Kvetching, Jiving and Laughing

Weinstein, Sharon

Kvetching, Jiving and Laughing Jewish Wry: Essays on Jewish Humor Edited with an introduction by Sarah Blacher Cohen Indiana University Press, 1987 244 pp. $27 50 Reviewed by Sharon...

...Very simply, the answer is an unequivocal "Yes...
...For the pleasures of the jokes alone, the volume is worth the price of admission...
...In Sarah Blacher Cohen's brilliant essay, "The Unkosher Comediennes: From Sophie Tucker to Joan Rivers," for example, Cohen emphasizes that "Jewish women comedians are brazen offenders of the faith...
...In the oddly titled "Dear Mr...
...There are two women essayists to twelve men, and while comediennes are examined with depth and sophistication, women writers are not...
...Is it worth our time to plow through such essays as ' 'Beyond Kvetching and Jiving: The Thrust of Jewish and Black Folkhumor," "Dear Mr...
...The 14 essays in the collection range over a broad territory beginning with Irving Howe's focus on Jewish humor as the heart of Yiddish literature, next covering Sholom Aleichem's wit, moving to Lenny Bruce with "Shpritzing the Gojroi/Shocking the Jews," and jumping to a more literary examination of contemporary writers like Philip Roth, Stanley Elkin and Mordecai Richler...
...Perhaps the most brilliant essay is the one by Joseph Boskin that matches Jewish and black humor thrust for thrust...
...Each year he would give Chernov a handsome stipend—never less than 500 rubles...
...Einstein: Jewish Comedy and Contradictions of Culture," and "Is There Humor in Israeli Literature and If Not, Why Are We Laughing...
...Einstein: Jewish Comedy and the Contradictions of Culture," Mark Shechner suggests such intriguing ideas as: "I'm inclined to regard comedy as an index to culture, a via regia into the collective unconscious of a group no less revealing than dreams are of the individual unconscious...
...If it is so completely subjective, what is left for the analysts—the professors of comparative literature, history, English, Hebrew and Yiddish who grace the pages of Jewish Wry...
...What did he say...
...They are aggressive...
...When they saw it was a Jew, they said, "Let the Jew drown...
...that's what I call living...
...A study of the humor of such Jewish-American writers as Cynthia Ozick, Rebecca Goldstein, Grace Paley, Anzia Yezierska and others would be most welcome...
...Sarah Blacher Cohen happens to be one of the best editors—and critics— around...
...Or, speaking of a leader's illness: "It couldn't happen to a nicer fellow...
...What is impressive about Jewish Wry is the uniform excellence of the essays...
...What is permitted, however, is uncomfortable laughter...
...for example, in the way Jews and blacks castigate their oppressors...
...and excoriate their detractors...
...One year, however, the rich man gave him only 250 rubles...
...Jews do so through the "ironic curse" that says "My enemies, they should live so long...
...But it is also an explosive flaunting of the taboo of grossness which we secretly admire but which our internal censors prohibit...
...Sharon Weinstein is professor of English at Norfolk State University...
...Blacher comments: "This joke is a disguised expression of the woman's anger...
...Humor can be used to denigrate thi "Other" but also to raise the level o one's own group, as can be seen in thi joke: A colored maid and her white employer became pregnant at the same time and gave birth on the same day...
...Blacher tells us that "The joke captures the comic reversal of roles whereby the destitute shnorrer pretends to be superior to his well-endowed benefactor...
...There he saw Rothschild's grave, with a large and beautiful tombstone...
...A few months later the white woman came running into the kitchen and exclaimed to the maid: "My baby said his first word today!' In the crib the colored baby sat up and said, "He did...
...Blacks, however, will "shake their heads in amusement as they talk about Caucasians, declaring that 'whites sure are funny,' and 'whites sure have rhythm.' " A Jew once came to Paris where a friend took him to the Jewish cemetery...
...Boskin shows parallels and differences between the two groups, both of which have been forced to work out responses to societies that discriminate against them...
...Richler's characters fight against "a society that confines them to a double marginality: As Jews, they have a peripheral position within a class-conscious Canadian mosaic that, unlike the American melting-pot, hinders assimilation and recognition...
...Not only is the shnorrer ungrateful, but he feels entitled to his rubles because he enables the wealthy man to perform the sacred duty of giving charity to the poor . . . The joke mocks his impudence for claiming absolute control over money that is not his...
...Her prose is always careful and balanced and her editorship is just as sound...
...Her From Hester Street to Hollywood: The Jewish-American Stage and Screen, and Saul Bellow's Enigmatic Laughter are fine books...
...ft Both groups ' 'have been forced to resor to the magic and majesty of lan guage . . . [fashioning] powerful, subtle intricate, biting expressions to identif...
...demanded the insolent shnorrer...
...Two Czarist policemen ran up...
...27 50 Reviewed by Sharon Weinstein Humor is a personal matter...
...My son married an actress and I am paying all the bills...
...When the man observed that his strength was ebbing, he shouted with all his might, "Down with the Czar...
...No one can convince you, logically, that something is funny if you don't find it so...
...He cried out for help...
...A mild case is the following: A woman tells of a man who goes to the village rabbi and says he wants to divorce his wife because she has filthy habits...
...6§ A man was drowning in the Dneiper River...
...as Canadians, they are denied acceptance into a Jewish-American alliance that has achieved mainstream status...
...65 And they shall beat their swords into plowshares— but first they'll give it to you with those plowshares...
...She has published numerous short stories, essays, literary criticism and book reviews...
...For example, Michael Greenstein's essay on "Morde-cai Richler and Jewish-Canadian Humor" is fascinating whether or not you were previously interested in what it is like to be a Canadian Jew...
...This is only half of what you have been giving me!'' "I'm sorry, Chernov, but I must cut my expenses this year," apologized the wealthy man...
...He did...
...99 Another example, familiar to many Jews, profits by Blacher's analysis: Chernov, the shnorrer of Petrograd, had a very wealthy patron who, for some obscure reason, had taken a liking to the nervy little beggar...
...The analysts enable us to see around the jokes to the larger visions they are part of...
...But how dare he do it with my money...
...Some are surprises...
...Boskin illustrates particularly convincing parallels between black and Jewish humor...
...What is the meaning of this...
...And surprisingly, the humor is enhanced by this scrutiny...
...So the Jew looked at it—and then he turned to his friend and said, "You see, Yankl, you see that tombstone Rothschild has...
...Every time I go to piss in the sink, it's always full of dirty dishes...
...If your son wants to support an actress, that's his business...
...Whereupon hearing such seditious words, the policemen plunged in, rescued him and proceeded to arrest him...
...Well, of all the chutzpah'" roared Chernov, hopping mad...
...they take on forbidden topics, and they talk dirty...
...But it is what these essayists do with and to these moments of humor that really make Jewish Wry special...
...My only criticism, is that the balance of women to men in this volume could have been better...
...Kvetching and jiving, he reveals, are not exactly the same, but Boskin's point is that it is necessary to go beyond these responses, to reach for the whole human being, "to achieve oneness...

Vol. 13 • December 1988 • No. 9


 
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