With our first TBH Movie Night featuring the Marx Brothers’ A Night At the Opera (Sunday at 5:00) we have an opportunity to get together, virtually at least, and have a good laugh. I think we need it. There is a long history of Jews and laughter from Shalom Aleichem to the Marx brothers to Mel Brooks and many others but, what makes us laugh and why? As a theater artist I have wrestled with this and even wrote a portion of my master’s thesis on why the play I directed (Vanities) is funny. My conclusion was – nobody really knows. Around 335 BCE Aristotle was able to define tragedy and all drama since has either followed or deliberately strayed from his formula, but comedy…? As a fictional great dramatic actor said on his deathbed, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.” So what makes us laugh and why is there such a long and rich history of Jewish humor? Â
Henri Bergson saw comedy primarily as a corrective instrument in society and Arthur Koestler saw laughter as a reflex action which functions as an outlet for nervous energy. According to an article in Psychology Today, “Humor addresses the same issues as fear, not to dismiss them, but to strengthen our ability to confront them and then laugh them away from the door.” Mel Brooks once said, “Humor is just another defense against the universe. Look at Jewish history:Unrelieved lamenting would be intolerable. So, for every ten Jews beating their breast, God designated one to be crazy and amuse the breast-beaters. By the time I was five I knew I was that one.” Brooks also views humor as a weapon. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n44jiPGYwJ0)
Explaining his numerous portrayals of Hitler he said, “After all the people that he was responsible for killing and after utterly destroying half the world, I just thought the only weapon I’ve really got is comedy. And if I can make this guy ludicrous, if I can make you laugh at him, then it’s a victory of sorts.” According to My Jewish Learning “…there are some characteristics that stand out as common to much of Jewish humor. Jewish humor, for instance, laughs at authority and blurs boundaries, such as those between sacred and secular or Jew and non-Jew. It also displays a fascination with language and (often twisted) reasoning. And, not surprisingly, Jewish humor often played the role of coping mechanism. With anti-Semitism, poverty, and uncertainties Jews faced throughout so much of their history, there often seemed little to do but laugh. So they did. And we are still reaping the benefits of the humor they produced.” Â
The Marx brothers display several of these characteristics. According to Daniel Lieberfield and Judith Danders, “In each comedy the Marx brothers play ethnic outsiders trespassing in the preserves of Gentile elites. Their apparent reason for being is to mock, cheat, and insult the cultured well-to-do…the Marx Brothers enact comic parables about Jewish immigrant experience in America. Their comedy incorporates the physical and psychological trajectory of immigration: the voyage over, fears of exclusion, pressures for assimilation, and the hopes placed on the next generation.”  Â
 So, let’s get together Sunday evening and, at least for a short time, laugh away our fears, anxiety, and uncertainty during these difficult times.Â
From the President – March 4, 2020
March 4, 2021 by tbhrich • president
With our first TBH Movie Night featuring the Marx Brothers’ A Night At the Opera (Sunday at 5:00) we have an opportunity to get together, virtually at least, and have a good laugh. I think we need it. There is a long history of Jews and laughter from Shalom Aleichem to the Marx brothers to Mel Brooks and many others but, what makes us laugh and why? As a theater artist I have wrestled with this and even wrote a portion of my master’s thesis on why the play I directed (Vanities) is funny. My conclusion was – nobody really knows. Around 335 BCE Aristotle was able to define tragedy and all drama since has either followed or deliberately strayed from his formula, but comedy…? As a fictional great dramatic actor said on his deathbed, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.” So what makes us laugh and why is there such a long and rich history of Jewish humor? Â
Henri Bergson saw comedy primarily as a corrective instrument in society and Arthur Koestler saw laughter as a reflex action which functions as an outlet for nervous energy. According to an article in Psychology Today, “Humor addresses the same issues as fear, not to dismiss them, but to strengthen our ability to confront them and then laugh them away from the door.” Mel Brooks once said, “Humor is just another defense against the universe. Look at Jewish history: Unrelieved lamenting would be intolerable. So, for every ten Jews beating their breast, God designated one to be crazy and amuse the breast-beaters. By the time I was five I knew I was that one.” Brooks also views humor as a weapon. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n44jiPGYwJ0)
Explaining his numerous portrayals of Hitler he said, “After all the people that he was responsible for killing and after utterly destroying half the world, I just thought the only weapon I’ve really got is comedy. And if I can make this guy ludicrous, if I can make you laugh at him, then it’s a victory of sorts.” According to My Jewish Learning “…there are some characteristics that stand out as common to much of Jewish humor. Jewish humor, for instance, laughs at authority and blurs boundaries, such as those between sacred and secular or Jew and non-Jew. It also displays a fascination with language and (often twisted) reasoning. And, not surprisingly, Jewish humor often played the role of coping mechanism. With anti-Semitism, poverty, and uncertainties Jews faced throughout so much of their history, there often seemed little to do but laugh. So they did. And we are still reaping the benefits of the humor they produced.” Â
The Marx brothers display several of these characteristics. According to Daniel Lieberfield and Judith Danders, “In each comedy the Marx brothers play ethnic outsiders trespassing in the preserves of Gentile elites. Their apparent reason for being is to mock, cheat, and insult the cultured well-to-do…the Marx Brothers enact comic parables about Jewish immigrant experience in America. Their comedy incorporates the physical and psychological trajectory of immigration: the voyage over, fears of exclusion, pressures for assimilation, and the hopes placed on the next generation.”  Â
 So, let’s get together Sunday evening and, at least for a short time, laugh away our fears, anxiety, and uncertainty during these difficult times.Â
Â
We are Temple Beth Hillel.
If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am not for others, what am I?
And if not now, when? Â -Rabbi Hillel
~ Michael R Cohen, President, Temple Beth Hillel