Laughing
Gas Chambers
By
Sarah
Blau,
Haaretz
It's the
biggest taboo in Israeli
satire, but the source of an
endless supply of
underground black humour.
Why it is nearly impossible
to make jokes about the
Holocaust in public and
what, despite the taboo, is
acceptable.
"Hitler... tomato.
Now give me a sentence in
the middle and you've got a
joke."
- Uzi
Weil,
The Back Page, Ha'ir
weekly
Hitler
and a tomato?
The symbol of cosmic evil
juxtaposed with a dumb,
everyday vegetable? The
truth is that you don't need
the sentence in the middle
for the absurdity to reach
your lips. But it comes with
an automatic guilt feeling,
too. A
joke about the Holocaust?
Verbotenl On the
other hand, it's so
horrific, so far beyond our
feeble ability to
conceptualize what happened,
that all that remains is to
guffaw in despair. That will
obviously be the refuge of
he or
she who guffaws at a
joke such as the following:
"Where was the highest
concentration of Jews during
the Holocaust?" Answer: "In
the atmosphere."
Don't
feel uneasy about
snickering. Laughter
liberates, laughter is a
legitimate means of
self-defence, laughter is a
cure for the ills of the
soul, laughter only draws
you closer to the subject,
laughter ... The only
trouble is that when it
comes to the Holocaust,
these arguments don't really
work.
As the
satirist Kobi Arieli
explains, for example:
"Within 10 minutes I can
persuade [Justice Minister
Yosef] Tommy Lapid, using a
logical argument, that the
most effective way to
commemorate his parents is
through a skit by [the
comic] Gil Kopatch. But it
won't work. With the second
sentence he'll grab the
microphone and leave the
studio. And Tommy is
actually a guy who
understands humour."
Lapid is
also a Holocaust survivor.
Some say that the reason for
the unusual caution
concerning the subject is
because of the presence of
the survivors. The
pessimists will say that the
day after the death of the
last survivor, an orgy of
wild humour will descend on
the country. The optimists
will maintain that the
subject will rise to the
level of incomprehensible
and never-ending sanctity.
Be that as
it may, in
Israel's
56 years of existence the
Holocaust has been a
"present absentee" in the
country's humour. Even if
occasional attempts have
been made to bring the knife
closer to the throat of that
sacred cow, the cow is still
safely located in the centre
of the meadow, with everyone
hearing the mooing but no
one laughing, because what
in the world can be funny
about 6 million dead bodies?
Nothing.
Six million slaughtered Jews
cannot be a subject of
satire. They might be a
subject of tasteless jokes,
but not for satire. What
does merit satirical
treatment, though, are
subjects such as the
commercializers of the
Holocaust, those who trade
in the memory of the dead,
those who have appropriated
the Holocaust for themselves
and invoke it for political
purposes.
Keren
Mor
and Shai Avivi in "Railroad
Agents." "Classic
Poland
in 14 days, including visits
to seven concentration
camps”.
Travel
agent
(on the phone): "We have a
few specials for
Poland
that I really recommend.
First of all, we have the
basic package, which
includes five concentration
camps in 10 days,
accommodations in four-star
hotels in
Warsaw
and a free day for shopping
there. Beyond that we, of
course, have "Classic
Poland"
in 14 days, including visits
to seven concentration
camps, accommodations in
four-star hotels and a visit
to the
Warsaw
Ghetto with the afternoon
free for shopping. We also
have a weekend in
Poland,
which features seven
concentration camps in three
days - no, there's no free
day for shopping. And
naturally there's the 12-day
cross-Poland package with
all the concentration camps
... My sister's daughter
went on a trip like that
with her school and it was
very impressive. She cried
at
Auschwitz."
Hanging
up, the agent turns to the
client sitting across from
her: "Now, where were we?"
Client:
"Excuse me, but what you
said just now about
Poland,
about seven camps in three
days, sounds a bit..."
Agent:
"A bit too much? You'll be
surprised at how much you
can get done in three days."
Client:
"No, no, it sounds..."
Agent:
"Expensive?"
Client:
"No, I don't want to be
offensive, but doesn't it
sound terrible?"
Agent:
"Well, what happened there
was pretty
terrible, wasn't it?"
