The terrible necessity of Israel’s dark humour

Comedian Louis CK likens saying something is too terrible to laugh at is like a doctor saying that a disease is too terrible to cure, said American-Israeli comedian, educator, and author Benji Lovitt.

Lovitt, who has been living in Israel since making aliya 19 years ago, told the audience at Limmud Johannesburg on 16 August that there was nothing that shouldn’t be joked about, because if we don’t laugh, we’ll cry.

Lovitt, who had a book tour discussing Israel beyond the conflict scheduled to begin in the United States on 12 October 2023, realised that he had to change focus quickly, channel his inner Israeli, and cope using dark humour.

“Seven October was the worst day in Israel’s history,” he said, “And I thought, what am I going to do? No-one wants to talk about anything but the conflict. It was difficult not to be in Israel. It was awful. The only thing I could compare it to, at least as an American, was 9/11. And I thought, if I’m not in Israel, all I can do is try to raise people’s spirits. That’s what I do professionally: try to make people feel better.”

Lovitt said that throughout Jewish history, we have laughed to keep from crying, and no-one knows that better than Israelis. Even in as dark a time as the Holocaust, some Jewish people sought to make light of their situation and laugh about it, which probably gave them hope and the reason to live another day. This is the Israeli mindset. Israelis have to find something to laugh at, even in the bad times, as it gives them some form of hope.

“Israel is a small country, but it’s got a strong army; the start of a nation; it’s the centre of innovation; but there are still deep scars. And no matter how strong we are, when something like 7 October happens, it rips those scars open. And these scars are going to be open for a while.”

Israelis, according to Israeli comic Eldad Shitrit he said, have a dark sense of humour because they always speak their minds, and there are no taboos in society, so the bar for shock value is set higher than anywhere else in the world.Israeli comic Eldad ShitritThis could be the reason why they can get away with making fun of some of the darkest figures in Jewish history such as a sketch mocking the execution of Adolf Eichmann and the inefficiency of Israeli bureaucracy.

“Think about when you drink alcohol. The more you drink, the higher your tolerance gets. It takes more alcohol to feel the same thing. So, if you’ve not been exposed to in-your-face comedy, it’s going to be shocking. But for Israelis, when they’re already very blunt and direct, it’s going to take that much more of a shock to create great comedy.”

Lovitt said that since he didn’t grow up with war humour in the US, getting into the mindset of doing it was a lot harder. However, now, he sees it as a way of life.

“I thought, how could war be funny? Believe me, you come to Israel, and you find out real quick.”

Ten years ago, when he did a show on the worst day of Operation Protective Edge in 2014, in which 14 soldiers died, he didn’t know how to laugh on such a day, yet he did.

“I was the first one on stage, and I thought, what am I going to do? I don’t know how I figured it out, but I decided to address the elephant in the room and bare my soul, and I said, ‘Good evening, it’s been an awful day, there’s nothing I can do to undo it, but with your permission, can I just try to make you laugh for a few minutes?’ Everyone clapped, we got that out of the way, we moved on, and it was a great night. Every comedian that night did well, and that’s when I learned that we have to laugh.

“On the worst day, Israelis were still laughing, because what other choice do we have? If we all stopped laughing until all the bad things in the world went away, we might never laugh again,” he said.