yonatan friedrich
written by Ben Kharakh
(May/June 07)
“When I was ten years old, I saw Woody Allen's, Annie Hall. There's a scene where he's describing how he met his first wife just before he appeared at a political convention. He says he tried to do to her what Eisenhower was doing to the country all those years. I remember thinking at that moment that telling jokes could be really exciting. It came back to me 16 years later, when I was traveling in India, after graduating from university. I was climbing a mountain when I remembered that scene and thought to myself that when I go back to Israel, I’ll have to try it. A few months later, I just went to the Camel to an open mic, told a few jokes, and really killed. The next time I came back, and from then on, I just bombed for a year. You know, the regular story…"
These are the words of Yonatan Friedrich, a twenty-six year old comedian that performs at th
e Camel Comedy Club, one of two comedy clubs in Tel-Aviv. Comedy is a great means for learning about the culture of a people and provides a commentary on Israeli life. Although Israel may be halfway around the world, its people, just like the people of New York, want to laugh.
“For years, the Camel was the only club in Tel-Aviv, and it was only four years ago that the spin-off, Comedy Bar, was established. If you’re a regular comedian in one club – you won't be able to perform in the other. If a comedian moves from one club to the other, he is considered a defector in his former club.”
“The material in both clubs is similar. You have tons of observational performers. This comedy genre was really dominant even before Seinfeld was broadcasted. Israelis live and think in communities and each time you allow them to recognize a common feeling or a common fear – they will always laugh.”
“You find a lot of Black Humor on any subject you can imagine – Palestinian bomb suicides, Holocaust jokes, etc. There are almost no taboos in the clubs, unless Israeli soldiers were killed in the near past. I have a colleague who has a whole chunk on dealing with the possibility of informing families that their sons had been killed through an answering machine. He's imitating that answering machine, and naming names of really brutal combats that the IDF had fought only a few months ago, in Lebanon. He's such a brilliant comedian, the whole chunk is hilarious, and the crowd is laughing its pain out. It's the same thing concerning the Holocaust. Almost every comedian I know has a few Holocaust jokes. It's said that in Israel there are 6 millions Holocaust jokes – one for each Jew that was murdered.”
“I don't think you can say there is a political stand-up comic in all of Israel. Israelis are desperately sick of politics because change hasn't come for years. You will not see in Israel a comedian like Bill Maher or Lewis Black, which contains a sort of message or lesson. The real problem with the political tradition that Lenny Bruce invented is that in order to make people react and laugh, they must believe at a certain level in the possibility of change. This kind of belief does not exist today in Israel.”
“Israelis are not exposed to all kinds of comedy. The status of the Israeli stand-up is considered sleazy. It’s dirty entertainment. However, a year ago, Israeli cable started broadcasting stand-up from Comedy Central and HBO, so the influence is expanding.”
“In Israel's comedy clubs, 95 percent of Israeli comedians are really comedians of energy. Even the really few abstract comedians are really energetic. You will hardly find in Israel a comic who's talking slowly, like Todd Barry, for example. Israelis are hyperactive people, very jumpy, and very impulsive. Also, a lot of comedians turned to stand-up after watching Eddie Murphy's Delirious. It’s unbelievable how many Israeli comics went to open mics following that movie.”
(In his act) “I may ask the crowd a few interrogating questions - ‘Where are you from?’ etc. I tell them how in order to learn to question a crowd I went to my mother, to practice on her, and how after interrogating her for two minutes she started crying, telling me that I'm adopted. From there, I have a whole chunk about learning that you're adopted in your late twenties, and how it explains things you have always been wondering – like how come I'm white and my parents are black, etc.”
“Another bit starts with me talking about a show I had two weeks ago where I told some Holocaust jokes and how the crowd reacted badly. Then I tell the crowd how I thought about this ability of mine to hurt a crowd's feelings with my Holocaust jokes and how I don't want that to happen again. ‘So in order to prevent any inconveniences now – are there any Nazis in the room?’”
“I'm really amazed how Americans are obsessed with celebrities – Paris Hilton is a whore, Michael Jackson is a child abuser, etc. It's not that you don't have celebrity humor in Israel; it's just that celebrity jokes die much faster. Americans are really pragmatic people. It affects their whole culture and consequently their ability to make people laugh. It's much easier for Americans to describe a picture or to draw a thought and this is one of the core necessities of making people laugh. Israelis are much less focused on things. One moment they are in one place and in a second they are in another one, and the only way to really attract their attention is to tell them things that are either very extreme or very emotional.”
“English is an easier language to make people laugh with than Hebrew. There's something in the music of the English language that fits comedy much more. I'm not complaining. Hebrew is a beautiful language, and it's really special and exciting to talk, and dispute, and also to do stand-up – in a language that was revived after hundreds of years not being regularly spoken, and yet, it raises unique challenges. You really have to strive finding elegant solutions to make its music more suitable to comedy.”
You can contact Yonatan at yonataf@gmail.com