David Mamet on Jewish humor
Trying to understand the goyim
A playwright who’s won two Pulitzers for his plays and a Pen Grand Master of American Theatre, and a successful film maker, David Mamet is also a social critic known for controversial positions on cultural matters and a deep concern for Jewish issues. This is taken from the chapter “Chelm; or, No Arrest for the Wicked” in Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch, published in 2022.
Much of the Jewish humor of my youth was a baffled, and not unaffectionate, attempt to understand the goyim (non-Jews) or our reactions to them. One of my favorites: Two Jews plot to assassinate Hitler. They know he comes around a corner in Berlin every morning at nine thirty. They are in place by eight. They wait with their bombs. Nine comes, nine thirty, nine forty-five. At ten, one turns to the other and says, “Gosh, I hope he’s okay.”
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