Sunday, November 27, 2005

Oy, I've Heard This One Before

My local Jewish paper (j., formerly the Northern California Jewish Bulletin) has a Jokes column in the back.

God alone knows why. The column is dedicated to mediocre Jewish humor gleaned from e-mail sent to the various j.-staff, with the occasional Dry Bones pasted in to give it a slightly higher-brow tone. The jokes--well, let me just say there ain't nothin' you haven't heard a hundred times, and very little you ever wanted to hear again.

And of course, what is the number-one topic of bad e-mailed Jewish humor? (Seriously, I did statistics on this at one point.) Give yourself a hundred points and a knish if you picked "Jewish Women (Sex-Averse)". Number two is "Jewish Women (Materialistic Parasites on Their Husbands)" (NB, in the world of bad Jewish humor, it is still 1956. It is assumed that all Jewish women are dependent on their husbands for money and want a miiiiink coooooooaaaaat, Irving. Rest in peace, Henny Youngman, for we can't beat your legacy to death with a STICK.)

So this week, in j.'s Jokes column, we have a Dry Bones, a sort of pointless bit about Moshe asking for details about the Ten Commandments, and TWO (50%) of the Jewish Women: Sex Averse type. One gag runs on the idea that all women fantasize about two men at once, but in the Jewish version one guy cleans and the other cooks. (Badda-bing!) In the other, the wife puts off her husband twice, and then on the third night accuses him of being a sex maniac (even the language tells you it's 1956, who says "sex maniac" in the twenty-first century?) for asking all the time. (Badda-boom!)

Worst part: the bloody Jokes bloody column was put in at a time when the j. changed its name, got a nose job, and went to a stapled magazine format all in order to get the attention of ME, the thirty-something demographic they needed to survive. Oy, did they get it backwards! Although I'm sure some fools out there are getting a kick out of the retro-ness of this woman-hating dreck.

Feh, says the Balabusta. Seriously feh. Extreme feh. I gotta write a letter to the editor now, feh.

3 comments:

WBS said...

From bangitout.com:

Top Ten ways you know you are from Jewish San Francisco

You profess to hate the Jewish Bulletin [now j.], and yet have a subscription, and spend Shabbat afternoon reading it, and swearing aloud at it. You see who you know in it...by name.

BBJ said...

You got it. Even better is reading the stories and cursing about who got left out who deserved a mention, or REALLY could have told them where the bodies are buried.

The back of the hill said...

I don't read J (formerly known as the Jewish Bull), even though they're located in the same office building.

I anxiously await each new edition of HEEB.

And maybe, so should we all.