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8 | MARCH 26 • 2020 

1942 - 2020

Covering and Connecting 
Jewish Detroit Every Week
jn

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How to reach us see page 10

essay
High Anxiety
I 

asked a friend of mine how 
he was holding up with all 
the scary things going on 
in the world these days. He 
said he has “good 
news and bad 
news.”
“How so?” I 
asked.
“The good 
news” he said, “is 
that I don’
t have 
the coronavirus. 
The bad news is that my 401(k) 
is now a 201(k).”
I smiled and walked away 
and didn’
t know whether to 
laugh or cry. But that’
s exactly 
the kind of gallows humor we 
hear all the time during these 
worrisome times. We are offi-
cially in a global pandemic. 
We can wash our hands all day 
and do everything else we’
re 
supposed to do, but the scary 
headlines just keep coming and 
coming, and we have no con-
trol over that.
But we can choose how we’
re 
going to react to the constant 

news about the virus. We can 
decide whether to be dismissive 
or nonchalant about it (we all 
know people like that, right?) 
or we can fall into a deep, dark 
despair (I know those folks, 
too). Or we can work hard — 
extra hard for me, I confess 
— to get control of our attitude 
and do our best to calm our 
nerves. That would be a sensi-
ble and logical plan, although 
frankly I’
m not sure it’
s going 
so well for me.
I’
m a news junkie, which is 
hardly the best medicine for 
calming one’
s nerves these 
days. Let’
s be honest, it’
s just so 
damn easy to get frightened, 
and the 24/7 news cycle can 
drive a sane person crazy. But 
still, I, like so many others, pay 
close attention to the news. I 
have also over the years assem-
bled a collection of quotes that 
I find meaningful, from the 
silly to the profound. One of 
them, from jazz artist Miles 
Davis, is eerily reminiscent of 
the reaction to this virus: “If 

you ain’
t nervous, you ain’
t pay-
ing attention.”
But I just have to stop pay-
ing such close attention. My 
religious friends — Jewish 
and Christian — try to calm 
me down by referring me to 
scriptures about dealing with 
anxiety. King Solomon wrote 
in Proverbs that “anxiety in 
the heart of a person causes 
dejection, but a good word 
will turn it into joy.” A couple 
of my Christian buddies, both 
Baptist pastors, instruct me that 
Isaiah offers a succinct guide 
for dealing with fear: “Do not 
be afraid, for I am with you 
always.”
Those passages, and many 
others, are beautiful and inspi-
rational. I’
m from Oak Park, 
so who am I to argue with 
King Solomon and Isaiah? But 
I’
m also very much a child of 
modern Jewish culture, and 
the stereotype of the nervous, 
anxiety-ridden, nebbish-y Jew 
has been drilled into my head 
for as long as I can remember. 

Every time I wonder if I’
m 
getting sick (like every day in 
the past several weeks), I can’
t 
help but recall the words of 
that great Jewish sage, Woody 
Allen, who, although not pos-
sessing the wisdom of King 
Solomon, was nevertheless a lot 
funnier. “I’
m not a hypochon-
driac,” Woody the Wise Man 
used to say, “I’
m a Jew.”
The examples of Jews con-
sumed with high-anxiety 
humor abound throughout 
American culture, from lit-
erature to film and especially 
among so many of the coun-
try’
s greatest comedians. Jokes 
about Jews being nervous 
wrecks are legendary. (“I’
m 
tired and thirsty,” says the Jew. 
“I must have diabetes.”) Lenny 
Bruce, Joan Rivers, Mel Brooks, 
Jackie Mason, Woody Allen, 
Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David and 
countless others have indeli-
bly etched this image into our 
psyches (it was Mel Brooks, 
after all, who gave us the classic 
film High Anxiety).

Mark Jacobs

continued on page 10

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