No Joke (32 page)

  
9
. Translated by Emma Lazarus,
http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/heinepoem.html
.

10
. Heinrich Heine, “The Baths of Lucca,” in
Travel Pictures,
trans. Peter Wortsman (Brooklyn, NY: Archipelago Books, 2008), 125. Freud first drew my attention to this work.

11
. The original here reads “ohne Furcht vor Mesallianz,” that is, “without fear of misalliance.”

12
. Heine, “The Baths of Lucca,” 100–101.

13
. Ibid., 107.

14
. Ibid., 104. The punning is obviously better in the original book,
Reisebilder
(Zurich: Diogenes Verlag, 1993), 332–33.

15
. Freud's use of this quotation—and “appropriation of Heine's voice”—is analyzed by Sander Gilman as part of his study
The Jew's Body
(New York: Routledge, 1991), which also includes a discussion of how “the Jewish nose” and other features of Jewish physiognomy figured negatively in notions of identity.

16
. Jefferson S. Chase, in his partial translation of “The Baths of Lucca,” coins the term “goyraffes” to catch the flavor of the untranslatable pun; see his
Inciting Laughter: The Development of “Jewish Humor” in 19th Century German Culture
(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2000), 270.

17
. Heine, “The Baths of Lucca,” 145.

18
. Sigmund S. Prawer,
Heine's Jewish Comedy
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 155.

19
.
Hans Mayer, “Der Streit zwischen Heine und Platen,” in
Aussenseiter
(Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2007), 222.

20
. Heine, “The Baths of Lucca,” 160.

21
. Werner Sollors, personal communication with author, June 8, 2012.

22
. Heine, “The Baths of Lucca,” 128.

23
. Franz Kafka, “Ein Bericht für eine Akademie,” in
Der Jude
, November 1917, translated as “A Report to an Academy” in Willa Muir and Edwin Muir, trans.,
Selected Short Stories of Franz Kafka
, intro. Philip Rahv (New York: Modern Library, 1952). Of several additional translations, the latest and crispest is in Joyce Crick, trans.,
A Hunger Artist and Other Stories
, intro. and notes Ritchie Robertson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 37–45. Nonetheless, the quotations, except where indicated, are from the Muirs' translation.

24
. Prawer,
Heine's Jewish Comedy
, 319.

25
. Muir and Muir,
Selected Short Stories of Franz Kafka
, 169, 168.

26
. Ibid., 176.

27
. Ibid., 173.

28
. Crick,
A Hunger Artist and Other Stories
, 45. The nature of the ape's “pleasure” in the half-trained chimpanzee is made much more explicit in this translation.

29
. Nahman Syrkin, “Heinrich Heine, the Tragic Jewish Poet” [Yiddish, trans. from Hebrew], in
Heinrich Heine, Verk
(New York: Farlag Yidish, 1918), 1:7. Not surprisingly, as theorist and founder of labor Zionism, Syrkin puts forth a view of German Jewish humor that has something in common with Herzl's.

2. Yiddish Heartland

  
1
. Sholem Aleichem, “Two Anti-Semites,” trans. Miriam Waddington, in
The Best of Sholem Aleichem
, ed. Irving Howe and Ruth R. Wisse (Washington, DC: New Republic Books, 1979), 116.

  
2
.
Selma H. Fraiberg,
The Magic Years: Understanding and Handling the Problems of Early Childhood
(1959; repr., New York: Fireside 1996), 18.

  
3
. Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks,
The Complete 2000 Year Old Man
(Los Angeles, CA: Rhino Records, 1994), part 1.

  
4
. Yosef Haim Brenner, “On Sholem Aleichem” (1946), in
Proof-texts
6, no. 1 (January 1986): 17.

  
5
. Joseph Perl,
Revealer of Secrets
, trans. with intro. and notes Dov Taylor (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), 25. Although Taylor draws heavily from the scholarship of those working directly with Perl's original Hebrew and Yiddish, his English translation constitutes the most thoroughgoing edition of the work to date.

  
6
. Shloyme Ettinger's (1803–56)
Serkele
, published posthumously in 1861, became a showcase for actresses on the Yiddish stage.

  
7
. Abraham Goldfaden, “The Two Kuni-Lemls,” in
Landmark Yiddish Plays
, ed. Joel Berkowitz and Jeremy Dauber (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006), 234 (act 2, scene 7).

  
8
. I am indebted for this interpretation to Alyssa Quint, “Naked Truths,” in
Arguing the Modern Jewish Canon: Essays on Literature and Culture …
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 555.

  
9
. Ora Wiskind-Elper,
Tradition and Fantasy in the Tales of Reb Nahman of Bratslav
(New York: State University of New York Press, 1998), 180.

10
. The Kotsk homily can be found in Louis I. Newman, trans. and ed.,
The Hasidic Anthology
(New York: Bloch, 1944), 499–500.

11
. Paul Oppenheimer,
Till Eulenspiegel: His Adventures
(New York: Singer Routledge, 2001), 69–71.

12
. “Ir zayt bavornt” [You are secured], in Ozer Holdes, ed.,
Stories, Jokes, and Pranks of Hershl Ostropolier
[Yiddish], (Kiev: Melukhe farlag far di natsionale minderhaytn in USSR, 1941), 115–16. This collection, issued under Soviet aegis, sharpens the anticlerical and anti-“capitalist” bite of Hershele's humor. At the other extreme is the softened impression of Hershele in Yehiel
Yeshaia Trunk's fictional account of his youth,
The Merriest Jew in the World
[Yiddish] (Buenos Aires: Yidbukh, 1953).

13
. Chaim Bloch,
Hersch Ostropoler, ein jüdischer Till-Eulenspiegel des 18. Jahrhunderts, seine Geschichten und Streiche
(Berlin: Harz, 1921), 10.

