people inherited that change.

At a distance, the process seems obvious.  Natural selection is why now-extinct humans once shrank in size to endure on a small Southeast Asia island and why sheep in northern climes are getting smaller now.  It is why snakes still have vestigial leg bones under their skin, as do whales.  Snakes once had legs; whales were once land animals.  However, a snake born without legs actually surpassed its legged relatives and passed on its genes.  The whales that returned to the ocean have survived; the land versions have not.

Scientists have subsequently learned that mutations play a role, too.  Sometimes, a mutation is so valuable that it allows the animal to easily out-reproduce its relatives.  The mutation is dominant and wins.  That’s all.

Predators affect evolution, too.  So does environment. Sometimes change is quick, through mutation.  Sometimes, it's slow.

Regardless of the method, all creatures evolve constantly.  If they find an ideal design that can’t be improved, such as a snake or crocodile, they remain the same.  If they fail to hit upon a design that allows them to thrive as the environment changes, they die out.  Extinctions are happening every day: some are natural.  Sadly, some are caused by humans.  What we are seeing around us then is not the final creation, but rather simply one moment in time on an endless reel of life.

That means humans evolve, too, which would have been clearly evident to Cory and everyone else in my classroom if I had handled the discussion properly.

There are a couple of reasons why people like Cory refuse to accept evolution.  One is the word “theory” that is attached to it.  In everyday life, that means a guess.  To scientists, however, it refers to something proven in laboratories and field studies.  A guess to them is a postulation.  Theories are always tested.  Anything in science always is.  The Theory of Evolution can never be proven 100 percent.  There are too many variables.  That’s true for the Theory of Relativity, too.   

However, to scientists, there’s no question of the accuracy of such theories.  They have proven out unerringly through the years.

The other reason why Cory rejects evolution is his belief in God.  To him, God created heaven and earth, and they cannot have changed.   There is also an answer to that.  If God created the world and mankind, why could he have created evolution as His tool to make sure everything functioned properly?

Cory then could hold up all the signs he wants while still opening his mind to scientifically proven truths.  Otherwise, it becomes a stop sign.  That’s the first step to extinction.

 

Bill Lazarus is been a long-time writer, educator and religious historian.  He started teaching when he was 13 year old and has been rarely out of a classroom since.  He hold an M.A. in communication from Kent State University and is a full-time instructor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.  You can write him via this website or via his webpage www.williamplazarus.com