Fern and Joe:

Funny Business

and

Nov 17, 2022

Fern: For our introductory column, we talked about ethnic identities, Jewish and Arab. Currently, I feel that it’s a sensitive time to be a Jew. I “identify” as Jewish. I am Jewish. Even as an agnostic, even as someone who doesn’t go to synagogue, even as someone who probably should describe herself first as a secular humanist, I am Jewish. I don’t feel as if it’s a choice. When we saw the Dave Chappelle monologue on Saturday Night Live, I laughed. But part of me was uncomfortable.

Joe: Why? Because you thought some of the material was antisemitic?

Fern: Well, there’s been so much discussion of it on social media. I watched the monologue again today on YouTube. And I just thought: wow! Comedians (the really brilliant ones, like Mort Sahl, George Carlin, Chappelle) sometimes do make us uncomfortable. They are transgressive. I'm old enough to remember Lenny Bruce. A Shanda what this country did to him.

Joe: A Shanda?

Fern: That’s a Yiddish word. Shame, but worse. Beyond shame.

Joe: Beyond shame is disgrace, dishonor. We have that in Arabic, too. It’s called Ayb. What makes it “beyond shame” is that it’s bigger than one person’s humiliation; ayb taints whole families, clans, tribes.

On 9/11, when I watched the buildings fall in New York the thought that crossed my mind was: “Please, God don’t let it be the Arabs. Let it be those crazies from Idaho, like the bombing in Oklahoma City.

Fern: The public trials of Harvey Weinstein and Bernie Madoff would have sent my grandparents out of their minds. “Es a Yid?” my grandparents would ask any time there was a Jewish name in the news guilty of nefarious acts, especially if it fit the stereotype of financial malfeasance. My family was collectively ashamed. But they also identified with the successes of Jewish people, especially our representation of Nobel Prize winners.

So did your parents also identify with successes of Lebanese?

Joe: Sure. According to my dad, the Lebanese discovered America, open- heart surgery and the ice cream cone. Being unschooled, he insisted that his children be educated. So I was, and I learned that archaeologists in Maine unearthed rocks etched with Phoenician writing. I don’t know what the writing said. Probably: “Are we there yet?”

From Phoenicia to modern Lebanon, my people were traveling merchants, colonizers, assimilators. Andy Warhol is quoted as saying words to the effect that in America you don’t remain in one place, eating only your own food, speaking your own native tongue. He said, “In America, it’s mix n’ mingle.”

Fern: Mixing into the melting pot. For many Jewish families, there is also a sense of loss. Especially after the Holocaust with fewer of us left. That makes sense, I think. Although my progressive parents wouldn’t have cared who we married. Or how mixed their grandchildren were going to be.

Joe: Remember Steve King?

Fern: Yeah, what about him?

Joe: Well, when he said we cannot populate America with “other people’s babies.”

Fern: Other people whose babies didn’t count as “real” Americans?

Joe: I think he was talking about refugees. Asylum seekers. But mostly the brown-skinned kind. And poor.

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Joe’s latest painting, “Refuge” is a triptych

Fern: I interviewed Steve King for the Ames Tribune when he was running for reelection. I was a bit harsh with him when he opined that before a woman had an abortion she should have an ultrasound. I interrupted him and asked weren’t Republicans supposed to be the party of less intrusion into our lives? (Let alone our vaginas). After the interview King politely shook my hand and said, “Well, I guess I can’t count on your support.”

Actually, I thought he was kind of funny.

Joe: But you’ve always said that right-wing people aren’t funny.

Fern: I know. Usually they’re not. I watch Fox news sometimes and listen to right-wing talk radio in the car . . .

Joe: Let it be noted here that you are alone in the car when this occurs. How could you even stand listening to someone like Rush Limbaugh?

Fern: He’s dead!

Joe: Is he? I don’t know how you can stand listening to any of them.

Fern: I want to know what other people are saying. It’s like spying.

Joe: Spying’s a good thing?

Fern: Back to comedy. Here’s a question: Why are Jewish people disproportionately represented in comedy? Maybe Black people are, too. I don’t know the statistics. But Jews for sure. And right wing pundits are never funny. I mean, they just aren’t. The Five on Fox news? That crew? Their attempts at humor are sophomoric. It’s painful.

Joe: I don’t know, because I never watch it.

Fern: Well, I suppose the “woke” climate of serious lefties can also be pretty humorless. I don’t even like the using the word “woke,” here because being truly awake should be a good thing, not a pejorative.

Joe: By the same token, it takes humility to laugh. By that I mean: I allow myself to set aside my preconceived notions and strong-held beliefs long enough to hear you out. Perhaps to be funny, you have to be something of a outsider. And Jewish people were outsiders in many different ways.

Fern: You know, I’m lucky to be married to someone who’s so smart. Did I ever tell you that?

Joe: Yes, but not nearly enough.

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