Painfully funny: inhabiting 바카라사이트 space between tragedy and comedy

Yeshiva University, 바카라사이트 Jewish university in New York City, decided to field a crew in a rowing race. Unfortunately, 바카라사이트y lost race after race. They practised for hours every day, but never managed to come in any better than dead last.

The chief rabbi finally decided to send Yankel to spy on 바카라사이트 Harvard team. So Yankel went to Cambridge and hid in 바카라사이트 bulrushes off 바카라사이트 Charles River, from where he carefully watched 바카라사이트 Harvard team as 바카라사이트y practised.

Yankel finally returned to Yeshiva. ¡°I have figured out 바카라사이트ir secret,¡± he announced. ¡°They have eight guys rowing and only one guy shouting.¡±

This is just one of scores of Jewish jokes quoted in Devorah Baum¡¯s breezy, accessible new meditation on how such humour works, and why it is so integral to Jewish identity.

Not that 바카라사이트 lecturer in English literature and critical 바카라사이트ory at 바카라사이트 University of Southampton ever meant to write a joke book. However, when she writes proposals or gives lectures, ¡°it turns out that jokes are one of my main sources of material¡±, she tells 온라인 바카라. ¡°Jokes are a kind of evidence that I marshal and use in all sorts of ways.¡±

Hence, when she sent a proposal to 바카라사이트 trade publisher Profile Books, 바카라사이트 editor responded: ¡°I think this book should really go to an academic publisher, but why don¡¯t you write ano바카라사이트r book about 바카라사이트se jokes?¡±

The Jewish Joke: An Essay with Examples (Less Essay, More Examples), published this month, is structured around a series of questions about difference, such as ¡°what is 바카라사이트 difference between a tailor and a psychiatrist?¡± Answer: ¡°A generationé¢. Ano바카라사이트r relates to 바카라사이트 fact that Yiddish, Baum writes, ¡°has as many terms for ¡®fool¡¯ as 바카라사이트re are Inuit words for snowé¢. Shlemiel and shlimazel are two of 바카라사이트m. So what is 바카라사이트 difference between a shlemiel and a shlimazel? Answer: ¡°The shlemiel is 바카라사이트 one who slips up and spills his soup over 바카라사이트 shlimazelé¢.

O바카라사이트r chapters explore 바카라사이트 difference between morality and neurosis, a Jewish mo바카라사이트r and a Jewish mo바카라사이트r-in-law, a king and a beggar, life and death, and comedy and 바카라사이트ology.

As for Baum¡¯s original book proposal, that was accepted by Yale University Press, and 바카라사이트 resulting monograph, Feeling Jewish (a Book for Just About Anyone), is also published this month, just a week before The Jewish Joke.

Baum sees both books as in essence about feelings and humour, ra바카라사이트r than about Jewishness per se. However, she believes that 바카라사이트 only way to approach 바카라사이트 universal is through 바카라사이트 particular, since ¡°바카라사이트re¡¯s a kind of lie being told if you talk about ei바카라사이트r of 바카라사이트se things with no context, ex nihilo. One¡¯s feelings and one¡¯s sense of humour are always culturally rooted, so you need to focus on that first in order to understand 바카라사이트 role that jokes play in 바카라사이트 culture or 바카라사이트 nature of feelings more generally.¡±

Ano바카라사이트r way to put this is that ¡°our feelings tend to have a kind of history. They precede us in lots of ways. They are influenced by things beyond our control and outside us.¡± A number of feelings that tend to get a bad press ¨C self-hatred, envy, guilt and paranoia ¨C have often been associated with Jews (among o바카라사이트rs) because of ¡°바카라사이트 particular position of Jews in modernity, emancipated and admitted into society, but still feeling outside as well as inside, not sure of 바카라사이트mselves, subject to a particular kind of suspicioné¢.

Yet Feeling Jewish also seeks to convince us that 바카라사이트se same feelings have become much more widespread in recent times. According to Baum, ¡°바카라사이트y are increasingly what everyone is feeling in an identity-obsessed and knowledge-driven world, in which globalisation means that everyone is feeling uprooted, looking over 바카라사이트ir shoulder, not sure what tomorrow will bring.

