How have Israelis managed to survive psychologically once again after so many conflicts, war, terrorism and threats of annihilation? Jewish humor, like every other aspect of life, was conditioned by centuries of existence as an outcast minority subject to scorn, rejection and, at times, ostracism from the rest of society.
A humor developed that was created by Jews for Jews reflecting and often mocking this fact of life particularly for those individuals who could not simply accept with equanimity the notion that this was the price they had to pay for their "election" as a "chosen people" with a divine mission to bring the Torah as a "Light Unto the Nations".
Part of their means of adaptation was to develop a darker more sarcastic kind of humor than other nations. Many scholars assert that this sense of humor helped them survive. Laughing at difficult situations became a defense mechanism that enabled them to endure. The underlying tenet of the humor was that Jews found themselves in a situation where they had no power or weapons to change it. A favorite technique that became a staple of Jewish humor in both the Diaspora and Israel is to turn the tables on the enemy....
Ezra, a Jewish gentleman was sitting in Central Park one day, and his best friend Moshe came up to him and asked him why he was reading a particular newspaper.
"You know, Ezra, that paper is anti-Semitic." Ezra replies, "I know, Moshe , but I love hearing so many good things that come out of this paper. They think the Jews control Hollywood, the government, the labor unions, big business, all are rich and live in beautiful homes with big cars and beautiful blond mistresses. It's great being a Jew!"
This kind of humor also reinforced two contrasting stereotypes widely accepted by gentile society in spite of the fact that they appear to be mutually exclusive.
These were a picture of the Jews as
1. inept, clumsy, inhibited, naive or starry eyed dreamers totally out of their depth as demonstrated by the great number of Yiddish words such as schlemiel, shmendrik, klutz, putz and schmuck, as typified by Woody Allen and Jack Benny
or
2. brash, loud, vulgar, aggressive, sarcastic and assertive challenging the polite and often hypocritical niceties of Gentile society as signified by the now thoroughly Americanized Yiddish words "chutzpah"and "mamzer" as typified by the Marx Brothers and Mel Brooks.
Milton Berle and Jerry Lewis were successful at playing both types simultaneously in what could be called "the aggressive schlemiel".
Just as the first type became identified with Yiddish in the Diaspora, Israeli humor definitely tends toward the second type but with the added dimension of the Hebrew language . Many observers find humor in Israel more aggressive, black and intense as befits a people who have thrown off the acquired characteristics of an oppressed minority expected to defer to the majority and forced in the past to use humor as the weapon of the weak.
What, then, has happened to humor in Israel now that the Jews are a sovereign nation with their own ability to mold a language that has existed only as a spoken vernacular for the last three generations? Jewish humor as social satire was frequently used to deflate the pretensions and arrogance of the rich and powerful on behalf of the poor and has been transposed on to the national scene in a similar vein today with Israel as the heroic David threatened by its enemies.
Some sensitive Jewish critics in the Diaspora find that Israeli humor has, however, gone too far and is too blunt, tough, iconoclastic, even macabre and vulgar. They often miss out on the delightful playfulness of modern Hebrew slang that often defies translation and for the same reasons as Yiddish did. The language and humor are inseparable from the social and political environment. In Israel life differs drastically from Jewish life elsewhere in spite of the common historical origin.
War and the intense anxiety produced by horrific acts of terrorism must be deflected somehow and many Israelis face them head on often shocking many religious and Diaspora Jews as grossly insensitive. Outsiders also find coarse jokes about the Orthodox, new immigrants unfamiliar with the Hebrew language or Arabs offensive in the same way as Polish-Americans found so called "Polish jokes" demeaning. Perhaps they represent a freedom for Jews to finally make someone else the "victim".
In peacetime, Jews in Israel cannot blame "the other"(i.e. the Gentiles or even the Arabs) Having lived in Israel for several years, I found that the Israeli target for humor satire and even invective was well placed - the country's politicians, political system and maddening bureaucracy, often flavored by an explicit envy of American life, popular culture and personalities much like an admiring distant cousin ...A typical example of a few years ago was ....The United States has Bill Clinton, Stevie Wonder, Bob Hope and Johnny Cash. In Israel we have Bibi Netanyahu, No Wonder, No Hope, No Cash.
Self-deprecating jokes are still popular although the sophisticated comedian often implies that Israelis aren't really proud of the way their lives have been forcibly shaped by the many problems and tensions that are part of daily life even in peacetime as for example....An Israeli, a Russian, and an American are sitting in a restaurant. A waiter comes by and says, "Excuse me, but we have a shortage of meat." The American asks: "What's 'shortage'?" The Russian asks: "What's 'meat'?" The Israeli asks: "What's 'excuse me'?"
