I am quite familiar with a particular brand of self-mocking Jewish humor, the kind that nebbishes like Woody Allen and Larry David have built their careers on, or that once led Courtney Love to rant about “Jew loan officers, Jew private banks” in the pages of Heeb Magazine (a publication which, it should be noted, carries on the self mocking tradition with its very name). Years ago, I co-hosted a regular networking salon with four friends who happened to be Jewish; we named it Protocols as in “Of the Elders of Zion”.
So there’s part of me willing to give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt that perhaps it was that storied tradition of humor that he was hoping to invoke when he spoke in front of the Republican Jewish Coalition on Thursday. With heavy handed reference to tired Jewish stereotypes, Trump informed the audience that, like them, he was a “negotiator” and that – presumably due to miserly Jewish tendencies – they would respect how little he’d spent on his campaign. As his speech concluded, he returned to his theme, informing the audience: “I know why you’re not going to support me. Because I don’t want your money.”
Given the sheer amount of sway that the RJC’s Sheldon Adelson holds over American politics, it’s hard to imagine that Trump was aggressively trying to insult his audience; even if he doesn’t want their money, surely he doesn’t want it going to someone else. But if his remarks were an attempt to ingratiate himself to a group by demonstrating his knowledge of its beloved tradition of self-deprecating humor, Trump seriously missed the mark.
One of the most important parts of the Jewish tradition of self-mockery is the mocker in question is targeting himself – and Trump is not Jewish.
Yes, Jews may take pot shots at one another and ironically bring up nasty stereotypes in an attempt to get a laugh (see: Sarah Silverman). But inherent in this line of humor is the fact that, at the end of the day, the joke is on us. In the same way that you alone can mock your mother, Jews alone can crack about our greed.
Coming from within the group, Jewish humor is the defense of a band of outsiders determined to mock ourselves before anyone else has the chance; coming from outside the group, however, it’s a nasty reminder that we are, and always will be, the other.
And that’s a sentiment that carries particular weight coming from Trump. Throughout his campaign, Trump has always been rather clear about who he does and does not see as true Americans, often in the form of “jokes”. Whether he’s insinuating that Latinos are criminals and rapists, or that black protesters deserve to be beaten, Trump is all too happy to sound the dog whistle to his cadre of loyal white supporters (at least some of whom, as the New Yorker noted, are affiliated with the white nationalist movement).
Against that backdrop, Trump’s Jew jokes seem less like a badly executed attempt at humor and more like an intentional reminder of who, exactly, is a part of the America Trump hopes to represent. Not black people, not Latinos, not Jews and not Asians, but the angry sliver of white America still raging at the power the “minorities” have managed to achieve.
Fortunately for the rest of us, that sliver of America is quickly becoming a minority itself – one that will hopefully subside into irrelevance soon, taking Trump’s hate-filled campaign (and his terrible sense of humor) with it.
