Humor Online Tour Script – חינוך במוזיאון אנו

Question: Chat question: Ask them to write the answer in chat.

Question: They can raise their hands or give a reaction. For thought. No requirement to write in chat.

Welcome to ANU My name Thank you to _______ Use chat Opened March 2021 $100 million 72,00 square feet 54 films 25 interactives Park bench reserved for Cornona Freud writes people making fun to such a degree of its own character Oy sign Jewish cartoonists Jewish Mother section Woody Allens Annie Hall Shalom Alichiem joke from picture: Jews think about how to move obstacle, non-Jews come and move it. Jewish mother jokes: Difference between Jewish mother and rottweiler; dog will eventually let go She’ll sit and suffer Pride in children being a doctor Pruim masks Marx brothers Suite of Groucho Marx Jewish American Princess Vaudville Borsch-blet humor: rapid fire, self-deprecating humor Eliyahu Bokobza Christmas picture Christmas music Irving Berlin Seinfeld International humor stand Israeli humor Slogan looking from the inside, looking from the outside Tunics from Water for David Lool film Luba Estt Rueven

Humor Tour Hello and welcome to ANU, the Museum of the Jewish People located on the beautiful campus of Tel Aviv University in Israel. We are so excited to have you with us for our Humor Tour of our museum. My name is _____ and I will be showing you around. This tour will last around 40-45 minutes, with time for questions throughout and at the end of the tour. Thank you to _______ (client organization) for having us on today. Before we begin the tour, there are a few important logistic points to review: In just a moment, I will be sharing my screen and we will figuratively walk through the museum together. Just like our in-person tours, our online tours are filled with questions and opportunities to share our own stories and learn from others in the group. I will be asking you questions throughout the tour, and you are welcome to answer them, or ask questions of your own as we go along. If you feel comfortable doing so, please write your questions and answers in the chat, which can be found by clicking the ‘chat’ button at the bottom of the screen. If you prefer to ask a question anonymously, you can send me a question directly instead of to the whole group. Please keep yourself on mute throughout the tour for the convenience of others. Now, let’s get started! Question: Raise your hand if you have been to Israel before? Now raise your hand if you have been to ANU, which was previously called Beit Hatfutsot or Diaspora Museum, before? Question: If you have been to our museum before, did you see our Humor galleries? Our new museum opened to the public in March of 2021 after a ten year, $100 million-dollar renovation with over 72,000 square feet of exhibition space with countless artifacts from around the globe and displays of the unique as well as the everyday, modern and ancient Judicia, and art. We have 54 specially produced films, and 25 interactives across 4 wings spanning 3 floors waiting to welcome you. So, without further ado, let's start exploring! We see our beautiful new museum and we come to take a seat on a park bench – which we can see here is reserved for all the rotten days of the corona lockdowns for all purposes. No sitting for us! If these past few years have taught us anything it is that a sense of humor is the most important survival of the soul. A good laugh at a bad time can really sustain us. When we look back at Jewish history one of greatest gifts is our ability to laugh in the darkest times. As a people – from the time Sarah laughed when told she’d have a child, and Isaac, our forefather who is named for that laughter. it's what we have done. We see here the Zoom Passover Seders which are a comedian's dream! We have all of our stereotypes in one place. Freud writes, “I do not know whether there are many other instances of a people making fun to such a degree of its own character.” Perhaps Jewish jest is a survival tactic: According to an old Yiddish proverb, “If you want to alleviate your big worries, put on a tighter shoe.” But, enough of an intro, let's see our first gallery on Jewish Humor. What do we start with? A giant sign that says Oy! The one word that sums up all Jewish humor! Oy! As we look into the gallery we can see to our left a small room that deals with cartoons, which is, of course home to some of the great Jewish cartoonists, our modern day scribes, such as Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman, the caricaturist Al Hirshfeld, who was known for hiding his daughter, Nina’s name in his works, Bob Kane of Batman, Stan Lee of Spiderman and the X-Men, and the Fab-Four. We could spend all day just on comics, but let’s move on! To the back left you can see our comfy gefilte fish chairs’ mit a bissel” carrot. To the right of the room we can see our Jewish Mother section dedicated to our favorite moms of the persuasion. We find her in her domestic abode. We have a screen where Woody Allen’s film, Annie Hall, talks about the Shiksa, non-Jewish woman, and come to our area on the Jews of the fictional town of Chelm, a made up land based on legend and brought to life by Isaac Bashevis Singer. We also see a wall dedicated to Hershele