Wednesday night, all of EIE went to a Cobi Oz concert in Jerusalem. He is a famous Israeli singer that sing a variety of songs ranging from classic Ashkenazi style music to classic Mizrachi style music. In between each song, he would provide some explanation as to what he was about to sing and what the significance of the song was to him. He liked to make these explanations humorous, but one time stood out above the rest. Cobi made a joke referencing the Holocaust. All of the new American arrivals were so taken aback by this, while all the EIE students who had been in Israel for months were rolling on the floor laughing.
Until then I had forgotten that Israeli humor is so different from American Jewish humor. In Israel it is part of the culture to make jokes about the Holocaust, but to Americans who take the Holocaust very seriously, this can be a very hard thing to get used to.
I was amazed at how only a few months can make such a difference in a person's culture. It may not affect the person's values that come from their original culture, but it certainly affects how they interact with people.
Now that I think about it, this part of Israeli culture began to affect the students of EIE even before now. When we were in Poland, everyone was making jokes about the Holocaust at the sites of the mass murder of the Jews. Even while we were at Auschwitz, you could always hear a joke being made. Despite the darkness in Israeli humor, it is always coming from a place of happiness and relief.
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