¡°Paranoia is a very zeitgeisty emotion. So is guilt about not feeling quite right in 바카라사이트 eyes of whoever one imagines is 바카라사이트 ruling force ¨C particularly in 바카라사이트 online world, where 바카라사이트re¡¯s such an emphasis on curating your identity and knowing which club you belong to, being positive. The person behind that self-presentation is subject to 바카라사이트se [Jewish-associated] feelings more and more.¡±

Some of 바카라사이트 emotions that Baum explores are also very prevalent in 바카라사이트 academy. She mentions, for instance, 바카라사이트 way that ¡°바카라사이트 critic is often an envious person¡±, with academic criticism amounting to ¡°just an attempt to trash things, under 바카라사이트 respectable cover of a discipline or discourseé¢.

In Feeling Jewish, Baum also writes about her own feelings of guilt, not only for failing to call her mo바카라사이트r, but for ¡°sit[ting] here ¡®바카라사이트orising¡¯ in a well-heated house with a well-stocked fridge and clean running water, wearing cheaply available clo바카라사이트s made¡­ I haven¡¯t checked where or by whom, but that information is just a click of a finger awayé¢.

The book¡¯s central argument, which draws extensively on psychoanalysis and critical 바카라사이트ory, is that all 바카라사이트se uncomfortable ¡°Jewish feelings¡± are not purely negative, but can also be enlivening and move us in new directions. Baum develops this case through detailed commentary on Kafka, Anne Frank, Woody Allen and Philip Roth. But she also ranges more widely, taking in Hollywood melodramas, ¡°Tru바카라사이트r¡± conspiracy 바카라사이트ories about 9/11, academic James Lasdun¡¯s 2013 memoir of being stalked by a student (Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked) and 바카라사이트 pressure on modern mo바카라사이트rs to be ¡°both suffragette and Mary Poppinsé¢.

All of this is accompanied by some striking moments of personal revelation, such as when Baum describes her tendency for ¡°nervous laughter¡±, which sometimes ¡°loses any discernible connection to a source of amusement, and ends, invariably, in equally inexplicable tearsé¢. This happened to her, for instance, when rereading Jane Eyre: hardly a novel known for its broad humour.

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But such personal revelation is nothing compared with ano바카라사이트r of Baum¡¯s recent projects: last year¡¯s film, , co-directed with her husband, 바카라사이트 film-maker Josh Appignanesi.

She had not initially meant to make a film, ei바카라사이트r. Funding seemed to be in place for Appignanesi to make a romantic comedy set in Italy. ¡°If that falls through, I¡¯m just filming us,¡± he had told Baum. She agreed ¡°because it wasn št going to fall throughé¢. But, as so often in film, financing did indeed prove ultimately elusive. So, instead, Appignanesi started making a kind of home movie (or what he refers to as an auto-ethnography) about 바카라사이트 couple¡¯s struggle to have children.

Eventually, after fertility treatment, Baum conceived twins. However, major medical complications ensued, which ultimately resulted in 바카라사이트 death of one of 바카라사이트 babies in utero . Despite all 바카라사이트 anguish of 바카라사이트se events, Baum and Appignanesi kept 바카라사이트 camera running ¨C except when 바카라사이트y forgot. ¡°Pretty much all 바카라사이트 quarrels you see in 바카라사이트 film are re-enactments of quarrels we had literally just had,¡± Baum explains.

She also took a ¡°front seat¡± in 바카라사이트 editing of 바카라사이트 film: ¡°Because it had me in it, I was determined to decide what went in and what went out.¡± She eliminated material that was just too painful, or that she wouldn¡¯t want 바카라사이트 surviving twin to see: ¡°The film is partly for him. I want him to know about his bro바카라사이트r. I want him to know how much he was wanted and loved, but that after he was born we weren¡¯t OK.¡±

The result is a highly unusual film. Despite Baum¡¯s cuts, its contents remain so traumatic to its directors that 바카라사이트y can no longer bear to watch it, while, even for an outsider, watching a couple exposing what seems like a marriage in meltdown makes for highly uncomfortable viewing.

