Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 February 1997 — Page 15

NAT IQ ESlamDL&jaSZ Digest of'^^^e^S^ddis ^^AA : c*ov^is l "'|W^!)iiSLP Jewish comics honored Ancient laughter

By RABBI SAMUEL SILVER The English section of the Algemeiner Journal often provides news seldom seen elsewhere. For example, in a recent issue of the paper, Daniel

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Keren, who conducts a stamp column, discloses that the Caribbean nation of Grenada has issued stamps bearing the photos of American-Jewish comedians. Included in the series are Jack Benny, Groucho Marx, Eddie Cantor and George Bums. Also in the series: Gertrude Berg, of "The Goldbergs." Honoring a name Leaders of Israel like to Hebraize their names, even though originally the names were Slavic or Teutonic. Ben-Gurion was Green. Sharett was Chertok, Meir was Meyerson. Maimoin was Fishman. Peres was Persky. Israel's chief of staff is Amnon Lifkin-Shachat. Tzvi Kolitz, of the Algemeiner Journal, found out why he kept the European name, Lifkin. In an article in an Israeli newspapers he read that the chief was either related to, or was an admirer of Israel Salanter, whose family name was Lifkin. Salanter headed a movement called "Musar," i.e., "reproach for moral lax-

ity."

Shachat, he learned, has a record of kindness and commiseration for his troops. Story after story record he has shown consideration for those in the armed forces. The journalist salutes the musar-man in uniform. A child of showbiz The noted symphony orchestra conductor Tilden Thomas has an interesting pedigree. He is the grandson of Boris Tomashefsky, the late, great Yiddish actor. And his uncle was Paul Muni, who segued from the Second Avenue Yiddish Theater (where

the Tomashefskys shone) to Broadway and Hollywood. (Oifn Shvel, "On the Threshold," the publication of the League for Yiddish.) A flood of letters One of the problems the editor of a newspaper has is how to handle letters from readers. In the Algemeiner Journal, a New York letter-writer, Yitzhak Cohen, literally bombards the editor with long letters. They are replete with references to Jewish law and lore. The editor prints most of them, but still Cohen complains that not all of them appear. Over one of Cohen's letters the editor printed a headline: "We print letters when we have the space." Another letter-writer asserts that only one of ten leters he sends gets printed. He is Noah Whitman of Winnipeg. In one letter which did appear Whitman says he is torn between his love for the Journal and his disagreement with the paper's outlook toward Israel. The Journal tilts towards Likud, although one of its regular columnists, Shlomo Shamir, is partial to Labor. So is Whitman, who says that he has an opening for his criticisms of the Journal's position. His "opening!,' is a column he does occasionally for a Winnipeg Anglo-Jewish pa-

per.

In one letter Cohen repeats an oldie. It's about a gentile maid who works for an Orthodox Jewish family. She told a friend that the family has some odd habits. On Saturdays they eat in the dining room and smoke in the bathroom. On Tisha b'Ab they smoke in the d ining room and eat in the bathroom. On Yom Kippur they eat and smoke in the bathroom. With the yordim An‘Israeli journalist, Naomi Tzever ben Yehoshua, has written a book about her visit to a California "colony" of former Israelis who lived in kibbutzim. She interviewed them in depth, and learned that they were motivated mostly by economic reasons Continued on page 15

By YAACOV LURIA You have heard it said that to talk or even think about humor is to do it in. Believe it not. Humor is ice cream. When I was a kid and my

mother gave me a rare nickel for an ice cream cone, I feasted on that delicacy three times. On my way to the candy store my imagination kept licking its lips in anticipation. When the cone was mine, I bit into it with deliberate speed, as if I were a mosquito in a nudist colony. The ice cream and cone were both inside me by the time I came home. But what pleasure it was just thinking how good it was! Humor grows in retrospect. I grin every time I remember a school colleague named Florence, an aging spinster — does that sound better than old maid? — who lived with a grumpy, abrasive old bachelor brother. She cooked for him, laundered and ironed his clothes, and sewed buttons on his shirts, but he wouldn't even say hello to her. One day Florence came to work and announced, "My brother looks like hell. If he dies. I'll kill him." You can tell that I go for verbal humor. A guy slipping on a banana peel I don't find funny unless he's Charlie Chaplin or Benny Hill. Pantomine is the preserve of a chosen few. Remember my column on Humor as Therapy? After I wrote that, 1 remembered a play called "Red Noses" by Peter Barnes which I saw in San Diego about a half dozen years ago. Bames based his comedy on an actual historical episode. During one of the terrible epidemics which devastated Europe periodically in the Middle Ages, a monk conceived the idea of fighting the black plague by using fun as a pharmaceutical. He dressed up his followers in the traditional bulbous red noses and puffy pantaloons of clowns and had them dispense wit

wherever they went. I’ll share some of their choice sallies with you. "To lawyers clients are innocent until proved penniless''... "No, you can't have samples of my sexual prowess. References yes"... "Don't shake your head at me in that tone of voice"... "A belly button makes an excellent receptacle for salt when you're eating celery in bed"... "I know I'm conceited but what's my opinion against the mirror's?"... "I forgot where I lost my virginity, but I still have the container it came in."... "I used to think I was indecisive. Now I'm not so sure."... "Don't eat so fast. Sparks are flying from your

food."... "You don't know what suffering is until you put on a red nose and try to make people laugh."... "Faith is the triumph of hope over experience."... "I'm drawing my sword. Some paper, please."... "Every jest should be a small revolution." Apparently the ecclesiastical authorities got the last point. They discovered that the monk was dangerous and diabolical. His punishment was quick and condign. Did the red noses ploy work against the plague? Who knows? We can say for sure that people died laughing. Yaacov Luria may be reached at 3450 Third Ave., Apt. 302, San Diego, CA 92103.

Misconceptions

Women’s choice

By RABBI REUVEN BULKA Misconception: Women are obligated to have children. The first biblical commandment is to "be fruitful and multiply," the minimal

standard for species replacement. This means that a married couple should have at least one boy and one girl. The mitzvah to procreate is directed at the male partner. The Torah does not oblige the woman to have children. It seems incongruous that the woman who carries the child in her womb for nine months, is undr no obligation to do so. She is obviously part of the obligation to assure that the earth is "not desolate but inhabited," yet from a legal perspective, it is the husband who must have children. Why is this so? For the husband, the

childbearing process starts with pleasure, and it is free from the direct experience of pain. All the pain associated with the carrying of the child and the subsequent birth is experienced and endured by the woman. Since the woman must often suffer excruciating pain to bear children, God refuses to place such an inordinate burden on the woman. It is unfair to obligate her to endure pain in order to fulfill a commandment. It is effectively up to her to decide whether she desires children. For the man, whose role in the childbearing process is a distinct pleasure, there are no barriers to imposing an obligation. The dynamics of the marital union are thus more clearly delineated in this biblical directive. The man who is obliged to have children must endear himself to a woman who, although not obligated to have children, will be so enamored with her spouse that she will want to share everything with him, to build a future with him, even if at times it may be painful for her to do so.