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the central character on HBO's Curb
Your Enthusiasm, Larry David, co-
creator of Seinfeld, goes beyond ste-
reotypical portrayals of Jews.
No longer are television references
to Jews limited to bar mitzvahs.
There's the "atonement phone" that
Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central's
The Colbert Report kept on his desk
during the 10 Days of Awe, encourag-
ing his Jewish friends to call him to
beg for forgiveness.
There were the esoteric references
Stewart made to obscure Shabbat
prohibitions when Sen. Joseph
Lieberman was running for vice pres-
ident in 2000. There are the unabash-
edly Jewish themes in shows from
Will & Grace to The Simpsons.
"Are there still more goyim in
America?" Waldoks quips between
bites of pastrami on rye.
What there isn't anymore, Novak
says, is Jewish joke-tellers in the tra-
dition of the Borscht Belt and Henny
Youngman ("Take my wife, please").
Those kinds of jokes have all but dis-
appeared, relegated to mass e-mails
and Top-10 lists on Web sites like
Bangitout.com .
What's left, however, is Jewish
humor that is much more knowledge-
able and much more popular.
"People were hiding who they were
50 years ago, when we were born,"
Novak said. "Now you have an edu-
cated Jewish youth culture."
"The younger generation is more
comfortable with their Jewish
identity," Waldoks says, noting the
success of Heeb, the hip Jewish
magazine and cultural phenomenon.
"Assimilation has peaked."
Back To The Bible
So what is Jewish humor?
Jewish humor goes all the way back
to the Bible, Waldoks says. When the
Jewish people follow Moses out of
Egypt only to find themselves pinned
between the pursuing Egyptian
army and the sea, they say to Moses,
Whatsa matter, Moshe — there
weren't enough graves for us in
Egypt?' Badum-bum!" a grinning
Waldoks pronounces with a flourish.
The actual verse reads, "Are there no
graves in Egypt that you took us away
to die in this wilderness?"
The first joke in the Bible appears
as early as the fourth chapter of
Genesis, Waldoks points out: Cain,
after killing Abel, answers an inter-
rogative God, "What am I, my broth-
er's keeper?" (Badum-bum!)
But Jewish humor really has its
—
origins in the prophetic tradition,
Waldoks explains. Just as the job
of the prophet was to make people
uncomfortable, often speaking the
truth to powerful people, comedians
have the power to puncture pompos-
ity.
And if it's toilet-related, all the bet-
ter.
"For a Jew, a bowel movement is an
event," Waldoks declares. "That's why
there's so much bathroom humor!'
Novak nods in agreement.
"As you get older, it becomes a
wonderful thing," he says.
Twenty-five years on, these authors
are a little grayer and perhaps a little
paunchier, but not much worse for
wear.
Waldoks has become a rabbi at
a nondenominational synagogue,
Brookline's Temple Beth Zion, which
he has transformed from a moribund
Conservative temple into a popular
"egalitarian Chasidic" house of prayer
and song.
Novak, who 25 years ago had but
one book to his name, the rather
obscure High Culture: Marijuana
in the Lives of Americans, has since
become a bestselling author and
ghostwriter, co-authoring books with
celebrities such as Nancy Reagan,
Lee Iacocca, Oliver North and Magic
Johnson.
His son B.J. shares his father's
appreciation and talent for recogniz-
ing humor; he's a writer and actor on
NBC's hit comedy The Office.
Though sales of the original Big
Book far exceeded the authors'
expectations — they estimate that
more than 100,000 copies sold — the
two say they're most pleased about
how it has been used: by children,
given as bar mitzvah gifts, passed
from friend to friend.
"It's a wonderful introduction
to Judaism," Novak says. "This is a
Jewish book your kids are going to
enjoy reading. Buy it for that, if for no
other reason!'
Novak says he sheps nachas when
his kids sit around the dining room
table trading punch lines from the
book. After 25 years, everyone already
knows the jokes.
Novak's favorite Jewish joke is
about the Jew who goes to the post
office in Pinsk to ask how often the
mail goes out to Warsaw.
"Every day," he's told.
The man nods and is silent for a
moment. "Thursdays, too?"
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