and Jocha, the Sephardic equivalent of Chelm. And that brings us to the bust and mementos of Shalom Alichiem, the great Yiddish writer. Shalom Alichiem was born Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich in 1859 in the shtetl Voronkiv, in what is now central Ukraine, close to Kiev. He was the tutor to a girl who became his wife and they had 6 children together. They did not have an easy life, but they had laughter. He wrote: "Let my name be recalled with laughter, or not at all." We are so lucky to have in our collection his pen and glasses. Let’s take a look at one of his stories that is represented in this beautiful picture: There are two jews on a wagon traveling to the next town. They come across a tree that has fallen across the road. They stop their wagon and start discussing solutions to their problem. One says “We can build a fulcrum to help us lift the log.” The other says “We can cut the log into small pieces.” They continue to discuss the problem and come up with more and more creative ideas. Another wagon comes along, driven by a non-Jew, a Goy, in Yiddish. The driver stops the wagon, wordlessly jumps down, picks up the log and moves it out of the way and continues on his way. The Jew says to the other Jew, “The Goyim just know brute force!” In this silly example we have a great example of one part of Jewish humor; the otherness that we embrace. The differences that we are proud of, the people of the book that approach problems with intellect and thought, not brute force. They say in every joke, there is a kernel of truth, which we can see here. Let’s take a look at another type of Jewish Humor, humor dealing with the Jewish Mother. It’s easy to laugh at the things dearest and nearest, and that is what we see here in our mother's kitchen. Above our kitchen it says Jewish Mothers are always right! There is a famous joke that you can hear when you open the refrigerator that asks what's the difference between a Jewish mother and a rottweiler….. The rottweiler will eventually let go. Let’s hear another joke: How many Jewish mother’s does it take to change a lightbulb? None, she’ll sit in the dark. How about this one: A Jewish girl is elected President of the United States. Her mother is at the inauguration, in the cold Washington weather and complains to the senator to her right about the cold, and to the senator on her left about how her daughter will have nothing but tsuris – troubles – in this new job. As the chief justice is swearing in her daughter, the Jewish mother turns to the senator in front of her, taps him on the back, and whispers – Her brother is a doctor. What do these jokes have in common? A jewish mother will never be satisfied with even the highest achievement nor will she ever wish to inconvenience anyone on her behalf. The top job is one of service and Tikun Olan – making the world a better place, but it really doesn’t matter. You just can’t win! Here we see a section of our gallery that deals with political humor with Purim masks of Moshe Dayan and Menachen Begin and Saddam Hussain. We then move over to our livelihood area with the Marx Brothers. The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. The Marx Brothers were born in New York City, the sons of Jewish immigrants from Germany and France. Five of the Marx Brothers' – the only performers to be inducted collectively, have thirteen feature films that were selected by the American Film Institute as among the top 100 comedy films, with two of them, Duck Soup (1933) and A Night at the Opera (1935), in the top fifteen. They are widely considered by critics, scholars and fans to be among the greatest and most influential comedians of the 20th century. The core of the act was the three elder brothers: Chico, Harpo, and Groucho, each of whom developed a highly distinctive stage persona. The two younger brothers, Gummo and Zeppo, never developed their stage characters to the same extent as the elder three and both left the act to pursue business careers at which they were successful. The early performing lives of the brothers was owed to their mother, Minnie Marx (the sister of vaudeville comic Al Shean), who acted as their manager until her death in 1929. All the brothers confirmed that Minnie Marx had been the head of the family and the driving force in getting the troupe launched, and the only person who could keep them in order. Here we see one of Groucho’s suites. We come to our JAP corner, our Jewish American Princess. Here we see a modern art adaptation of Sarah Jessica Parker as well a book of JAP jokes and of course, our Barbie in Tefillin. Barbie, in full Barbara Millicent Roberts, is of course, Jewish, created by Ruth Handler who co-founded Mattel with her husband, Elliot, spearheaded the introduction of the doll, named for her daughter, Barbie and later for her son Ken. It is here in this room where we have seen stereotypes of shtetl Jews, Jewish Mothers, Jews in politics and in work environments as represented by the Marx brothers that we can talk about how we can laugh at these stereotypes and look at the truths that may be behind them – or not! Let’s now head over to our next humor gallery and take a stroll through Vaudeville! Vaudeville acts traveled the country to bring