The widespread penchant for cracking Holocaust jokes is something very problematic for me; I personally see it as a sign of the Israeli public's general insensitivity and apathy, which is sadly a very real phenomenon, than anything that's actually legitimate. I think lots of people may be uncomfortable with jokes like that but learn very quickly to cover up that feeling, because if you're sensitive to that kind of stuff and don't anesthetize yourself, you're dead meat.
I'm a bad case: I am that sensitive, and I can't anesthetize myself. I am literally incapable of taking the Holocaust lightly. I just can't do it. So it hurts me every time, and I cry every time, and I feel inadequate for not crying enough. Every time. I am the dead meat
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I don't really know what third generation means; all 7 of my grandparents are survivors, and so were the grandparents of more or less everyone I knew growing up (it was either holocaust, frontlines of WWII or both, there was no third option). But I'm not familiar with that terminology
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So do I. Two years ago I volunteered at "Flower for a Survivor" (פרח לניצול), an organization devoted to helping Holocaust survivors, and every week I visited a woman who would sit and stare at soap operas on the TV and tell me, in an impassive voice, about life in Auschwitz. Sometimes she'd cry, but lots of times she cracked jokes. Quoting myself from upthread:
I sincerely believe in Shaw's statement: "Life doesn't stop being funny when somebody dies, nor does it stop being sad when somebody laughs". And nothing should be exempt from humour and mockery, which are tools of healing and criticism as much as anything. But I've learned to accept that true as that statement may be, I personally cannot bear Holocaust humour.
Humor has a certain power, to me. The power to say, this no longer controls me.
I understand and respect that reasoning, but I personally don't feel that way. Firstly because it does make me cry, it does still control me in a
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I'm a bad case: I am that sensitive, and I can't anesthetize myself. I am literally incapable of taking the Holocaust lightly. I just can't do it. So it hurts me every time, and I cry every time, and I feel inadequate for not crying enough. Every time. I am the dead meat ( ... )
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I do think there's a legitimacy to the humor
So do I. Two years ago I volunteered at "Flower for a Survivor" (פרח לניצול), an organization devoted to helping Holocaust survivors, and every week I visited a woman who would sit and stare at soap operas on the TV and tell me, in an impassive voice, about life in Auschwitz. Sometimes she'd cry, but lots of times she cracked jokes. Quoting myself from upthread:
I sincerely believe in Shaw's statement: "Life doesn't stop being funny when somebody dies, nor does it stop being sad when somebody laughs". And nothing should be exempt from humour and mockery, which are tools of healing and criticism as much as anything. But I've learned to accept that true as that statement may be, I personally cannot bear Holocaust humour.
Humor has a certain power, to me. The power to say, this no longer controls me.
I understand and respect that reasoning, but I personally don't feel that way. Firstly because it does make me cry, it does still control me in a ( ... )
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