The humor of Israel

Since my last post was about jokes often being offensive if they are about a general group of people, I thought I would talk about what I've learned about humor from an Israeli-Jew. To begin, Israelis are in general just way more bad ass than any other group of people. There is no passive-aggressive in Israel. Israelis are to the point, they get what they want, they know how to get things done. Israelis also have a very dark sense of humor. One of my counselors here on EIE was fairly open about their dark sense of humor after our recent trip to Poland. Most Israelis, who are not above Modern Orthodox on the Jewishness spectrum, think holocaust jokes are just that, jokes. They aren't true, they don't have any true connection to reality. When you think about it, jokes about the attempted elimination of an entire people should not actually be funny, It's awful! So why do some people laugh at them?

In Jewish history we had got to read short stories by an Israeli author known as Etgar Keret. Keret uses a lot of this dark humor in his writing. Whether it be about death, sex, or other sad or taboo things about life. One of these stories, that I read in my own time, was titled Shut. The main character is almost always dreaming. Dreaming of having a different wife, having different kids, having a different house. He is "happily"  married in the real world but chooses not to be in the real world. I can't help but laugh at the mention of his "hard-on" in the middle of this serious, strange story Keret is telling of. I laughed because I'm an immature 10 year old boy when it comes to things like that, but I also somehow managed to get meaning from the story with this crudely placed humor. Etgar Kerets writing is so strange, so unimaginable, so serious, that the only thing you can do is laugh. I think that is why Israelis and other groups of people find dark humor funny. Because it is so serious, or its something that is just insane to think about, you can't help but laugh. The attempted murder of an entire group of people, that's serious, that's unimaginable. Through the laughter from these dark jokes we need to remember that there is often truth behind them. The holocaust did happen. No, its not funny on its own, but that's why people make jokes of it. Because causing laughter will release tension from a situation. That is the humor I have seen from many people in Israel.