song, dance and laughter to all parts of the country. Many Jewish entertainers got their starts with these traveling shows. Some performed in English, others in Yiddish, like the poster we see here advertising the show being shown at the Metropolitan Theatre. We can watch a clip of Danny Kaye and talk a little about the Borscht Belt, the summer resorts of the Catskill Mountains in parts of Sullivan, Orange and Ulster counties in upstate New York. In the 1920s and into the 1930s, some hotels and resorts' advertisements refused to accept Jews and indicated "No Hebrews or Consumptives" in their ads. This issue led to a need for alternatives that would readily accept Jewish families as guests. The hotels that opened and catered to this upwardly mobile Jewish clientele found that food was of primary importance … there was a sense that ‘too much was not enough.’ Immigrants had memories of hunger, and in the Catskills, the food seemed limitless. The other great need was entertainment. The entertainment in the Borscht Belt was where stand-up comedy as we know it bagan. Borscht Belt humor refers to the rapid-fire, often self-deprecating style common to many of these performers and writers we see today. Here we see Danny Kaye, in the musical Inspector General from 1949. Danny Kaye plays honest Georgi who is mistaken for a diplomat. The slapstick and humor that David Daniel Kaminsky or as you know him, Danny Kaye, the youngest Brooklyn born son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, shows on screen is what made him famous. We also see the amazing work of Jerry Lewis in Bellboy. Jerry Lewis, born in Newark New Jersey as Joseph Levitch to a vaudevillian father, he was known as the King of Comedy. These two amazing trailblazers of comedy both got their start in the Borscht Belt. Let’s take a look at this beautiful dichotomy of the holiday season. This piece by Eliyahu Eric Bokobza. In this amazing picture we see both the wanting to fit in and participate in the beautiful holiday of Christmans, but also the desire to be separate and different, the melding of the holidays of Hanukkah and Christmas. We use this tension for silly jokes, such as this one: What’s the difference between Hanukkah and a dragon? One lasts for eight nights, the other sometimes ate knights. There are also jokes that show how we suffer our differences: Christian women have fun baking Christmas cookies. Jewish women burn their eyes and cut their hands grating potatoes and onions for latkes on Chanukah. Another reminder of our suffering through the ages. As Jews we can be so proud of our musical contributions to Christmas music. Some of the most famous Christmas songs are by Jewish composers and musicians: “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” by Mel Torme and made famous by Nat King Cole in 1946. “Let it Snow” by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne is a Christmas favorite that never actually mentions Christmas. The brainchild of another dynamic Jewish duo, “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” was written by George Wyle and Eddie Pola who collaborated on the song in 1963, and it became a hit when Andy Williams sang and produced it that same year. Irving Berlin — who may be most famous for his patriotic hit, “God Bless America” — was born Israel Baline in Russia. He immigrated to the United States with his family, including his father, a cantor, in 1893. He fostered an appreciation for Christmas as an American family holiday and wrote “White Christmas” in 1947 as another patriotic homage to this country and its distinctly American Christmas traditions. A string of popular songs including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “A Holly, Jolly Christmas,” and “Silver and Gold,” are all by Johnny Marks, a Jew from Mt. Vernon, New York. According to multiple sources, “Rudolph,” which was co-written with Robert Louis May (another affluent, suburban New York Jew) actually represents the ostracism Robert May felt growing up as a Jew with a large nose. Another song with a more somber back story is “Walkin’ In a Winter Wonderland" by Felix Bernard and Richard B. Smith. This song was written by Jewish composer and conductor Felix Bernard, along with his non-Jewish colleague Richard B. Smith. Smith wrote the poem “Winter Wonderland” in 1934 while being treated in the West Mountain sanatorium for tuberculosis. His sister, Marjorie said he was inspired by the freshly fallen snow in the park to write this song. Felix Bernard had the song published that same year. Smith sadly died the following year at age 34. This joyful song lives on as a beautiful legacy for Smith. The next area of our Humor Gallery is an area about a show about nothing – Seinfeld! We see here a replica of the famous Seinfeld set with a lot of memorabilia. If you pop through Jerry’s front door you’ll be startled by the theme music of the show blasting through the open door. In the glass case you can see a signed chefs jacket from “The Soup Nazi.” the 116th episode of the NBC sitcom Seinfeld, which aired in the United States on November 2, 1995. The episode finds Jerry, George and Elaine visiting a new soup stand. Jerry explains that the owner, Yev Kassem, is known as the "Soup Nazi" due to his insistence