14
. As it happens, the copy of the book of Isaiah discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls spells the word with the letter
vav
, which would make bonayikh the correct reading. See David Flusser,
Judaism of the Second Temple Period
: (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2007), 170. But the tradition distinctly presents this as a creative misreading.

15
. My main sources for these anecdotes are Yehoshua Hana Ravnitzki,
Yidishe vitsn
[Jewish jokes] [Yiddish] (1921–22; repr., New York: Shklarski, 1950); Alter Druyanov,
Sefer habedikha vehakhidur
[Jewish jokes and humor] [Hebrew], 3 vols. (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1939). Both of these books organize their material according to subject. Earlier I cite Immanuel Olsvanger's two edited collections:
Royte Pomerantsen: Jewish Folk Humor
(New York: Schocken, 1947);
L'Chayim
(New York: Schocken, 1949).

16
. Ted Cohen,
Jokes
(Chicago: University of Chicago, 1999), 17.

17
. Heard from, or rather seen performed by, Allan L. Nadler, Association for Jewish Studies conference, Boston, 2010.

18
. Marvin S. Zuckerman and Gershon Weltman, trans.,
Yiddish Sayings Mama Never Taught You
(Van Nuys, CA: Perivale Press, 1969). English translation published on facing pages with Ignatz Bernstein, ed.,
Yidishe shprikhverter un redensarten
[Collection of coarse and vulgar sayings] (Leipzig, 1908).

19
. Shirley Kumove,
More Words, More Arrows
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999), 24. See also her earlier collection,
Words Like Arrows: A Collection of Yiddish Folk Sayings
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), and its bibliographic note.

20
. One day my mother said to my husband, “You know, a son-in-law is like a button on an overcoat: it can fall off,” leaving him
to wonder whether she was picking a fight or making a philosophical observation.

21
. Sholem Aleichem,
The Letters of Menakhem-Mendl and Sheyne-Sheyndl and Motl the Cantor's Son
, trans. and intro. Hillel Halkin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 24.

22
. Sigmund Freud,
Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious
, trans. and ed. James Strachey (New York: W. W. Norton, 1960), 95.

23
. Sholem Aleichem, “The Tenth Man,” in
Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories
, trans. and intro. Hillel Halkin (New York: Schocken, 1987), 274–75.

24
. Ibid., 278–79.

25
. Ravnitzki,
Yidishe vitsn
, 28–29.

26
. Ibid., 29.

27
. Itzik Manger, “Abraham and Sarah,” in
The World According to Itzik: Selected Poetry and Prose
, trans. and ed. Leonard Wolf (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 11.

28
. Ibid., 43. “Lomir beyde antloyfn keyn vin/un lomir a khupe shteln.” Itsik Manger, “Di elegye fun Fastrigosa,” in
Medresh Itsik
(Jerusalem: Magnes Press of the Hebrew University, 1984), 147.

29
. [Yitzhok] Bashevis, “Gimpel Tam,”
Yidisher Kemfer
, no. 593 (March 30, 1945): 17–20. Translated by Saul Bellow for
Partisan Review
20 (May 1953): 300–313. Bellow recounted that Singer turned down his offer to translate more of his fiction on the (perhaps tongue-in-cheek) explanation that people would attribute its accomplishment to the better-known translator.

30
. A composite English version can be found under that title in Nathan Ausubel, ed.,
A Treasury of Jewish Folklore
(New York: Crown Publishers, 1948), 327–31.

31
. Sholem Aleichem, “The Haunted Tailor,” trans. Leonard Wolf, in
The Best of Sholem Aleichem
, ed. Irving Howe and Ruth R. Wisse (Washington, DC: New Republic Books, 1979), 36. The tailor of the title “
Der farkishefter shnayder
” has been variously
translated as “enchanted” and “bewitched,” harking back yet again to Heine's image of the Jew who is under an evil spell.

3. The Anglosphere

  
1
. Music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by Arthur Laurents; project of David Merrick and Ethel Merman. All were Jews.

  
2
. Julian,
Contra Galilaeos
, in
Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism
, ed., intro., trans., and comm. Menahem Stern (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1976–84): 2:84.

  
3
. Israel Zangwill,
The King of the Schnorrers
, illustrated by George Hutchison (1894; repr., London: Henry Pordes, 1998). References are to the following: Lord George Gordon (1751–93), British Member of Parliament, led the anti-Catholic riots, was excommunicated from the Church of England in 1786, and was suspected of madness when he converted to Judaism the following year; the shared trust of Christians in biblical prophecy allowed them to extend to Jews just enough civic rights to enrich their treasury; the
Gentleman's Magazine
(founded in 1731) opposed the “infidel alien” outright; the state did not recognize marriages and bequests executed according to Jewish religious law; and Primrose Day, April 19, named after Benjamin Disraeli's favorite flower, commemorates the death of that former prime minister in 1881. Had anyone prophesied that England would one day mourn its Jewish prime minister (albeit one whose family had converted), they would have been considered seditious. Yet William Pitt the Younger, who was prime minister during the action of the novel, was glad to take advice behind the scenes from another Jewish Benjamin—Goldsmid (1755–1808)—who helped finance England's military campaigns against France during the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–99). During Tevele Schiff's tenure as rabbi of London's Great Synagogue (1764–91), the mystic Samuel Falk
achieved notoriety by putting into the synagogue's doorposts magical inscriptions that were said to have saved the building from being destroyed by fire; a former choir boy of the synagogue named John Braham (who had changed his name from Abraham) composed a song for tenors called “The Death of Nelson,” commemorating the naval hero who perished at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805.