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Telegraph
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
‘We told jokes in the camps' – but is Jewish comedy doomed?
It begins, like so many conversations about Jewishness, with a joke. An imam, a priest, a vicar and a rabbi are playing cards for money when the police burst in. Each man is asked if he has been gambling; each swears in turn on a holy text that he has not. All except for the rabbi, who says to his accuser: 'Seriously, you don't really think I am gambling all alone?' The French-Jewish sociologist Michel Wieviorka overheard a rabbi tell this joke to his fellow French religious leaders at a conference on assisted dying in France. All four men were friends, but the joke left Wieviorka uneasy. 'Because in the joke, the Jew is the only one who avoids perjuring himself,' he says. 'He's no longer a victim. And he exhibits no solidarity for the others, only cunning. It's a joke that cuts itself off from a certain universalism, which is troubling for the Jewish community.' Prompted by this encounter, Wieviorka has written a book called The Last Jewish Joke, which argues that the great Jewish comic tradition – one that historically appeals to empathy through gentle self-mockery – is in danger of dying out. His book is both an homage to that humour, which he sees as rich in generosity, absurdity and self-ironising asides, and the story of its evolution through the 20th century, jumping from the shtetl to Hollywood to France to Britain and beyond. Wieviorka also believes that the space for Jewish joke-telling is under threat – from a combination of increased hostility towards Israel, growing ignorance about the Holocaust, and the rise of other ethnic groups pleading a victimhood that Wieviorka argues was once historically Jewish. 'For centuries, there has always been room for humour in the Jewish experience, even in the most appalling situations,' he says. 'Even the Torah is full of humour. But I fear the Jewish jokes I know and love are struggling to exist.' So, is he right? As the old joke goes, ask two Jews and you get three opinions. 'It's true that Jewish culture tends to find comedy in carrying the worries of the world on our shoulders,' says the Welsh-Jewish stand-up Bennett Arron. 'I have this joke I tell when people ask me if Jews drink alcohol. I say, 'Yes, we are allowed to, but we often don't. Firstly because it takes away valuable eating time. And secondly because when you drink, you forget all your troubles. But our troubles are all we have.' Yet increasingly I find that people respond by saying, 'Well, others have got it worse.' There's a sense that empathy [for the Jewish condition] is being eroded.' Others, however, reject what they see as a narrow view of Jewish wit. 'Jewish comedy is sometimes about victimhood, but often it's about a state of mind,' says the Jewish comedian and author David Baddiel. 'If people are turning away from the idea of Jews as victims of history – which, by the way, they always have – then I'd argue there was only ever a brief window where people accepted that [kind of humour] in the first place... I wouldn't want to write jokes that position Jews as victims and invite sympathy. As a Jewish comedian, you are trying to invite people [to realise] that my experience as a Jew is part of the human experience, it's not over there and nothing to do with you.' Ask most Jews what constitutes Jewish humour in the first place and (on this at least) they agree: it's about finding light in the dark. 'It's always been used as a way of speaking truth to power,' says the Orthodox Jewish stand-up Rachel Creeger. 'If they're laughing, you can say anything. We told jokes under persecution, in the shtetls, in the ghettos, in the camps. Humour has a physical impact on the body, raising endorphins, giving the joke-teller a dopamine hit. For a culture like ours, this is definitely part of our survival.' Historically, this humour in Britain has occupied a marginal position. It overlaps with our comic sensibilities in its instincts for self-deprecation, but diverges in motive: British humour tends to be more apologetic and tied up with class anxiety. And Jewish humour has nothing like the centrality here that it enjoys in America. As Baddiel notes, 'The American sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm can do a whole episode in which Larry [David], trying to get in with some very religious Jews, eats some non-kosher food from a plate, is caught doing it, and has to bury the plate for three days in his garden to cleanse it.' He continues: 'No one says, 'Larry, nobody will understand this because it's too Jewish,' because there's an assumption in American comedy that the language of comedy will include Jewishness. That's not the case in the UK.' Certainly, when Robert Popper was writing Friday Night Dinner, Channel 4's long-running and much-loved sitcom about a Jewish family (starring Tamsin Greig and the late Paul Ritter), his producers asked him, perhaps with a touch of nerves, just how Jewish the show was going to be. 'To which my answer was, well, as Jewish as I am,' Popper says. 'Which was to say, we're normal people, so get used to it. I mainly saw Friday Night Dinner as being about a specific family, inspired by my own, rather than about a generic Jewish one. And I saw it as very different to what we used to get with Jewish stories on TV, when you had Yiddish violin music over the lighting of the Shabbat candles and Maureen Lipman saying 'oy vey, oy vey'.' As a result, many viewers watched Friday Night Dinner without realising the show was Jewish at all: or, if they did realise, they didn't regard the Jewishness as its defining feature. 