on a strict manner of behavior while placing an order, but his soups are so outstandingly delicious that the stand is constantly busy. In twists and turns Eliane gets the recipes for the soups and the stand shuts down and the owner moves to Argentina. The Soup Nazi has a cameo in the Seinfeld series finale where he is a witness in the case against Seinfeld, Elaine, George and Kramer. He tells about how he banned Elaine from his shop, only for her to return and ruin his business, forcing him to move to Argentina (paralleling the Ratlines used by the real Nazis). Elaine angers him by smugly claiming, "His soup wasn't all that good anyway." The Soup Nazi was portrayed by Larry Thomas, who did not realize that the character was based on a real person.The character was inspired by Ali "Al" Yeganeh, an Iranian soup vendor who ran Soup Kitchen International in New York City, eventually turning it into the chain The Original Soup Man. He always claimed that he was very offended by the "Soup Nazi" moniker. Next we come to our interactive station where we learn about Jewish humor around the world. The first joke we meet comes from South Africa: While traveling around Africa, a group of tourists are ambushed by a tribe of cannibals in one of the jungles. All the tourists are taken captive and locked in a pen. A few hours later, the chief of the tribe summons the cook and says; “We’re going to eat the Jews first.” “Why?” asked the cook. Because if we don't hurry and eat them, the chief explained, they'll eat each other up. Do you feel a regional tone to the joke? The next joke comes from North West Africa, Morocco. Jonah and his mother live together. One day the mother is invited to a wedding, but she is scared to leave the house unattended because the doors are old and the lock doesn't work well. So she asked Jonah to stay home and guard the door so thieves wouldn't break in. John’s mother goes to the wedding while he stays home hungry and bored. “Wait a minute, “ he says to himself, “why should I sit here by myself while my mother is eating and drinking at the wedding? I can also guard the door there!” So Jonah takes the door off its hinges and carries it on his back and goes to the wedding. The next joke comes from Argentina, where our Soup Nazi has fled! An ultra-orthodox Jews who lives in a remote area of Argentina decides one day to visit the capitol, Buenos Aires. Hegets off the train wearing his traditional garb, with a long coat and hat, and begins strolling around the city. The residents of Buenos Aires are unable to take their eyes off him. At a certain point, the ultra-orthodox Jews who loses his cool and shouts at them, “What's your problem! Haven't you ever seen a cowboy!” Our next joke comes from Iraq. It's a story about a Jew who divided his money and property among his children while still alive. After doing that, they neglected and disrespected him, did not attend to his needs and served him inedible food. One day he brought home a large crate, filled it with heavy stones, inserted a note in his handwriting on top and locked it with seven locks, whose keys he held onto. “What's that?” his daughter-in-law asked him. “Everything I gave you,” he replied, “is just a fraction of the money and gems I possess. I've kept the most important share for myself in this crate.” “And who is that crate for?” she asked him. “Whoever takes the best care of me and treats me with respect,” he replied. The daughter-in-law told her husband about it, who in turn told his brothers. From that date on the sons were in competition over who took better care of their father. After the father died the brothers got into a huge argument, each one claiming that he had been their father's best caregiver. The argument escalated to curses and yelling and the brothers even came to blows. They finally asked the court to resolve the dispute between them. “Bring the crate to me so I can divide its contents between you.” the judge told them. They brought the crate, opened it and found that it was full of large stones. The letter on top said “Woe is he who divides his money and property among his children while still alive.” A joke that isn’t funny and carries a lesson! OK! Let’s keep moving through our Humor gallery! We are now in the area of our gallery where we talk about Israeli humor, the jokes of the Sabras, the people born in Israel that are pricl=kly and thorny on the outside, but sweet and soft on the inside. As you can see from the wooden Sabra fruit growing here from the floor decorated with stars! It is in this part of the museum we talk about Srulick, our Kibbutznick friend who is the brainchild of cartoonist Kariel Gardosh, who became famous under his pen name Dosh. Srulik was an Israeli figure with a naive expression and kova tembel, or dunce cap, who came to embody the classic Israeli. Dosh was the first Israeli cartoonist to have his work published in a newspaper daily. He was born in 1921 in Budapest, Hungary, to an assimilated Jewish family. In 1946, he moved to France and two years later, immigrated to Israel. At first he related to cartooning as a temporary job, until he learned Hebrew and could move on to journalistic and literary writing. In the end, however, he stuck to this profession. He reached