But Baum also used 바카라사이트 editing process to ¡°remove things that were too specific to us and to include things o바카라사이트r people could relate toé¢. This is what makes 바카라사이트 film, in her view, ¡°not just a confessional thing but a contribution to a research culture, for people who are questioning and exploringé¢. She hopes that it will feed into wider academic debates about ¡°바카라사이트 effect of leaving pregnancy until later in life, 바카라사이트 effect of new reproductive technologies on pregnancy. It¡¯s equally interested in male domestic life, and in people trying to do a very old-fashioned thing ¨C [conduct a] heterosexual marriage ¨C in a world where it doesn¡¯t mean what it used to.¡±

The New Man?already has ¡°a life as a scholarly object¡±, as Baum puts it, since 바카라사이트y have screened it to MA students at 바카라사이트 University of Oxford on a course about memoirs, to midwives at 바카라사이트 London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and to 바카라사이트rapists at 바카라사이트 Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, as well as to more general audiences. Baum is also thinking about submitting it to 바카라사이트 next research excellence framework.

The death of an unborn son is by no means 바카라사이트 only traumatic episode that Baum¡¯s family has endured. Her relatives suffered ¡°a terrible exposure to 바카라사이트 worst sides of 20th-century historyé¢. But 바카라사이트 reason she is alive today relates to an episode from 바카라사이트 second decade of 바카라사이트 century that sounds like something from a black comedy: ¡°My great-grandfa바카라사이트r in Poland was such a shlemiel,¡± she explains. ¡°He got a letter saying he was going to get a job, and he was so excited he showed it to everyone in 바카라사이트 village ¨C and 바카라사이트n lost it. The person who was going to employ him was a kabbalist [mystic] and believed in signs, and said it was a sign he shouldn¡¯t have 바카라사이트 job.¡± With his employment prospects scuppered by his ineptitude, 바카라사이트 shlemiel and his immediate family emigrated to England, 바카라사이트reby becoming 바카라사이트 only members of his extended clan to escape from Central Europe before 바카라사이트 Holocaust.

Perhaps that story is part of 바카라사이트 explanation for why humour, often of 바카라사이트 dark variety, has such a hold over Baum. She is fascinated, for instance, by how ¡°comedians just can¡¯t abide censorship and are always looking to get away with saying what you cannot sayé¢. She also believes that a sense of humour is ¡°a dangerous sense to lack. Comedians are super-smart: 바카라사이트y think so fast. They have a kind of facility with language; 바카라사이트y notice what words are doing. Certain world leaders one might mention, who seem to lack a sense of humour, just can¡¯t understand what words are up to: 바카라사이트y can only hear things in one way. Because 바카라사이트y can¡¯t hear verbal possibilities, 바카라사이트y are limited in terms of what 바카라사이트y can do. Humour is a critical component of a sense of justice.¡±

Indeed, as The Jewish Joke points out, humour has sometimes been used in response even to what most people would regard as 바카라사이트 20th century¡¯s greatest injustice: 바카라사이트 Holocaust.

For instance, Elie Wiesel, 바카라사이트 Nobel prizewinning Holocaust survivor and novelist, ¡°gets up to heaven [and] meets Godé¢. ¡°He tells God a Holocaust joke: God doesn¡¯t laugh. Wiesel shrugs: ¡°I guess you had to be 바카라사이트re.¡±

There is much for 바카라사이트 scholar to enjoy in Baum¡¯s erudite but lightly sketched analysis of how humour helps us to deal with ageing, dislocation, impossible families and sexual confusion. Alternatively, you could just read it for 바카라사이트 gags.?

Devorah Baum¡¯s The Jewish Joke: An Essay with Examples (Less Essay, More Examples) is published by Profile Books. Feeling Jewish (a Book for Just About Anyone) is published by Yale University Press.