'I was out in Soho after the first season came out,' says Tracy-Ann Oberman (who plays Auntie Val), 'and this Islamic cleric came running up to me. He said, 'I love it! It's just like my family.' I think there's a universality in Jewish humour that speaks to the absurdity of the human condition, which is something we can all recognise.' Nor does she see this quality as being under threat, as Wieviorka fears; in fact, she believes it's enjoying a resurgence. 'Given that comedy has changed so much in the past 20 years, with people becoming more and more scared about what they can say, I think Jewish humour has fared better than most other types. Jewish humour is not about punching down, but about observational wit and storytelling.' That Friday Night Dinner did not announce its Jewishness perhaps reflects a certain tentativeness that Jewish people have long felt about their relationship to Britain's broader culture. 'We live in a time when all minorities, not just ethnic ones, have been encouraged to own their minority and not be in the closet, and this is all to the good,' says Baddiel. 'But Jews find it very difficult to do that, particularly now, and that includes being openly funny about being Jewish.' Yet this argument isn't borne out by today's thriving Jewish stand-up circuit – which was non-existent when Baddiel was starting out 30 years ago. 'Over the past 15 years, I've seen a huge growth in the number of comedians who have been public about their Jewish heritage and use it in their material,' says Creeger, who runs the UK's only regular Jewish comedy night, at the north London venue JW3. 'It feels like there's an understanding now that Jewish comedy is something positive and engaging. There's an awareness that it has status in the US as a genre, which helps. And where previous generations were often advised to keep a low profile about their ethnic and cultural identity – some even changed names – now, this is far less common.' However, Creeger also agrees that Jewish comedy is under pressure in an era that, as Wieviorka puts it, is 'not a time for smiling or laughing, or for the Jewish jokes that it was once possible to share with others'. In fact, she thinks, 'Jewish comedians have gone in one of two directions recently. They've either become much more expressive of their identity, on and off stage, or removed it almost entirely from their material. There's definitely an external expectation of being seen to be 'the right kind of Jew': one who conforms to the widely held and loudly shouted views. There isn't a great deal of knowledge or understanding of the rich diversity in Jewish history, thought and opinion, and this means that labels get placed on Jewish people without nuance or critical thinking.' She herself has openly experienced anti-Semitism as a stand-up, including one instance when she came on after an act that had made reference to the Middle East. 'I've had a gig where some of the crowd literally turned their backs at the reveal of my Jewish identity,' she says. 'It's a real problem when [other comedians include] ideas that are not factually correct, or include tropes and stereotypes.' 'I've lost a lot of comedian friends, sadly, over the past few years: people who, if I've made a comment about anti-Semitism, yawn and say change the subject, we've heard it all before,' adds Bennett Arron, whose forthcoming Edinburgh show, I Regret This Already, is about precisely this scenario. And yet he doesn't see anti-Semitic attitudes as a threat to Jewish comedy itself. 'Jewish humour has always been about trying to adapt to changing circumstances. It's a coping mechanism. A way of fighting back verbally rather than physically.' None of this is sounding as though the great Jewish comic tradition is approaching extinction. 'By definition, there cannot be a last Jewish joke because a Jewish joke is nothing else,' says the great comic novelist Howard Jacobson. ''The last Jewish joke' is an oxymoron. The black finality of things is what every Jewish joke confronts. The harder things get for Jews, the more jokes we tell. They are our survival strategy, the only victory we know.'
Times
29-06-2025
- Health
- Times
Hospice cash crisis ‘could push patients to seek death'
Terminally ill patients could be pushed towards an assisted death if the service ends up better funded than hospices, a palliative care boss has warned. Toby Porter, the chief executive of Hospice UK, which represents more than 200 hospices, said he was neutral on whether the law on assisted dying should have been passed or not, but that now it had, it must be introduced correctly. He said the prime minister's insistence that he would find the money to fund an assisted dying service could leave hospices underfunded, which he said would be a 'betrayal of the population'. Far more people die in hospices than are expected to seek an assisted death.
BBC News
26-06-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
BBC News quiz of the week: Who called Donald Trump 'daddy'?
This week saw Iran and Israel agree a ceasefire after 12 days of conflict, MPs vote to allow assisted dying in England and Wales, and a forced evacuation in a wildlife park after two bears staged a raid on its honey how much attention did you pay to what else happened in the world over the past seven days?Quiz collated by Ben Fell. Fancy testing your memory? Try last week's quiz, or have a go at something from the archives.
