SEPTEMBER 3 • 2020 | 39
that “delusionary.”
“Ridicule didn’
t work
when Hitler was alive and
dangerous . . . Nor are gales
of laughter likely to neutral-
ize the enduring vestiges of
neo-Nazism,” he writes.
In Woody Allen’
s film
Manhattan, a character sug-
gests going to a neo-Nazi
demonstration “with bricks
and baseball bats and really
… explain things to them.”
Works crafted not to
offend: The television series
Hogan’
s Heroes had Nazis but
no Holocaust. Bumbling
Nazis ineffectively run a
prisoner-of-war camp. Jarrod
Tanny, in this volume, appre-
ciates how Mad Magazine in
1967 satirized Hogan’
s Heroes
for not mentioning Jews.
Works by Jews to challenge
other Jews: Comedian Lewis
Black, on the absence of the
Holocaust in God’
s Bible,
writes, “You would think he
would put out at least a pam-
phlet about the Holocaust.”
Novelist Shalom Auslander
invokes the Holocaust with
savage humor to protest
against his own Orthodox
Jewish upbringing. In his
novel, Hope: A Tragedy, Anne
Frank appears as a bitter old
woman, cursing and com-
plaining as she hides in an
attic, working on her next
novel.
Recent works by Jews sat-
irize, not the Holocaust, but
popular use of the Holocaust:
They critique those vis-
its to Anne Frank’
s house,
or Auschwitz, by tourists.
Especially in Israel, jokes
challenge politicians who use
awareness of the Holocaust to
justify political decisions.
Ferne Perlstein and Robert
Edwards’
essay, “The Last
Laugh?” describes the making
of their own documentary
film by the same name, about
the morality of Holocaust
humor. In it, a survivor,
Renee Firestone, comments
on the efforts of a dozen
humorists, and recounts an
anecdote of her own:
Nazi “
Angel of Death”
Josef Mengele did hideous
experiments on twins, includ-
ing Firestone and her twin
sister Klara. Klara did not
survive. Mengele examines
Renee, “
And then he says to
me, “If you survive this war,
you better have your tonsils
removed. You have big ton-
sils.”
Renee says, “So, I was
thinking, ‘
Is he insane?
Tomorrow I may die. I’
m
worried about my tonsils?’
But when I survived and
came back, and I thought
about what he said, it was
funny!”
Renee’
s daughter Klara
observes: “Most people
don’
t expect survivors to
have much humor after the
Holocaust, but that’
s really
not the case at all. The sur-
vivors actually have some
of the worst gallows humor
ever. And I guess that they’
re
the only ones allowed to do
that!”
Ridicule didn’t work when
Hitler was alive . . . Nor are gales
of laughter likely to neutralize
enduring vestiges of neo-Nazism.
— STEPHEN WHITFIELD
BILL & TED ARE BACK
Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter,
55, co-star in the third Bill and
Ted movie (Bill & Ted Face the
Music). It was supposed to
be released to theaters, but
plans were changed at the last
minute and it was released to
video-on-demand (VOD) on Aug.
28. Here’
s the capsule plot: A
mysterious stranger warns the
pair that they have 78 minutes
to create a song that will save
all life in the universe.
The first Bill and Ted movie
was released in 1989. Reeves,
now 55, went on to become
a major film star (The Matrix
films, John Wick films). In
several interviews, Reeves has
noted that he went to a Jewish
summer camp during the time
when he (briefly) had a Jewish
stepfather. In 1995, Reeves nar-
rated the documentary Children
Remember the Holocaust. He
read excerpts from diaries
and letters written by young
Holocaust survivors.
Winter was born in England,
the son of an English father and
an American Jewish mother.
His parents relocated to St.
Louis in 1970, where they both
taught dance. His parents split
in 1973, and Alex was raised by
his mother in New Jersey. He
has become an important docu-
mentary director, most recently
helming Showbiz Kids for HBO.
The comedic film Guest
House will be released on VOD
on Sept. 4. Pauly Shore, 52,
stars as a “party animal” occu-
pant of a guest house who just
won’
t leave. Shore now lives
in Las Vegas, where he does
stand-up comedy. His younger
brothers run The Comedy Store,
a Los Angeles nightclub found-
ed by their late mother, Mitzi
Shore. Many famous comics
got their start there. A five-part
Showtime documentary about
the club, directed by Detroit
native Mike Binder, 62, will
premiere in October.
Something fun: I was
inspired to do this “top five” list
by the recent death of a Jewish
inventor. All five invented some-
thing critical to entertainment,
broadly defined. My entries
are minimal, so look them up,
please. (1) Russell Kirsch died
on Aug. 11, age 91. He invented
the pixel and scanned the first
digital photo; (2) Emile Berliner
(1851-1929), inventor of the
flat disc or gramophone record;
Peter Goldmark (1906-77),
inventor of the 33
1/3 rpm, long
playing record; Ralph H. Baer
(1922-2014). He was called
the father of the video game.
He was critical to the creation
of the first home video con-
sole; and Martin Cooper, now
92. He’
s called the father of
the handheld cellular phone. I
had the pleasure of talking to
Cooper a couple of years ago.
He told me had his second bar
mitzvah when he was 83. This
is not unique; there is a tradi-
tion that once you reach 70,
your biblically “allotted” lifes-
pan is up and if you reach 83, a
second bar mitzvah is appropri-
ate. Cooper said that he studied
with a rabbi via phone calls
(what else?) for several months
before his “second.”
Arts&Life
celebrity jews
NATE BLOOM
COLUMNIST
IMDB