HOW DO YOU TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A JEW AND A GENTILE?
There are occasions, though, when Jews do form a collective identity:
Back in the day, two Jews, Moishe and Itzik, are walking in the Ukrainian forest. In the distance, they see two local guys walking towards them. Moishe turns to Itzik, panics, and says, ‘Itzik, what should we do? There’s two of them, and we’re all alone!’
There are a great many candidates for the world’s most Jewish joke, but this one, for me, tops the list. Because there they are, those proverbial ‘two Jews’ – all alone in a big bad world, feeling weak and outnumbered (regardless of their strength or numbers), as two non-Jews (brute simpletons, obviously) approach them ... Ahhhh! Danger! Help! What are two all-alone Jews expected to do in such a dastardly situation? Tell jokes?
Well, yes, as it happens. Here, for example, are those same two Jews encountering difficulties again:
Two Jews, driving a wagon along a narrow road, come to a place where boulders are blocking their path. They sit, considering what to do, discussing each of their options in great detail. Suddenly two Gentiles come along in another wagon, jump out of their seat, roll up their sleeves and push the boulders off the road.
‘There, that’s goyish thinking for you,’ says one of the Jews, ‘always with the might.’
Here, on the other hand, is Jewish thinking for you:
A Jewish woman in a hospital tells the doctor she wants to be transferred to a different hospital.
The doctor says, ‘What’s wrong? Is it the food?’
‘No, the food is fine. I can’t kvetch [complain].’
‘No, the room is fine. I can’t kvetch.’
‘Is it the staff?’
‘No, everyone on the staff is fine. I can’t kvetch.’
‘Then why do you want to be transferred?’
‘I can’t kvetch!’
Kvetching is that special type of pleasure to be elicited from complaining even when things go right – because if there’s one thing Jews can be sure of, it’s that there’s always a negative.
And, as we’ll discover, there are reasons for that. For it’s not only that Jews love to kvetch, they also take a pretty dim view of the world:
Q: How many Jewish mothers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: That’s OK, don’t trouble yourself, we’ll sit in the dark.
Given the ordeal that characterises so much of Jewish history, it’s hardly surprising if Jews do tend to see things darkly (not to mention the expense to be spared when the lights are turned off*). But what jokes like these also show is that, while an intolerable heaviness has been the burden of Jewish history, it’s a heaviness accompanied by an irreverent levity whose aim it is to make that intolerable heaviness a little more, well, tolerable:
Two Jews sat in a coffeehouse, discussing the fate of their people.
‘How miserable is our history,’ said one. ‘Pogroms, plagues, discrimination, Hitler, neo-Nazis ... Sometimes I think we’d be better off if we’d never been born.’
‘Sure,’ said his friend. ‘But who has that much luck, maybe one in ten thousand?’
So it’s not for nothing that the waiter must ask of the Jewish diners, ‘Is anything all right?’ Though the waiter’s question is best considered alongside the jokes Jews sometimes like to tell about their comedy counterparts – those peculiarly unflappable creatures known as ‘Gentiles’ ...
Two Gentiles run into one another in the street.
‘Hi, John. How are you?’
‘Oh, hello, Freddie. I’m fine, thanks.’
Jews find that one side-splittingly funny. And this one ...
A Gentile calls his mother.
‘Hello, Mum.’
‘Hi, darling.’
‘I can’t come over for dinner tonight after all.’
‘OK. See you soon.’
Hilarious!
As for the mothers of Jews, still sitting there, lightbulb-less, in the dark (‘Honestly, we’re fine like this, you go ahead and enjoy yourself ...’), well, at least they have each other to kvetch with:
‘Oy,’ says one.
‘Oy vey,’ sighs a second.
‘Nu,’ shrugs the third.
At this, the fourth gets up from her chair, glowering. ‘I thought we’d agreed not to talk about our children!’
* Hard to resist, though precisely the kind of borderline anti-Semitic joke that only Jews can reasonably expect to get away with.