Thursday, March 30,1989 — THE BULLETIN — 7
JWB Staff
It has been said that laughter is the best medicine, a surefire cure for the sanity that all too often fills everyday life.
If that is so, then Prof. Moshe Waldoks of Newton, Massachusetts, healed the worries of those who heard him lecture on Messianists, Medicine Men, and Movable Furniture: A Short History of Jewish Humor recently at Temple Sholom. Sponsored by Federation, T.S., Schara Tzedeck and Beth Israel, the talk brought an audience of some 200 to giggles and guffaws as he explained how Jew-
would dress up and say, *Today is Purim, tomorrow it's out, give me a penny and throw me put.'"
But as in all facets of life, he suggested, humor is transitory: "They were afraid. Jews would get into Purim too much, so they gave us Pesach."
Following the Roman dispersion of the Jews in 70 C.E., Waldoks remarked, the Rabbis revived Jewish culture by engaging in often huniorous discourse. "They had no radio or T.V., so they said, *Let's read the lines of the Bible,'" he recounted. "They went speak-
ish humor has influenced the ^thinking of the world.
Dr. Waldoks, a Ba'al tefil-lahat Newton's Temple Emanuel and former assistant professor of Jewish Studies at Clark university in Worcester, theorized that the Bible contains not only a serious message, but a rich storehouse of laughter. "The Scroll of Esther is the only official funny book in the Bible," he explained.
"A committee got this letter from Persia: *We want a book in the Bible, and Exodus is taken.' They put the book (Esther) in, and it became a hit.
"There's a lot of drama as well as comedy," according to the visitor. "A lot of Jews told the story in their hearts. It's the quintessential Diaspora story."
In the Middle Ages, noted Waldoks, Eastern European Jews would repeat the message of hope amidst adversity by performing the Purimsh-piel, or Purim play. "They
ing out and made a Midrash (allegory)."
Producing a modern A//V/-rash. Prof. Waldoks retold the Akedah, when G-d asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a test of faith and obedience. "Abe said to his only son, 'I had a dream, so put your pants on.'
"Isaac went to his mother Sarah, but Abe said, 'Let's go.' "Sarah says, *How do you know it's not a practical joke?'-* Abraham says, 'I know it's the L-rd from the deep voice,'" he finished the modern Midrash.
In a high-speed trill, Waldoks traced the current of Jewish humor through the badhen, a jester who pro-•ferred satirical tunes at weddings and other festive occasions. His purpose, he said, was ^npt solely to produce mirth, but to act as a pop psychologist, an easer of troubles.
"The chasan (groom) and kalah (bride) would be treated like royalty. The young groom would unveil his bride himself (the bedecken), and there'd be
NEW YORK — Signs of Moscow's leavening of its stand on. Jewish culture will continue to be felt this Passover, ias Soviet authorities are cooperating with a New York City Council member to ensure that kosher for Passover matzah will be available for the holiday.
Furthermore, Soviet authorities are also allowing the importing of kosher Passover wine, which will be sold at reasonable prices.
Konstantin Kharchev, Soviet minister of religion, and Councilman Noach Dear, co-chairman of the Joint Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in the Soviet Union, officially launched matzah-baking activities in Moscow, Leningrad, Minsk and Kiev.
Dear said he arranged with Kharchev's consent to have Rabbi Yuri Kamishev and Rabbi David Karpov of Moscow's Marina Russia synagogue supervise the baking jointly with Rabbi Adolf Shayevitch of Moscow's main synagogue, thus ensuring that the baked matzah will be acceptable to all Jews in the Soviet Union.
Shayevitch is a state-appointed rabbi, while the Marina Russia rabbis are not overseen by the Ministry of Religion.
Dear said the Soviet Union agreed to allow for kosher matzah "because they earnestly want to improve life in the Soviet Union. After a trip I sponsored a few months ago, they saw that there was no conflict being loyal to your religion and to your country."
The matzah will be made from 160 tons of flour brought in by truck to the Soviet Union from Strasbourg, France, where it was milled under rabbinical supervision. The project costs about $200,000.
The shipper is Levi Schmerling of Schmerling Kosher Food in Switzerland.
At a Soviet-initiated news conference at the Moscow bakery, Kharchev thanked the American people and American organizations for helping Soviet Jews. He said the rnatzah baked in the Soviet Union this year will be sold at a fair price.
Dear thanked the Soviet minister and the Lishkas Ezras Achim of Brooklyn, which worked with him on the project.
so much fear and pain. The badhen v/ou\d act as a catharsis. He might sing, *She looks like a barrel and she's only 17.'"
The advent of Chassidism, said Waldoks, signified a "revolutionary" message to Renaissance Jews: It's all right to be happy. But the teachings of Elijah Ba'al Shem Tov brought him into conflict with "enlightened" Jews who riiade fun of the founders of Jewish revivalism: "They began to write parodies of Chassidic teachers. The (Chassidic) students didn't know the difference!" he added to gales of laughter.
Jewish wit and humor, Waldoks believes, came into its own in America, where it became part of the popular culture. "The Marx Brothers were crossovers," he said. "They must have been Galitiz-ianers. Groucho was the shyster, the man who arrived on the boat just before you.
"Chico was an immigrant, less flashy, quite shrewd. Sometimes he had the best of Groucho. Harpo was the quintessent, the immigrant who thinks America is devoid of all values: All he does is chase women and play harp," said the co-editor of the 1981 opus The Big Book of Jewish Humor.
But the Marxes— and such Jewish-American entertainers as Eddie Cantor and Jack Benny — lost their flavor, Waldoks postulated, when they didn't show the Jewish side of their humor. "As the mass culture became more and more available., they got more powerful . . . and more neutral."
It's that lack of fervor, he argued, that has made many American Jews lose their zest for life. "There's a phenomenon called the High Holidays, when Jews come out of the woodwork," said the Ba'al tefillah cantor. "Where I am in Newton, they put people in the closet with periscopes," he added, claiming that another cantor is kept "chained to a tenement in the old neighbor-
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Soviet Union.
The Times also reported that Egypt supplied some of these chemical weapons to Syria before the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
In a related story, Japan denied a report that one of its aerospace firms installed equipment enabling Libya to store hundreds of poison gas bombs.
The Detroit News reported that Central Intelligence Agency officials told the Senate Foreign Relations committee on March 1 that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has assigned about 50 technicians and engineers to a desert chemical complex and had installed two production lines for making bomb canisters near Rabta, southwest of Tripoli.
Pentagon and congressional sources told the newspaper the Japanese technical experts installed two production lines for making bomb canisters that store the poison gas.
Libya maintains that the complex is used to produce only pharmaceuticals and pesticides.
E.Minovitz
THE THREE FACES of Waldoks... as he spoke here recently at T.S.
hood" for tradition's sake.
But wherever a Jew is, he's recognized by his touch of wit, his ability to recognize incongruity, said Waldoks, who believes it's a myth that Jewish humor must be self-deprecating.
Nevertheless, he concluded, people find it easiest to laugh
at themselves. "A lady went to go to Israel for two weeks," he recorded, "so she took a trip on El Al. She asked, *Can you take my dog in a kennel?' The stewardess said, 'We'll take good care of her in cargo.'
"Three hours went by, and the stewardess finds out that the dog is dead! So she wired ahead to Tel Aviv for a
replacement.
"She found an ^^xact replacement, and put it in the dead dog's place. She went around to the counter, and the lady gives a cry: 'This is not my £^/'*But it's the same dog,' replied the stewardess.
"The lady's answer: 'My dog was dead! I came to bury her in Israel.'"
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