Yiddishe Mamas (13 page)

“A lot of humor is based on stereotypes but obviously we’re all individuals. [Jewish mother jokes] is a journey to determine issues with your own mother,” says Judy Gold, the star of the critically acclaimed Off-Broadway show
Twenty-five Questions for a Jewish Mother
that earned her a Drama Desk nomination. “I find the people who live in a safety net are surrounded by numbness. They can criticize me all they want. [What they don’t] realize is, I’m doing my mother. The basis of humor comes from looking at something in different ways, which is also the basis of Judaism—looking for interpretations. Jewish women are funny because they’ve been through hell, survived, learned, and we constantly challenge the system.”

The Jewish female comedian, not unlike her male counterpart, sees humor as pushing the edge, even if it makes some uncomfortable. While the male has been generally able to get away with more direct language and bawdiness, attacking every arena, the female comic has often focused on those themes of special interest to women, such as family, romantic foibles, and feminism. But this turf is also being expanded as more and more females are pushing the envelope successfully.

“You fat •#%)# !” comes out of the mouth of Zora Essman’s daughter Susie in her role as wife of the portly, wimpy agent, Jeff Greene, in
Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Mrs. Essman says: “A lot of my friends resent it … her language. It doesn’t bother me. She’s able to make the switch from the Jewish bitch to the nice woman. I say, ‘Well that’s the way Larry David thinks.’”

But then Zora Essman is a funny Jewish woman. “My children have a very different view of me. I don’t think Susie thinks that of me, but I have great timing. My husband didn’t have timing. He was an oncologist. I didn’t talk as much when he was a alive.”

A number of Jews, even those not in “the business,” simply felt, “Why make a big deal?”

“Lighten up! Laughing at ourselves actually mocks the stereotype,” says Binyamin Jolkovsky, editor in chief of
Jewishworldreview.com
. “I think every stereotype is based on a bit of truth. It’s very important that we laugh at ourselves. If we can’t, it sends an alert that we should not engage in that behavior. If you don’t acknowledge it, you can’t eradicate it.”

“Don’t take yourself so seriously,” says Orthodox feminist Blu Greenberg. And Dr. Ruth Gruber suggests, “If you find some jokes offensive … just leave them out.”

“I’m not offended by the Jewish mother joke,” says Dr. Eileen Warshaw, executive director of the Jewish Heritage Center of the Southwest. “Every group is stereotyped in this day and age. It’s fun to make fun of ourselves and just stupid to be paranoid.”

Who’s doing the
telling
makes a large difference to Jewish mothers, indeed most Jews. If a fellow Jew is the “who,” we trust motive. If a non-Jew tells the same story, we get a
shtikl
(little) anxious, even if we know and adore the teller. Mistrust flickers just behind our funny bone. “Why is he telling me this?” we wonder. “OK, it’s because I’m Jewish and thought I’d find it funny, but where did he hear it? From some anti-semitic friend? Why does he know it? Is this some veiled form of anti-semitism, or at least stereotypical thinking if
he
finds it funny?”

“I’m not offended by Jewish mother jokes—if a Jew tells it, it’s funny,” says Mallory Lewis. “If a non-Jew tells it, it’s not only not funny, but makes me uncomfortable.”

“Jewish jokes told by Jews are not offensive,” says Sig Liberman, descendant of pioneer Jews in America.

“The essence of Jewish humor is making fun of ourselves. Fun makes events not so harsh. Talking at a Shiva, for example, mollifies the pain,” says Harry Leichter, creator of the
Schmooze News,
www.schmoozenews.com
. “As long as Jewish mother jokes are within the tribe, it’s OK.”

“When Chris Rock tells a joke, we laugh, but maybe a Black person laughs harder. It’s the recognition factor,” says Joanna Gleason.

Along with the fear of anti-semitism, coveting is an issue, as in the
Seinfeld
episode of the dentist who converted “for the jokes.” I see a more serious underpinning behind the kvetch.

Personally, I’ve known very few non-Jews who actually tell a good Jewish joke well. And why should they? True, Jewish humor has had a profound effect on American humor, but it comes from our thousands of years of experience. Basically, they lack the DNA to own it, tell it right, sell it, or even understand with their heart, because they lack a Yiddishe
kop
(Jewish mind). The telling of a Jewish joke is more than a setup and punch line. It’s an experience!

A
nd so my mother was designated, and came to America. I recall my mother and grandmother talking about the “old country,” but not often. When my grandmother who was Polish, married my grandfather, a Russian, they were always on the move, running from place to place with a young child, trying to get to America. They outwitted border guards, took work wherever they could find it, and wound up in Danzig, where they remained until they could get passage to the United States.

