A bus blows up in Jerusalem. The next day, word is out on the streets.
Buy a bus pass, get a bonus — a free ticket to heaven.
Shocking? Iconoclastic? Insensitive?
That’s Israeli humor.
“Israeli humor is very strong, black humor that is very political in nature,” says Moshe Waldoks, rabbi of Temple Beth Zion in Brookline, Mass., and author of three anthologies of American and Jewish humor.
“Diaspora Jews would find [Israeli humor] problematic and offensive.”
Berkeley author Donna Rosenthal agrees. After living in Israel for several years, she became accustomed to Israeli humor, but at times she didn’t know whether to laugh or get angry.
“A lot of Israeli humor is taking something totally depressing or tragic and making it funny,” says Rosenthal. She recalls making a date to meet an Israeli friend for coffee the day after the bombing of the Cafe Apropos in Tel Aviv.
“Let’s pick a cafe that won’t explode,” the friend said.
They ended up going to another Cafe Apropos on the theory it would be the safest place.
Israeli-born therapist Rachel Biale sees Israeli humor as a reflection of the realities of daily life, and the essential nature of Israelis.
“The people live in dire situations where they feel there’s a threat to their safety,” says Biale, who now lives in Berkeley. A therapist at the Jewish Family and Children’s Services of the East Bay, Biale says, “One coping mechanism is humor. Israeli style in general is to confront things head on. Black humor is more in line with that than escapism. Awful incidents become the subject of humor.”
As in any society, Israeli humor has evolved and changed to reflect the times. During the 1940s there was a brand of humor called chizbach. In Arabic, chizbach means lies.
“The chizbach is a type of anecdote that circulated among the members of the Palmach,” says Elliott Oring, anthropology professor at Cal State Los Angeles. “They were usually attached to well-known people in the group. They were told again and again. Novelty was not their chief characteristic. To an outsider they were puzzling. To an American, cryptic.”
These jokes or stories played on stereotypical character traits carried to an extreme, such as a person who was so idealistic he didn’t have a grasp of reality, or one so unpoetic that he couldn’t show sensitivity in a situation that demanded it, Oring says.
Following victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, Waldoks says, a lot of jokes emerged that were racist and anti-Arab while glorifying the Israelis. Today there is “falafel humor,” which pokes fun at the immigrant experience. The subjects of the jokes change depending on the nationality of the current wave of immigration.
Waldoks remembers a joke that was floating around several years ago before Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, before ATMs were commonplace and when banking meant hours in line.
“I can’t take this anymore,” says a man, storming out of the bank.
“Where are you going,” someone asks.
“To assassinate the prime minister.”
A little while later the man returns.
“What happened?” someone asks.
“The line was longer over there.”
And, with Israelis being news junkies, a lot of their humor is political.
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.
One of the most popular Israeli television shows is “HartzuFim,” a satirical puppet show that reviews the events of the preceding week.
These days, Netanyahu is the brunt of many jokes. According to Waldoks, on at least one occasion, “HartzuFim” was so biting and so anti-Netanyahu, that the prime minister had the show canceled.
A life guard orders Bibi Netanyahu to get out of the pool.
“Why are you ordering me to get out?” Netanyahu asks.
“Because you’re peeing in the pool,” says the lifeguard.
“Why pick on me? Everyone’s peeing in the pool,” says Netanyahu.
“Yes,” says the life guard. “But not from the diving board.”
In Israel, there are no sacred cows, and political correctness is not a consideration.
New Yorker-turned-kibbutznik Roni Maoz says a lot of Israeli jokes are retreads of the Polish jokes that circulated in the United States several years ago. Only the characters are changed.
“[Israeli humor] has to hit you over the head and be very clear about who you’re onto,” says Maoz. “At the time of David Levy [Israel’s one-time foreign minister], you could have written four books on jokes about him.”
A group of men concerned that their car’s directional blinker wasn’t working asked David Levy to check it. Levy gets out of the car and goes around to the back to take a look.
“Well,” says one of the men. “Does it work?”
“Works, doesn’t work, works, doesn’t work,” says Levy.
“One of the hallmarks that makes Israeli humor different from diaspora humor is that they don’t have to worry about how it’s understood by the majority culture around it,” says Waldoks. “[Jokes] won’t be misconstrued against the Jews. In Israel, being a majority can be very sharp.”
In humor as in life, subtle is not part of the Israeli dialectic. Rosenthal says if you tell a joke to a group of Israelis and someone’s already heard it, he or she will interrupt and finish it. Even at the movies, it’s not unusual for someone in the audience to yell out a punch-line.
But with the rise of cable television, Israeli humor is beginning to lose its distinctive quality and take on an American flavor.
An American visiting Israel asks his host to show him the tallest building in Israel. When the hosts shows him the building, the American laughs.
“You’ve got to be kidding. In America we have buildings 10 times that size.”
He then asks to be shown Israel’s largest sports arena.
“That would fit in a corner of our largest sports center,” says the American.
“Come,” says the Israeli. “I’ve got a farm. I’ll show it to you.”
They go to the farm where it takes 20 minutes to drive from one end to the other.
“I’ve got a farm too,” says the American. “In my car it takes three hours to drive from one end to the other.”
“I used to have a car like that,” says the Israeli. “It was a lemon.”
“[Israeli humor] is unfortunately fading away because of homogenization of the world,” says Waldoks.
So what’s hot in Israel today?
“Seinfeld,” what else?