[-
From "Railroad Agents"
by Assaf Tzipor (performed
by Cameri Quintet actors
Keren
Mor and Shai Avivi)]
The
Cameri Quintet (a group of
actors that had a program
of skits on Channel 2) aimed
its barbs at the
commercialization, at the
cynical exploitation, at
those who rolled their eyes
in innocence and at those
who traded in the memory of
the Holocaust's dead.
Something of the writers'
inner fire did, in fact,
come across. The relevant
skits were "Holocaust," by
Assaf Tzipor, in which a
survivor relates memories of
the atrocities with great
terror, until in the end it
turns out that he was an
extra in "Schindler's List";
"The Ghetto," also by
Tzipor, in which Shai Avivi
explains to (fellow actor)
Rami Heuberger how to get to
a party in Tel Aviv via the
"Avenue of the Executed,"
"Auschwitz Boulevard" and
"Dachau Square"; and "The
Israeli Lobby," by Etgar
Keret, in which two Israeli
sports functionaries try to
persuade the German in
charge of a hurdles event
at the Olympics to give the
Israeli contestant a head
start because of the
obligations of the past.
"The
question in every joke is
who you're laughing at,"
says Uzi Weil, who was also
a writer for the Cameri
Quintet. "If humour is a
weapon, who are you fighting
against? Who's the bad guy?
Humour relating to the
commercialization of the
Holocaust attacks the
hypocrisy and the disparity
between the lofty words and
our true feelings, when we
make use of very large
emotions to achieve ends
that are far smaller. Every
joke in the world works on
the basis of that
gap,
that is perfectly
legitimate."
"Knesset
stunned by comparison of
Himmler to Hitler" (Never
compare them! Never compare
them!).
1.
"Ketchup
is the
Auschwitz
of the tomatoes"
- this
was the comment of the
chairman of the Organization
of Tomato Growers in the
Jordan
Valley,
in a speech he delivered at
a stormy demonstration held
by the tomato growers at the
Knesset over the demand to
increase the minimal amount
of tomatoes that must be
used for ketchup. Afterward,
the chairman issued an
explanation and an apology:
2. "First
of all, I did not compare
the Holocaust with ketchup.
I said it's like the
Holocaust, meaning in the
sense of what a disaster it
is. And second of all, I am
the grandson of Holocaust
survivors, so it is
inconceivable that I would
belittle the Holocaust.
And
third, if anyone has the
right to belittle the
Holocaust, it's me, because
I am a grandson of Holocaust
survivors.
"But I am
not comparing, I am not
comparing - how can you
compare? It was terrible,
the Holocaust, it was
absolutely terrible. And
besides, what's everyone
attacking me for? What is
this, the Gestapo?"
[- Uzi
Weil,
The Back Page, Ha'ir]
Do we
have to avoid comparisons at
all cost?
Weil:
"More than any other
subject, the use of the
Holocaust has grown to
unpleasant and
disproportionate dimensions.
There was no self-criticism
involved. Someone says
'Holocaust' and everyone
falls silent. It's a tool to
force people's consciousness
to stand at attention the
moment that word is uttered,
and it has to do with some
sort of Holocaust industry
that has been created - the
trips, the selling of
right-wing politics
disguised as Holocaust
feelings, the 'Auschwitz
Hotel' that was built in
Poland, and more."
Is that
the reason that the
Holocaust has remained
beyond the pale?
"Of no
less importance is the
unresolved pain. You can
laugh at something that
hurts you, but somewhere in
the back of your head, you
know that it has a
resolution. The pain of the
Holocaust has no resolution.
You are not sure that it's
over. It's very easy to
laugh at Luba [the TV
character of the Russian
cashier in the supermarket]
-maybe it's a bit
disturbing, but in the end,
the 'Luba problem,' meaning
the mass immigration from
the former
Soviet
Union,
will be resolved. You also
know that Luba won't
collapse at this humour,
that it's not so painful
that we don't have an answer
to it."
And why
don't we have an answer to
the other subject?
"Not only
do we not have an answer,
but the riddle of the
Holocaust is greater today
than it's been since the
time it happened."
Guy: "So,
as you see, it's very easy
to write a musical Yoni,
what musical have you
prepared for
us ?"