mass circulation in the daily Ma'ariv newspaper, where he published cartoons until his death in 2000. Israeli humor is based on the slogan on this wall: Looking from the inside, looking from the outside. Israeli humor has a rich history of self segregation and looking at things with a very critical eye. The humor may be a bit “in your face,” but no less funny! We see a large poster from a singing and dance troupe that performed musical and comedy acts as well as dancing, a form of cabaret, throughout Israel in the 1960’s. The song created and sung by the “Tarnagolds” or “The Roosters” were the lyrics of Haim Hefer, among others, and are considered a model for Sabra entertainment. The young singers, members of the Eastern community and Ashkenazis, graduates of the military bands, well-groomed and smiling, were a symbol of vitality for the adults and a symbol of playfulness and glamor for the young. The legacy of the military bands greatly influenced the character of the group. Both the entertainment genre and the popular combination of music, singing and dancing in Israel grew out of the legacy of the military bands of the beginning of the country's life. We can see a very pivotal moment in Israeli television here in the large TV that houses three costumes from a group called Ha-ga-shash Ha-hiv-air, Water for King David. Ha-ga-shash Ha-hiv-air, which means “Pale tracker’” was a comedy – musical ensemble that operated in the Israeli entertainment industry for about 37 years. The members of the band are Gavri Banai , Shaike Levy and Yisrael Polyakov. The band's name is taken from the book "The Last Mohican" by James Panimor Cooper. This iconic comedy group – whose songs and skits are still known by heart by children in Israel today, had a very famous television appearance in 1976. Like many Jewish jokes, this song has its beginnings in the Bible. The story goes that the Philistines ruled Bethlehem . David lusted for water from the cistern in Bethlehem, his hometown, and expressed his will aloud. “And David longed, and said, Who shall water me from the well of the house of Bethlehem, which is by the gate?” Following this, three of David's heroes went out to Bethlehem to fetch water for David. David, who regretted endangering his soldiers for him, refused to drink the water. This is the story depicted by these three comedians. As you can see these are rather short tunics. On live television, as each performer sang the chorus and raised his arms, his underwear was exposed. This was quite the scandal in 1976! Opinions about the show were divided – some viewers supported the surprising show, and some saw it as inappropriate. It is said that when Prime Minister Golda Meir watched their live performance of the song, the three performed the song without the tunics, as the organizers thought it would not be honorable to perform in the short tunics that showed the men's “tighty whities”. After the show, Golda expressed her admiration for them, and then asked: "But why did you not show up with the skirts?". We have more of the famous and funny songs of the group here on the other wall where you can pull some records and enjoy their jokes. Now I’d like to show you a film, in Hebrew, that shows the humor of the aliya to Israel. It may be hard to read the translations, but it is very easy to hear the accents and to enjoy the spoofs of each group of immigrants and how they are welcomed to Israel. Here we see Arik Einstein and Uri Zohar playing all the roles. Listen to how they speak and watch the action. Enjoy! Each group laughs at the next group that comes. This is the same humor we see today as we continue through the humor gallery to our modern Luba, Estee and Ruven; who we see here. Estee and Ruven are from a currently running comedy show called Aretz Nehadarit, or a Beautiful Country. They laugh at the newly religious and the rub between the religious and non-religious factions in the society. We also see Baba Luba, a recent Russian immigrant that is working at a supermarket with her high level of education and her cultured ways, she looks down on all the customers that pass before her. I have to leave you with one more joke before we leave! A joke that touches on stereo-types, Jewish intelligence, our fear of “others”… all rolled up into one! The businessman had a meeting with his new son-in-law. "I love my daughter very much, and now I welcome you into the family," said the man. "To show you how much we care for you, I am making you a 50-50 partner in my business. All you have to do is go to the factory every day and learn the operations." The son-in-law interrupted, "I hate factories. I can't stand the noise." "I see," replied the father-in-law. "Well, then you'll work in the office and take charge of some of the operations." "I hate office work," said the son-in-law. "I can't stand being stuck behind a desk all day." "Wait a minute," said the father-in-law. "I just made you a half-owner of a money making organization, but you don't like factories and you won't work in an office. What am I going to do with you?" "Easy," said the young man. "Buy me out." I hope you all enjoyed your tour! I hope to see you all in Israel for a real tour soon!

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