HOW DO YOU TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A TAILOR AND A PSYCHIATRIST?
A deal is a deal is a deal, and you have to deal with whatever hand you’re dealt. That means, in the first place, being adaptable. And one advantage to Jews of having learned to expect the unexpected is that they’ve acquired just that skill: the ability to change just enough to meet the latest terms and conditions.*
As too have their jokes. Thus whether it’s Capitalist America or Soviet Russia, the same old jokes should always be framed in terms of the current polity:
Back in the shtetl, Moishe got a job looking out for signs of the coming of the Messiah: ‘It’s a boring job, and the pay’s terrible – but at least it’s steady work.’
While in the Soviet era his job changed: Moishe now found himself looking out for signs of world revolution. The job proved equally steady.
Which I guess you could say is the other message we get from both the Jewish joke and Jewish history: expect the unexpected for sure, but also – expect more of the same. For as earnestly as they may long for the Messiah, Jews are also a people who’ve learned to pray: ‘Lord, don’t let this war last as long as we’re able to survive it.’ And so, since they’ve grown a bit weary of big-time historical promises, what you often find in Jewish jokes is a capacity for looking past the popular ideology of the moment towards the brute material reality running beneath:
‘By the year 2000 Russians will be able to get a rocket to Mars,’ declared Brezhnev.
‘And when,’ asks Mendel, ‘will we be able to get to Vienna?’
Mendel’s real wish, though, is to travel overseas – to America:
He goes to get a visa. ‘There’s a long, long queue for those,’ he’s told by the official, ‘you’d best come back in another ten years.’
‘Fine,’ says Mendel, ‘in the morning or the afternoon?’
Mendel’s patience, in fact, is not unlike that of the Jewish joke, whose very endurance is a testament to its critical powers. For if the joke’s still got it, then the new ideology, no matter how different or how radical, can’t be quite so transformative as advertised. So while some of the best Jewish jokes have been put out of action by recent transformations – email, for example, has called time on the traditional Jewish telegram:
Start worrying. Details to follow.
Still, the sentiment remains the same: if you start worrying now, history will be sure to prove you right.
But never forget the flipside.
A Jewish couple are wheeling their baby boy in a pram. A woman peeks in and says, ‘What a sweet child! What’s his name?’ ‘Shloyme.’ ‘Shloyme! What kind of name is that?’ ‘We named him after his grandfather, Scott.’*
Thus lots of Jewish jokes have kept pace with modernity not only because Jews have been sceptical about historical change, but because they’ve also been so very good at it:
Q: What’s the difference between a tailor and a psychiatrist?
A: A generation.
* According to the historianYuri Slezkine, it’s their talent for adapting that rendered Jews modern people avant la lettre: ‘Modernisation is about everyone becoming urban, mobile, literate, articulate, intellectually intricate, physically fastidious and occupationally flexible.’ (Not to mention witty.)
* This one’s very much an insiders’ joke alluding to changing fashions in Jewish assimilation: whereas early generations of Jewish immigrants tended to Americanize their names by translating Yiddish or Hebrew names into English near equivalents, in recent years there has been a trend for young hipster Jews to select the sort of names their great-grandparents might have had.