Semites and Stereotypes: Characteristics of Jewish Humor (Contributions in Ethnic Studies)

224 Pages·1993·0.61 MB·English

by  Avner Ziv

SEMITES
AND
STEREOTYPES
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SEMITES
AND
STEREOTYPES
Characteristics of
Jewish Humor
Edited by
AVNER ZIV & ANAT ZAJDMAN
CONTRIBUTIONS IN ETHNIC STUDIES,
NUMBER 31
GREENWOOD PRESS
Westport, Connecticut • London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Semites and stereotypes : characteristics of Jewish humor / edited by
Avner Ziv and Anat Zajdman.
p. cm. — (Contributions in ethnic studies, ISSN 0196-7088 ;
no. 31)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-313-26135-0
1. Jewish wit and humor—History and criticism. 2. Jewish wit and
humor—Psychological aspects. 3. Jews—Humor—History and
criticism. 4. Jews in literature. I. Ziv, Avner. II. Zajdman,
Anat. III. Series.
PN6149.J4S45 1993
809.7935203924—dc20 92-28979
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 1993 by Avner Ziv
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 92-28979
ISBN: 0-313-26135-0
ISSN: 0196-7088
First published in 1993
Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
@
The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984).
10987654321
Contents
Preface vii
Avner Ziv
Introduction: Jewish Humor — A Survey and a Program xiii
Raphael Patai
Part I: Psychosocial Characteristics of Jewish Humor
1 The Schlemiezel: Black Humor and the Shtetl Tradition 3
Jay Boyer
2 Sholom Aleichem's Humor of Affirmation and Survival 13
Emanuel S. Goldsmith
3 Exploring the Thesis of the Self-Deprecating Jewish 29
Sense of Humor
Christie Davies
4 Three Jews and a Blindfold: The Politics of Gallows Humor 47
Paul Lewis
5 Are Jews Funnier than Non-Jews? 59
Carolyn Miller
6 Since When Is Jewish Humor Not Anti-Semitic? 71
Bernard Saper
vi / Contents
7 The Origins and Evolution of a Classic Jewish Joke 87
Richard Raskin
Part II: Men and Women in Jewish Humor
8 Love among the Stereotypes, or Why Woody's Women Leave 107
Richard Freadman
9 Philip Roth and Woody Allen: Freud and the Humor of the 121
Repressed
Sam B. Girgus
10 From Eve to the Jewish American Princess: The Comic 131
Representation of Women in Jewish Literature
Judith Stora-Sandor
11 The Transactional Implications of the Jewish Marriage 143
Jokes
Anat Zajdman
Partlll: Humor in the Promised Land
12 Jewish Humor in the Service of an Israeli Political 165
Leader: The Case of Levi Eshkol
Ofra Nevo
13 The Development of Humor in Israeli Children's 177
Literature in the Twentieth Century
Miri Baruch
Selected Bibliography 185
Name Index 187
Subject Index 191
About the Editors and Contributors 195
Preface
Avner Ziv
Jewish humor is humor created by Jews and reflecting some aspect
of Jewish life. While encompassing the universal techniques of
humor, such as incongruity, surprise, local logic, and bisociation,
Jewish humor has some particularities distinguishing it from other
national or ethnic styles of humor. Not only does it have deep and
ancient roots, found already in the Bible (Stora-Sandor, 1984), but it
has long fulfilled an important role in Jewish life and the Jewish
quest for survival. The question of survival has always been central
for Jews, who have a long history as a persecuted minority. The
many punishments imposed on Jews because of their Jewishness
make for a unique horror story culminating in the Nazi "final solu
tion. " Among the many ways Jews learned to cope with sad and
terrible realities, humor holds a special place. It helps change, if
only for a short while, the sadness of reality, twisting it into some
thing funny and so more easily bearable. It is probably not accidental
that it was a Jew, Sigmund Freud, who constructed the theory of
humor as a defense mechanism to help cope with distress (Freud,
1928). He was also the first to underline a particular characteristic of
Jewish humor: self-disparagement. In his book Jokes and Their
Relation to the Unconscious Freud wrote, "I do not know of whether
there are many other instances of a people making fun to such a
degree of its own character" (1905/1976, p. 116).
If Freud was right — and the pilot research presented in this
volume by Carolyn Miller's essay would seem to support it — there
must be some reason why Jews make more fun of themselves than do
other people. Jewish humor in general seems to have fascinated
Freud in no small degree. Not only was his book full of Jewish jokes
vlii / Preface
illustrating his theory, but he collected Jewish jokes with the idea of
publishing them. His preoccupation with Jewish jokes may have
reflected his own problem with Jewish identity, an aspect of Freud's
life brilliantly analyzed in Oring's The Jokes of Sigmund Freud: A
Study in Humor and Jewish Identity (1984). The special relation
between Jewishness and humor (Oring, 1986) is recognized by Jews
and non-Jews alike. A study of the most famous American come
dians (Janus, 1975) showed that 80 percent were Jewish.
The Jewish interest in humor can also be seen in the academic
area. Three Jewish theorists from different countries and different
disciplines made very important contributions to the scientific
