cnelsen
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āI lost my whole family in Auschwitz. Seriously: I waited in the gift shop for hoursā¦ā āJoan Rivers
The Jewish people and I actually have very little in common. Thereās the whole āJesusā thing, obviously. But, for instance, they obsess over food, while I find the very need to eat an annoying distraction.
Jews treasure their families; I was jealous of the kids in Lord of the Flies because they never had to deal with their parents again.
Even more heretically, I donāt think Mel Brooks is funny. In fact, the topic of comedy has proved to be a particularly touchy one: Whenever I declare that Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm foster more real-world anti-Semitism than the top 10 hate-iest Muslim hate preachers combined, my Jewish friends cast me piteous looks, because they love both shows.
I used to loathe Joan Rivers for the same reason.
For almost five years, I worked at Canadaās version of QVC, and the question I was asked most frequently was āHave you ever met Joan Rivers?ā There was never a chance of that happening (I was nowhere near the production side), and that was more than fine with me. It wasnāt because Rivers hocked low-end costume jewelry; so did Ivana Trump, in the same studio, and I considered her a heroineāa savvy, unsinkable businesswoman whoād bounced back from the most notorious marital crack-up since Henry VIII.
But when Rivers did itā¦ There was something so Fagin-esque about the way she fingered her wares, and rasped about ādeals.ā As I typed up descriptions of her faux FabergĆ© egg charm bracelets, I found myself fretting:
Was Joan Rivers good for the Jews?
Later, I kept hearing about how great the 2010 documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work was, finally watched it, and agreed. I still found Rivers cold and scary (and her āself-made Russian aristocratā personal taste appalling) but acquired newfound respect for her bottomless drive. Watching her win Celebrity Apprentice by outworking contestants one-third her age was inspirational (if exhausting by proxy). But Rivers seemingly devoted almost as much energy to hands-on charity work and mundane, under-the-radar mitvahs as she did on her career.
(Thatās one thing the Jews have on us: Yes, theyāre expected to do good deeds too, but without the added burden of having to be nice while theyāre at it. āNiceā is for the goyim.)
That A Piece of Work wasnāt nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar left her newfound fans confused, but it was also weirdly fitting, given the filmās theme: that this pioneering comedian had been in the public eye for so long that we took her for granted, and didnāt give her her due.
Was it because Rivers was a woman? some asked. Because she was Jewish? wondered far fewer.
Hereās my theory:
Joan Rivers didnāt āget no respect,ā she ānever got a dinnerāābecause she was a Republican.
This fact is treated as ever-so-slightly freakish, akin to having a third nipple, by (otherwise detached if somewhat prolix) author Leslie Bennetts in the breezy new bio Last Girl Before Freeway: The Life, Loves, Losses, and Liberation of Joan Rivers.
In the book, Rivers confidante Sue Cameron sums up her friendās reasoning: āI donāt want to be brokeā and āI donāt want to be killed by an Arabā were the comedianās two nonnegotiables, and she felt that the GOP were more likely than the Democrats to share those priorities.
It was the latter preoccupation that kindled one of the biggest controversies in a career studded with them (both authentic and overblown). In August 2014, a few months before her death, a TMZ reporter asked Rivers about then-raging Operation Protective Edge, and she lost it:
When you declare war, you declare war. They started it. Youāre dead, you deserve to be dead. Donāt you dare make me feel bad about that. They were told to get out. They didnāt get out. You donāt get out, youāre an idiot. At least the ones that were killed were the ones with the low IQs.
Rivers added that Hamas were āterroristsā who āwere reelected by a lot of very stupid people who donāt even own a pencil.ā
All perfectly sound, so I was crestfallen when Rivers issued a defusing statement a short time later. Normally, she remained defiantly unapologetic, like the time a few months earlier when she quipped that sharing a home with her daughter was so claustrophobic, āthose women in the basement in Cleveland had more room.ā
Pearl-clutchers pushed Rivers to apologize for mocking two recently liberated sex slaves, but she doubled down:
They got to live rent-free for more than a decade. One of them has a book deal. Neither are in the psych ward. Theyāre okay. I bet you within three years one of them will be on āDancing With the Stars.ā
Again: So what? I feel the same way about Elizabeth Smart, who seems awfully chipper for a girl who was raped three times a day by a dirty hippie. But whatās oddly revealing about Riversā retort is how weirdly it reflects, albeit in a fun-house mirror, the abiding concerns of her life: home, fame, sharing oneās dirtiest secretsāeven avoiding the nuthouse: Her father threatened to commit young Joan unless she gave up showbiz.