Nevertheless, there are two important aspects of Israeli humor that set it apart from the Diaspora. The first stresses the pride in Israel's accomplishments and a "can do" mentality in the face of overwhelming odds- precisely the opposite of the poor shlemiel stereotype. This trend began long before Israeli independence. Native-born Hebrew speaking "sabras" have been represented in the public mind and literature of the early pioneer generations as strong, brave, somewhat coarse, and outspoken, although often gentle, childish, and uncultivated. A collection of anecdotes in Jokes and Witticisms (Jerusalem 1945) by Alter Duryanov tells the following story .....number 2636 cited in Even-Zohar, Itamar 1990; "The Emergence of a Native Hebrew Culture in Palestine, 1882-1948." Polysystem Studies; Poetics Today 11:1 (1990)],
"Tel Aviv, Herzl Street. A group of children pour out of the Herzlia Gymnasium (academic high school). Two famous Yiddishists are passing by, having come to visit Palestine [probably just before or after World War 1], and the greater Yiddishist says to his junior colleague: 'The Zionists boast that Hebrew is becoming a natural tongue for the children of Palestine. I will now show you that they are lying. I will tweak one of the boys' ears and I promise you that he will not cry out ima ["mother" in Hebrew], but mama [Yiddish].' So saying, he approached one of the boys and tweaked his ear. The boy turned on him and shouted: 'Idiot!' [hamor ("donkey") in Hebrew]. The famous Yiddishist turned to his friend: 'I am afraid that the Zionists are right.'
The whole point of the joke is not simply the change in language but rather the change in mentality of a new generation of Jews born in their own land and brought up to defend themselves. The second aspect is the clever use of wordplays derived from the flexibility of the Hebrew language and the innovative use of Biblical language and characters transcribed into modern contexts.
Today Hebrew remains the language of synagogue liturgy for most Diaspora Jews but outside of Israel lacks the powerful attraction and fascination it held even for many Christian theologians and clergymen who felt the power of the language they believed God first used to speak to man. This feeling of reverence and power was beautifully expressed by the great German writer Hermann Hesse writing in his largely autobiographical novel "Beneath the Wheel". In a poetic passage he recounts the vitality of the language and insights gained by German boys studying Hebrew to qualify as pastors in the state Lutheran Church.
"Hebrew kept all of them on their toes. The peculiar ancient language of Jehovah, an uncouth, withered and yet secretly living tree took on an alien, gnarled and puzzling from before the boys' eyes, catching their attention through unusual linkages and astonishing them with remarkably colored and fragrant blossoms. In its branches, hollows and roots lived friendly or gruesome thousand-year old ghosts; fantastically fearsome dragons, lovely naïve girls and wrinkled sages next to handsome boys and calm-eyed girls or quarrelsome women. What had sounded remote and dreamlike in the Lutheran Bible was now lent blood in its true coarse character, as well as a voice of an old cumbersome but tenacious and ominous life."
For almost two thousand years, Hebrew was essentially a written language rather than a spoken one. When it was spoken, it was used on formal and ceremonial occasions or as the neutral choice for communication between speakers who had no other common language. It is for this reason that Hebrew changed so little. Even today, schoolchildren are able to read and understand the Bible without any special training.
Modern Hebrew, which began only a little more than a century ago, has changed more since then than in the preceding two thousand years to reflect the needs of a community of speakers. Scholars who have learned biblical, or Talmudic, Hebrew are thus often at a loss to understand modern colloquial Israeli Hebrew unless they have lived in the country for some time. Likewise a turn-of-the century American or Englishman would not be familiar with the new meanings acquired by such words as 'gay', 'far out', 'blue', 'hot', 'cool', 'wicked', 'boss' or even 'brother' and 'mother' in the sense they are used today.
In the early 1970s a witty bestseller on Hebrew slang Milon Olami Le'lvrit Meduberet (The World Dictionary of Spoken Hebrew) by Dan Amotz delighted Israeli audiences. Slang relies on being able to appreciate the context of the subjects under discussion and an implied familiarity with the social and political realities of the society in which the language is used. It is for this reason that American and Britons, or Irishmen and Englishmen do not necessarily laugh at the same jokes.
In any daily conversation on the street, in a bus, or at the marketplace in Israel, one can hear Hebrew terms which have undergone a transformation, so that although the root meaning of the words may be recognizable, it is not immediately obvious how to interpret their usage or the implied connotations. The following is intended as a 'Guide to the Perplexed' for both Hebraists abroad, non-Hebrew speakers and those who intend to visit Israel and keep their ears open for expressions of Israeli humor. You need not even have an acute ear since these expressions are repeated dozens of times a day.
The etymology of three common idiomatic expressions illustrate how the social development of Jewish society in Mandatory Palestine and the modern state of Israel have changed the Hebrew language to conform to a reality in a way that could not have been foreseen in the two thousand years of Diaspora existence.
Israel is a society beset with many tensions, and the terms I analyze here 'Davka' 'Ma Pit'om' and 'Kol Hakavod' are frequently resorted to as tensions releasing devices. They are interjections or philosophical expletives to combat the daily frustrations for which no tourist guidebook or standard Hebrew language textbook, let alone Zionist sympathies, prepare prospective immigrants and tourists. Most short-term visitors to Israel are aware of the country's 'macro problems' - the constant threat of war and terrorism, massive taxation, the high cost of living and how to deal with religious extremism. The "micro problems' of everyday life (shoddy products, arrogant bureaucrats and the very low level of politeness and respect for public property and private space) are usually what drive many immigrant-idealists from Western countries to return home after a few years.
Dr. Norman Berdichevsky nberdichevsky.com, Ph.D. - Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1974, is an author, freelance writer, editor, researcher, lecturer, translator and teacher with sophisticated communications skills.
