I was initiated to the world of what is known as Jewish humor, which is, to be more precise, East European Jewish humor, for the first time when I stumbled upon a collection of East European Jewish jokes by someone who later became my Yiddish- and Esperanto-speaking friend, when I was 18 years old. Since then my collection of East European Jewish jokes has increased both in my internal memory and as a collection of collections of such jokes in Yiddish, Hebrew and English.
It was only after I took an interest in East European Jewish humor from the perspective of academic humor studies that I started to appreciate its power for the first time. As I'm about to leave the academic world and launch a new practice of Jewish life coaching for speakers of Japanese, I'm reappreciating the power of East European Jewish humor and thinking of integrating it with this new profession.
I would like to believe that laughter is universally human. But the collective ego of certain cultures brainwashes their members into believing blindly that laughter isn't "kosher" not only in serious social contexts such as university lectures and academic conferences but even in day-to-day interpersonal interactions.
Unfortunately, Japanese society is an example of such a society. Since I started participating in various Zoom meetings organized by people from various countries after the spread of the new coronavirus, I've been paying a special attention to laugher and facial expressions of the participants. Many people living in Japan, even including those who were born abroad, have impressed me with their lack of facial expressions.
After spending three weeks in Japan last summer, I was shocked to notice that I couldn't move my facial muscles when I tried to laugh. Then I realized that the last time I laughed during this three-week stay in Japan was when I told some spontaneous stupid Jewish jokes in two public lectures for speakers of Japanese during my first week there. Since then I had no chance to laugh at all.
Facial muscles are just like any other muscle. If you don't use them, they will atrophy, so that even when you think you are laughing, you'll look to everyone else as if you were wearing a Noh mask. In short, you'll look scary to those who come from cultures where their members are rich in their facial expressions.
The ultimate mission of my new practice of Jewish life coaching for speakers of Japanese is to transform their darkness into light. The Jewish part of this practice is Chabad Hasidism and its teachings about our human psyche. I'd like to complement this mission with the power of East European Jewish humor both directly and indirectly. Laughter is healthy, but humor is more than just laughter. It has the power to rewire our brain positively. And East European Jewish humor has its unique characteristic unparalled by the humor of any other ethnic group.