approach to humor. In three classic books they exposed the theo
retical paradigms on which most modern research on humor is
based. Sigmund Freud from Austria proposed the psychological view
(1905/1976), Henri Bergson from France wrote on the social view
(1899/1956), and Arthur Koestler from Britain on the cognitive one
(1967). In addition, Jewish humor is the only national humor to be
studied in a series of international conferences. The First Interna
tional Conference on Jewish Humor was held in Tel Aviv in 1984.
Sixty-four scholars from eleven countries presented papers on differ
ent aspects of the subject. Academics from such diverse disciplines
as literature, psychology, sociology, anthropology, theater, and lin
guistics approached the study of Jewish humor from their particular
points of view. The Second International Conference, held in New
York in 1986, and the Third, held in Tel Aviv in 1989, gathered simi
lar numbers of scholars from many disciplines. Their work in the
study of Jewish humor has enriched our understanding of this
fascinating phenomenon. The present volume includes some of the
best papers presented and discussed at the last two conferences.
The book is organized in three parts preceded by an introduction by
Raphael Patai. His chapter, which was the keynote address at the
opening of the Second International Conference, describes the histor
ical importance of Jewish humor as part of the cultural heritage. He
points out the main tasks in the development of research on Jewish
humor: the need for a taxonomy and for systematic collection of the
wealth of humorous material produced by Jews.
Part I of this volume focuses on psychosocial aspects of Jewish
humor. Jay Boyer proposes the thesis that American "black humor"
has some of its deepest roots in the Eastern European Jewish tradi
tion. The shtetls (small villages) inhabited by the Eastern European
Jews produced many comic figures. The schlemiel and the schlimazl
are two such figures. Making their appearance in American litera
ture, they represent an antithesis of the macho type. They are new
types of American protagonists, more Eastern than Western, serving
to enrich our understanding of the complexity of human nature.
Avner Ziv / ix
Emanuel S. Goldsmith's chapter on Sholom Aleichem presents his
work in the context of the ideological changes in European Jewish
life. The Hasidic movement and the Haskalah (Enlightenment), in
conflict with the orthodox traditional view, produced intellectual
"wars" without changing the living conditions of the Jewish masses.
Poverty, fear, and persecutions were part of daily life, and Sholom
Aleichem's humor helped people cope with them. By creating lovable
and funny characters typical of shtetl life, he expressed an
indefatigable optimism, typically Jewish. His ironic look at what
happens to God's chosen people served to forge a strong sense of
solidarity and cohesiveness. Laughing at difficulties and knowing
that they will pass — that things could be worse — encouraged a
certain optimism, making coping a bit easier. Sholom Aleichem's
satire belongs to a very Jewish genre: the "loving satire." The main
elements of self-disparaging humor can be found in his writings,
which contributed in large measure to the Jewish feeling that things
can, and will, get better.
Christie Davies's chapter develops further this particular aspect of
Jewish humor: the tendency toward self-disparagement. He ana
lyzes how minority groups use humor to repudiate negative stereo
types found in the humor directed against them by majority groups.
Jewish self-disparagement, in Davies's view, illustrates the ability to
combine the paradox of the high achievements of Jews and the
negative stereotypes of the hostile environment. And how better
express a paradox than through humor?
Paul Lewis develops the idea that one of humor's main functions is
to help us deal with difficult situations. Gallows humor is the
attempt to be humorous in serious and even tragic moments.
However, Lewis doubts the value of this type of humor and sees it as a
not very effective defense mechanism. Sometimes gallows humor can
celebrate destructive values, distort reality and deny painful truths.
It might be wiser to face reality and, instead of laughing, fight. I
cannot help but see an analogy between this view and the difference
between Jewish humor in the Diaspora and in Israel. While Jews in
the Diaspora use gallows humor in ways similar to self-disparaging
humor and see it as beneficial, Israelis have decided that it is better
to change reality than to laugh at it. This may explain why, until
recently, self-disparagement was not one of the characteristics of
Israeli humor.
Carolyn Miller's chapter is the only empirical one in the volume.
While in the last two decades there have been many empirical
investigations of humor in general, Jewish humor has only rarely
been approached in an experimental setting because of the many
methodological difficulties involved. Miller's research, although
using a small sample, can be considered a pilot study worthy of
larger scale research. In an ingenious design, she compares the