Malay Mail
21-06-2025
- Health
- Malay Mail
UK MPs vote in favour of assisted dying Bill in historic step
LONDON, June 21 — Britain's parliament took a historic step towards allowing euthanasia yesterday when MPs backed contentious legislation that would introduce assisted dying for terminally ill people. Lawmakers in the lower House of Commons chamber voted 314 in favour to 291 to send the proposal to the upper House of Lords for further scrutiny following four hours of emotional debate. The outcome sparked celebrations among supporters gathered outside parliament who say legalised euthanasia will give people with an incurable illness dignity and choice at the end of their lives. But opponents attending a neighbouring counter-protest said they feared vulnerable people could be coerced into dying and urged lawmakers to focus on improving palliative care instead. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill would allow assisted suicide in England and Wales for adults who have been given less than six months to live. They would have to be able to administer the life-ending substance themselves, and any patient's wish to die would have to be signed off by two doctors and a panel of experts. A change in the law would see Britain emulate several other countries in Europe and elsewhere that allow some form of assisted dying, including Belgium and the Netherlands. 'Heartbreaking stories' Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who proposed the legislation, told yesterday's so-called third reading debate that a law change would 'offer a compassionate and safe choice' for terminally ill people. She said maintaining the status quo would mean more 'heartbreaking stories' of 'pain and trauma, suicide attempts, PTSD, lonely trips to Switzerland, (and) police investigations'. But Vicky Foxcroft, also of Labour, said the proposal did not include adequate safeguards for disabled people. 'We have to protect those people who are susceptible to coercion, who already feel like society doesn't value them, who often feel like a burden to the state, society and their family,' she pleaded. Outside parliament, protesters waved placards with slogans including 'Let us choose' and 'Don't make doctors killers'. David Walker, 82, said he supported changing the law because he saw his wife of 60 years suffer for three years at the end of her life. 'That's why I'm here, because I can't help her anymore, but I can help other people who are going through the same thing, because if you have no quality of life, you have nothing,' he told AFP. But Elizabeth Burden, a 52-year-old doctor, said she feared the legislation would open 'slippery slope' where those eligible for assisted dying expands. 'Once we allow this. Everything will slip down because dementia patients, all patients... are vulnerable,' she told AFP. Public support MPs in the 650-seat parliament backed an earlier version of the proposed legislation by 330 to 275 votes at an initial vote in parliament last November, a larger majority than yesterday's 23. Since then, the Bill has undergone several changes, including applying a ban on adverts for assisted dying and allowing all health workers to opt out of helping someone end their life. MPs added a safeguard which would prevent a person being eligible 'solely as a result of voluntarily stopping eating or drinking', ruling out people with anorexia. Britain's medical community and Prime Minister Keir Starmer's top ministerial team are split on the proposed law change. Starmer voted in favour, while his health and justice secretaries opposed it. But in a YouGov poll of 2,003 adults, surveyed last month and published Thursday, 73 per cent or respondents backed an assisted dying law. 'Change is coming,' hailed Sarah Wootton, chief executive of the Dignity in Dying campaign group. But Catherine Robinson of Right To Life UK insisted the Bill 'still faces an uphill battle' to get through the Lords and her opposition campaign group 'will be fighting it at every stage' to prevent it becoming law. The House of Lords now needs to approve the legislation before the end of the current parliamentary year, likely in the autumn, or the Bill will fail. If it passes and receives royal assent, it would still be four years before an assisted dying service was implemented. A government impact assessment published this month estimated that approximately 160 to 640 assisted deaths could take place in the first year, rising to a possible 4,500 in a decade. Assisted suicide currently carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Separate legislation is going through the devolved Scottish parliament. At the end of March, the Isle of Man became the first British territory to pass an assisted dying Bill. — AFP
Yahoo
20-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Sir Keir Starmer tries to contain rebellion among Labour MPs over welfare reforms
Sir Keir Starmer had a series of one-on-one meetings with Labour MPs on Friday to try to contain a rebellion on the government's welfare reforms. Ahead of the assisted dying vote, the met privately with some of the dozens of MPs with concerns about the proposed cuts to sickness and disability benefits. The first vote on the legislation, which the says will save £5bn a year from the welfare bill, will be held in early July. The prime minister's involvement at this stage suggests a major effort is underway to quell a potential rebellion. Cabinet ministers say they do not expect mass resignations, but one junior minister told Sky News that opposition to the reforms was "pretty strong". One frontbencher, government whip Vicky Foxcroft, , writing that she understood "the need to address the ever-increasing welfare bill" but did not believe the proposed cuts "should be part of the solution". Other junior ministers and whips have not, as yet, moved to follow her. But one government insider said: "It's difficult to tell if the mood will harden as we get closer. There's a lot of work going on." The package of reforms is aimed at encouraging more people off sickness benefits and into work, but dozens of Labour rebels said last month that the proposals were . Welfare secretary Liz Kendall is also meeting individually with MPs. She said earlier this week that the welfare system is "at a crossroads" and the bill was about "compassion, opportunity and dignity". Read more from Sky News: Ministers are trying to convince MPs that a £1bn fund to support disabled people into work, and the scrapping of the Work Capability Assessment, a key demand of disability groups, make the cuts package worth voting for. They insist that 90% of current claimants of personal independence payment (PIP) will not lose the benefit. But disability groups say the cuts will have a "disastrous" effect on vulnerable people.