As an adult, I find their courage astonishing. In coming to America, they left behind parents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, friends, and a way of life that included three languages, and tradition.

Leah Pearlstein Berkman left Testreny, Russia, in the fall of 1855, near Hanukkah. “We were on the sail ship eleven weeks. My mother asked for … food that she could make a soup. [They] gave her a grain that was prepared for rats. … My … sister cooked the broth. … She died that night lying next to me. … My mother never saw her again, though she … implored them to let her dress her as becomes … our kind. [But] the officers … threw her in the ocean. My younger sister died the next day. … My mother motioned [for all] to step back. … wrapped her in a clean white sheet. … Years after when I would see [her] weeping … her answer was, ‘My dear child, haven’t I got lots to cry for?’”

My own family’s journey—to live in a tiny one-bedroom apartment in Ridgewood, New York, where my mother remained until she
married—was to allow them to live freely in the Golden Land.

Their story is typical of many. By 1890, areas such as the Lower East Side of Manhattan were teeming with vast numbers of Jewish immigrants or “Greenhorns.” From the Bowery on the west to Houston Street on the north, these Jews often lived in steaming tenements, literally on top of one another. The streets overflowed with immigrant life, including boisterous bearded men with pushcarts, screaming, in Yiddish: “Good fruit, bargains!” By 1900, there were more than seven hundred people per acre within this small enclave scrounging to find work, make homes— and keep tradition alive in a new land, separated from everything and often everyone they knew and loved.

In Neil Simon’s
Broadway Bound,
Kate, the mother, describes arriving in America, with passengers wailing and shaking when they saw the Statue of Liberty. Not only because this was their dream, but after taking a look at the Statue … she didn’t look Jewish. Oy, were they going to have problems again, she wonders.

Despite the hardship encountered in the New World, these streets were also humming with old-world values, customs, and the rich influence of Yiddishkeit. Between the late 1880s and 1914, there were more than 150 Yiddish magazines, newspapers, and periodicals in New York City. Every adult was literate and hungry for news and read a Yiddish newspaper. In the 1920s, it was estimated that there was a readership of over 2 million Jewish people. Many extraordinary people came out of these New York ghettos.

Eddie Cantor was one of them. Born Israel Iskowitz in 1892, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Meta and Mechel Iskowitz, he was left orphaned at age two. He was raised by his grandmother, Esther Kantrowitz. The two lived in poverty on Henry Street on the Lower East Side. His strongest memory was of the steaming heat. His
bubbe
(grandmother) barely got them by through selling candles and finding jobs for girls as maids. Cantor found his first audience singing and juggling in the crowded streets. Later on, he credited Grandma Esther and the Henry Street Settlement with keeping him on track, which ultimately made him a star and a renowned philanthropist. In honor of his grandma Kantrowitz, he took the name “Cantor”—a shortened version of hers.

I
grew up in a home where Yiddish and Yinglish were often spoken. My late mother and grandmother would often talk in Yiddish, especially when someone said,
“Sha.
Not in front of the
kinder!”
(Which of course was us kids.) We knew the curses and bad words (of course), but were never fluent in the language. Most frustrating were the jokes. Picture it. Fifteen relatives around the table, listening to a joke—in broken English. Now, generally, these stories took, on average, fifteen minutes to set up. There we were, my brother and I, along with a myriad of young cousins, listening raptly, eager to hear the punch line already.

Then suddenly, after this interminable wait, the speaker would—at the precise moment of the punch line—switch to Yiddish! Oy. After sitting through farmers,
shlimazls, shadchens,
and a trainload of evil soldiers on their way to Pinsk, each “Yinglishly” and deliciously described, we’d finally hear: “And
then
he said …
A finstere cholem auf dein kopf und auf dein hent und fiss.”
Wha? Here we were, sitting, like victims of an unfinished sexual experience (which of course, we actually knew nothing about). No question, when Yiddishe mamas came here, they maintained
their inalienable right to say what they wanted, when they wanted in Yiddish—and scare us, but also fascinate us.

Even as a child, I understood the majesty and power of Yiddish and Yinglish (basically “Yiddishized English,” which the great Leo Rosten made famous).

These are words and expressions that carry a strong underlying subtlety and nuance not found in most other languages. For example, the word “mensch” means “person.” But when a Yiddishe mama uses it to describe someone, she means a
person.
A real doll, filled with humanity, integrity, and goodness. In fact there are some words, I simply can’t say
without
Yiddish. “Chutzpah” means gall, or “some nerve.” But way more. In humor or anger, English just doesn’t quite do it.