Yoni:
"Okay. Because people
usually take fairy tales and
simply set them to music, I
had a hard time deciding
between 'Maya the Bee' and
'Winnie the Pooh,' but in
the end I decided to go with
the well-known fairy tale,
'Anne Frank.'"
Guy: "I
am more than proud and just
jumping for joy to declare
the first unveiling of
'Anne Frank - The Musical'
You read the book, you saw
the movie -now here's the
real thing.
Anne
Frank in Dolby stereo!"
Anne
Frank - The Musical
Anne
Frank is sleeping and two
other people are sleeping
next to her. There's a knock
at the door, music is heard
in the background.
Anne:
"knock, knock, a knock at
the door. Who is it, who is
it, who
is it?
Dad:
"Maybe it's the milkman?"
Mom:
"Maybe it's the grocer?"
Dad: "And
maybe it's the nympho
neighbour?"
All:
"Tick, tock, a knock at the
door. Who is it, who is it,
who
is it?"
Anne:
"Maybe it's the baker?"
Mom:
"Maybe it's the doctor?"
Dad: "And
maybe it's the nympho from
down the hall?"
Enter a
Nazi officer.
Nazi:
"I'm not the baker. I'm not
the doctor. And I'm not the
nympho from down the hall.
Guess who ratted and who's
the informer?"
All
(including the Nazi):
"That's
right, it was the
nympho from down the hall!"
[-
From "Cleavage," a program
presented by Yoni Lahav and
Guy Meroz; the skit was
banned for broadcast by the
Channel 2 franchisee
Keshet.]
This
censored skit belongs to the
type of satire that doesn't
deal directly with the
Holocaust and its
commercialization, but uses
the Holocaust to critique
other social phenomena - in
this case, the multiplicity
of children's musicals
during the Hanukkah holiday.
Guy Meroz, one of the
co-authors, understood the
blue-pencilling of the skit
and, in fact, expected it.
"On the mainstream
stations, it's simply
impossible to touch the
Holocaust," he says. "Masses
of people died in the war of
the Maccabees, and you can
make fun of that, but that
belongs to the past, whereas
the Holocaust is still too
close, still present."
Meroz
knows whereof he speaks.
Last January a public furore
erupted over a show he
edited on Beep, a cable
television station for
youth. One of the programs
hosted an actor dressed as
Hitler, who sang songs from
children's programs, and on
another occasion fictitious
subtitles were affixed to
excerpts from Claude
Lanzmann's film "Shoah." The
programs were broadcast
during the summer, but drew
a public response only after
they were subsequently
"cleaned up" on Channel 2,
following a letter of
complaint to the Second
Television and Radio
Authority.
Meroz
himself apologized at length
in the personal column he
writes for the
mass-circulation daily
Ma'ariv. He reiterates now
that he was not trying to
make fun of the Holocaust;
"There is nothing funny
about the Holocaust, but as
a person who deals with
humour, you try to address
the extremities, and just
because the Holocaust is
such an absolute extremity,
and because it's so dominant
in our lives, you find
yourself dealing with it.
Whether or not you do it in
good taste is a different
question, but above all
there's an attempt here to
understand, which I do with
my tools as a satirist.
"If the Holocaust took
place today, then next to
the pile of shoes would be a
pile of mobile phones."
[- Gil
Kopatch in a stand-up comedy
performance]
"That's
an example of successful
Holocaust humour," notes the
writer Amir Gottfreund,
whose novel, "Our
Holocaust," was recently
translated into German. "It
uses the Holocaust to say
something about us, not
about the crematoria or the
survivors. It's like Uzi
Weil once wrote, 'Why is
there no "Tao of Hitler?'" -
aiming his barbs at the
intolerable
commercialization of the
whole 'Tao' series of books.
He did what satire is
supposed to do and fought
those who are strong."
It's all
very well to do battle
against powerful interests,
but the question is where
the battle is fought.
Everyone knows that
disposing of a cow in the
slaughterhouse is not the
same as slaughtering a cow
in the middle of the living
room. Over the years,
references to the Holocaust
in prime time were
cautious, but overall the
subject was simply not
broached there. Local
screenwriter Daniel Lapin
relates that while writing
the script for the sitcom
"Life isn't Everything," he
received an e-mail message
from Telad (a Channel 2
franchise-holder) asking him
to forgo the nicknames
"Adolf and Eva" that he gave
the parents of one of the
program's main characters.
