The Distancing Dance

Folk and friend,
Here's a few words from my dear comrade Dr. Aryeh Cohen. I'm pleased that he has contributed this fine piece to the Urinal Puck. I hope you enjoy it.
-Chaim

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What is it about Jewish comedians that makes them feel as if they need to throw up all their self loathing Jewish stuff all over their audience?

The other night I saw one of these comedians. She was the poster child for the richuk campaign. You know there are all these organizations that are interested in keiruv, a Hebrew word which means bringing closer and has become a term of art for Jewish evangilizing to Jews. The most sought after person in the Jewish community is the unaffiliated Jew. The Jew who doesn't care about his or her Judaism, the Jew who doesn't belong to a synagogue or has any other Jewish affiliation-hence unaffiliated. This is the person that all Jewish organizations slather over. They literally get hot and bothered just thinking about getting these Jews into their synagogues, boardrooms, living rooms, social justice organizations, temples etc. They sit in a room full of interested and yet, miraculously ignorant Jews talking about how important it is to get those people who don't want to be in that room into that room. The people in the room remain in their blissful Jewish ignorance, yet they all come up with plans to get all the hipsters who couldn't give a damn into the room.

Anyway, the opposite of kiruv is richuk. It is also a Hebrew word which means distancing. It is not yet a term of art. There are no grants that magically appear by telling the foundations that you will leave all these Jews who have chosen not to care about their Jewishness alone. -I am thinking of starting an organization which might just make richuk into a term of art. My working organizational title is "Get the fuck out of my bes medrash." This might be a bit strong. Maybe I should just call it "I'll leave you alone and you don't mess with my religion."

I went to a wedding recently of a family friend. They were both Jewish by birth and both wonderfully unafilliated. Neither of them really cared about Judaism. She had spent her whole life wanting to be "normal". That is wanting to be white bread American. He had spent his whole life not thinking about Judaism for more than two or three minutes.

The wedding was on a Saturday. The officiant was a Unitarian Minister who came with the hotel, and did a great job of making believe that she didn't know anything about religion either. So everything was going along swimmingly-it was eighty degree Arizona in the middle of the winter, what could be bad? They had done an amazing job accomodating my family's observant tendencies-they had ordered kosher food for us and everything.

At the reception, the DJ was playing everything you expect a DJ to play at a wedding‹danceable music from the last three decades. All of a sudden somebody decides its time for the Jewish dance. The bride and groom have to be planted on chairs and hauled above our heads so that we can dance around to some Hava Nagila song. This was supposed to make me happy. Did I miss something here? Was I co-opting your religion? Did I put on a piece of triangular cardboard and prance naked in the freezing cold rooting for some overpaid group of thugs that gets paid more than many countries' GNP? Did I? Then why are you messing with my religion?

So I saw this "comedian" who can be the poster child for the whole richuk movement. In her act she touched on all the aspects of her Jewish identity-loudness, New York accent, the catskills and the Holocaust. If she had just sung Hava Nagila she would have scored a perfect ten. Its not that she wasn't funny. Well, actually, it is also that she wasn't funny. The problem is that she thought she was both funny and edgy. As if five decades of comedians haven't done Longisland jew jokes.

As a follow-up, this vanguard of Jewish vaccuousness also took a courageous stand for the Holocaust. She defended the Holocaust. No, she didn't defend the killing of six million Jews, but she did defend the honor of the Holocaust, or at least took a stand against people making fun of survivors of Auschwitz. Now that was ballsy. I am sure she is also against infanticide and the random shooting of the elderly.

So what is this? What is it that drives people to see these people? How screwed up is it that 99 people get in a room to reaffirm their Jewish identity by announcing their loathing of their Jewish identity? There is a symbiotic psychosis at work here. I make fun of me. You laugh at you. We both make fun of each other. We make believe its hip and edgy because it trashes something we are supposed to care about. But we don't. So, actually, its not.