Lapin did so. "Last week one
of my jokes for [the show of
comedian Eli] Yatzpan was
also deleted," he says. "I
wrote that 'Schwarzenegger
wants to come to
Israel
to visit Yad Vashem and see
photos of his father.' It
was cut because Yatzpan or
someone found it
unpleasant."
The
entertainer Gidi Gov passed
the prime-time test:
"I saw 'Schindler's List.' I
didn't laugh," he
told the audience - who did
laugh. A surprise of sorts
was registered in the
current season of Yair
Lapid's talk show when
comedienne Adi Ashkenazi,
who had returned from a
visit to
Amsterdam,
shared an experience with
the audience: "I was
at Anne Frank's house. She
wasn't in." After
an unavoidable moment of
embarrassment, the audience
erupted in laughter. Lapid
squirmed uneasily. "Because
it's Adi Ashkenazi, she'll
be forgiven for her
sneakiness," says the
scriptwriter, Reshef Levy,
"but if it was a beginning
stand-up comic, he would
have been shown the door.
What you will do in front of
an audience of kids at the
Camel Comedy Club at
midnight,
you will not do in front of
the survivors who watch
Channel 2."
A new
take on an old joke: What's
worse than an apple with a
worm inside?
Half an
apple with a worm.
And what's worse than an
apple with half a worm?
The
Holocaust.
Many
jokes about the Holocaust,
Uzi Weil observes, "recall
children who ring the
doorbell and then run away.
We know that something is
not right, that something
hurts, so we ring, arouse
the psyche and run. It
involves upsetting the
authority of the adult who
was sleeping: Even if I
have nothing important to
say to him, I ring, announce
that I'm there, and run. The
result is a kind of bathroom
humour. Ninety percent of
Holocaust humour is like
that, which is fine - let
them wake up the lady
because, after all, someone
has to wake her up."
Is that
why Holocaust humour is
proliferating?
Weil:
"It's humour of the weak.
The more someone threatens
you, the dumber and more
belittling the joke about
him will be."
The
stand-up comedian Sagiv
Friedman no longer tells
Holocaust jokes in his
shows. "I used to tell them
because, you know, it's
really easy to make up jokes
about an extreme subject
such as the Holocaust," he
says. "But it wrecks the
performance. People would
start shouting, and a whole
discussion would start. To
say the word 'Holocaust' is
a holocaust for the show.
One person who somehow
manages to neutralize the
audience resistance is
Reshef Levy, because people
see that it's a burning
issue with him, though he
had French fries thrown at
him in a performance, too.
There's nothing you can do:
The audience doesn't allow
the subject."
Levy
confirms that he sometimes
encounters audience
resistance. "Strangely, most
of those who object are
Mizrahim [Jews of Middle
eastern descent]," he notes.
'"You weren't there,' I tell
them. 'Most
of the Moroccans read about
it in the paper, except for
maybe two who went on an
excursion to
Europe
and ran into it there. This
is an internal debate in the
Ashkenazi community, so
please sit down.'"
Doesn't
that make the audience even
angrier?
Levy:
"Stand-up comedy is a
contract of love between the
audience and the artist, and
if you can get them into
your mindset, they will
laugh at everything.
Besides, it's important for
me to emphasize that I
myself am half Ashkenazi and
half Mizrahi. It's amazing
how strong the Mizrahi
discomfort is toward the
Ashkenazim when it comes to
the Holocaust. It doesn't
matter how much the Mizrahim
were discriminated against
in the past; they will
always feel this way toward
the Ashkenazim because
their families were killed
in the Holocaust. That
creates a gap of misery,
which is actually power.
This is the weakness that
the Ashkenazim flaunt
relentlessly: It starts with
the Holocaust and ends with
the frightened image of
Yossi Beilin, who is
supposedly afraid of the
mob, a kind of
passive-aggressive type."
How is
this given expression in
other ways?
"Take the
case of my wife's
grandmother. She came to
this country from
Poland
in 1932, and for a Polish
woman like her, to 'miss1
the Holocaust was a blow she
never got over - to this day
she doesn't forgive herself
for it."
Do you
tell that in performances?
"Of
course."
It's
possible that at this point
some people are squirming
with a certain discomfort.
What if Holocaust survivors
read all this? Says Kobi
Arieli: "There is no doubt
that the development of
Holocaust satire got bogged
down somewhere because of
the survivors. They are
incapable of coping with it.
Why is [Yosef
] Lapid so convincing
when he objects to
Holocaust humour. Because
he's not some putz
from Yad Vashem who doesn't
understand about humour.
Tommy lives from humour,
that's his main tool, and
even when he talks about the
Holocaust, he does so
cynically and sarcastically
- so if even he isn't
capable of coping with it,
it's obvious that other
survivors aren't capable,
either."
Most of
those who were interviewed
for this article admit that
the presence of the
survivors is highly relevant
for the use or non-use they
make of the Holocaust for
satirical or humoristic
purposes.
"In my
opinion, when the last of
the survivors dies, an orgy
of wild humour will erupt
here, and everyone will
laugh about it even on prime
time of Channel 2," Reshef
Levy says. "After all, even
today people are laughing
about the Bar Kochba
uprising [against the
Romans], in which
half-a-million Jews died, or
at the Titanic disaster.
It's all a matter of
distance from the event
itself. You know, there's a
dictatorship of the Israeli
ethos here, and all the
cultural institutions,
including Channel 2 and the
major papers, obey the
ethos."
Ami Amir,
the producer of the Cameri
Quintet and "This is Our
Land" - the satirical
program of the duo Shai
Goldstein and Dror Rafael
that was broadcast on
Channel 2 - recalls a skit
that was broadcast in the
second season of "This is
Our Land," in 2001, in which
Education Minister Limor
Livnat (played by Shai
Goldstein) is seen
implanting national values
in Dror Raphael. In her
rampant enthusiasm, she
salutes him over and over by
stretching out her hand, as
the Nazis did.
"Reshet
[a Channel 2 franchisee] had
a big problem with that, and
there were arguments about
whether to air the skit,"
Amir says. "Finally, they
courageously broadcast it
and were slammed for it, and
just like the outraged
reactions the Cameri
Quintet generated, the
outrage is always for the
wrong reasons. The Cameri
Quintet wanted to show how
the Holocaust is recruited
for political purposes and
emotional manipulation in
order to justify what we are
doing today. With all the
pain involved, I don't think
a disaster will occur if we
reduce the sacred aura of
the Holocaust a little. Who
knows, we may be able to
learn a little more about
ourselves and behave with
greater sanity."
Gil
Kopatch, too, thinks the
memory of the Holocaust
protects us and justifies
our special rights as a
persecuted people. "If we
are really the free
generation that Herzl and
Ben-Gurion wanted us to be,
then we have to understand
the basis of our paranoia
and not try to evade it -
and the basis of our
paranoia is the feeling that
the Germans are standing on
the stairs and could burst
in at any second."
Isn't it
possible that the paranoia
is justified?
Kopatch;
"Even if it is, it's
impossible to survive from
paranoid motivations."
Levy
agrees that the paranoia we
have developed as a direct
result of the Holocaust is
the foundation of the
justification for our
existence here. "That's the
reason we can somehow take
the terrorist attacks,
because we have nowhere else
- in
Europe
the Nazis are waiting for
us." According to Levy, an
Israel
that faces existential
difficulties will not be
able to exist without the
memory of the Holocaust,
which will necessitate
maintaining that historical
event as a lofty value, with
the total negation of any
satirical engagement.
"The
moment you laugh at some
thing, you transform it from
something distant into
something close to you,
because a second ago you
were laughing with it - and
that is precisely what
people are afraid to do here
with the memory of the
Holocaust, because if the
Holocaust becomes close, an
everyday affair, we might
suddenly realize that some
of the conclusions we drew
about it were incorrect, and
that is liable to pull the
ground from under the state.
The point is that by
subverting the Holocaust,"
says Levy, "you also subvert
the existence of the State
of Israel."
(Originally published as
‘This way for the laughing
gas’ in
Haaretz Magazine,
Friday,
April 30, 2004)
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