And something else: Riversā sheer horror of failure and loss of control. She wasnāt so much grieved by her hapless husbandās suicide after he derailed her career and left her $37 million in debt as she was disgusted by what she saw as his weakness.
Those āPalestiniansā too stupid to leave, those Cleveland women too weak to escapeāhell, Who let themselves get kidnapped in the first place? you can hear her mutteringāthere was no room in Riversā otherwise charitable heart for such losers.
Sound familiar?
āI donāt like people who were captured.ā That was Donald Trump making fun of John McCainās stint in the Hanoi Hilton. Jimmy Kimmelās fake Dr. Seuss-style childrenās book ābyā Trump, Winners Arenāt Losers, was so funny (even Trump laughed along) because it was so astonishingly plausible.
Most Jews donāt like Trump much, but a Jewish friend who does finds that hysterical:
They say heās loud? They should hear themselves in restaurants; sometimes I have to leave. Trump has bad taste? You should see the inside of their houses, with the marble and the gold. Heās in the New York real estate businesses, heās crazy for Israel, his grandkids probably call him āZaidieā...
If only Joan Rivers had lived to see it: The first Jewish president. And a Republican, even.
From Joan to Donald
The Jewish people and I actually have very little in common. Thereās the whole āJesusā thing, obviously. But, for instance, they obsess over food, while I find the very need to eat an annoying distraction.
Jews treasure their families; I was jealous of the kids in Lord of the Flies because they never had to deal with their parents again.
Even more heretically, I donāt think Mel Brooks is funny. In fact, the topic of comedy has proved to be a particularly touchy one: Whenever I declare that Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm foster more real-world anti-Semitism than the top 10 hate-iest Muslim hate preachers combined, my Jewish friends cast me piteous looks, because they love both shows.
I used to loathe Joan Rivers for the same reason.
For almost five years, I worked at Canadaās version of QVC, and the question I was asked most frequently was āHave you ever met Joan Rivers?ā There was never a chance of that happening (I was nowhere near the production side), and that was more than fine with me. It wasnāt because Rivers hocked low-end costume jewelry; so did Ivana Trump, in the same studio, and I considered her a heroineāa savvy, unsinkable businesswoman whoād bounced back from the most notorious marital crack-up since Henry VIII.
But when Rivers did itā¦ There was something so Fagin-esque about the way she fingered her wares, and rasped about ādeals.ā As I typed up descriptions of her faux FabergĆ© egg charm bracelets, I found myself fretting:
Was Joan Rivers good for the Jews?
Later, I kept hearing about how great the 2010 documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work was, finally watched it, and agreed. I still found Rivers cold and scary (and her āself-made Russian aristocratā personal taste appalling) but acquired newfound respect for her bottomless drive. Watching her win Celebrity Apprentice by outworking contestants one-third her age was inspirational (if exhausting by proxy). But Rivers seemingly devoted almost as much energy to hands-on charity work and mundane, under-the-radar mitvahs as she did on her career.
(Thatās one thing the Jews have on us: Yes, theyāre expected to do good deeds too, but without the added burden of having to be nice while theyāre at it. āNiceā is for the goyim.)
That A Piece of Work wasnāt nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar left her newfound fans confused, but it was also weirdly fitting, given the filmās theme: that this pioneering comedian had been in the public eye for so long that we took her for granted, and didnāt give her her due.
Was it because Rivers was a woman? some asked. Because she was Jewish? wondered far fewer.
Hereās my theory:
Joan Rivers didnāt āget no respect,ā she ānever got a dinnerāābecause she was a Republican.
This fact is treated as ever-so-slightly freakish, akin to having a third nipple, by (otherwise detached if somewhat prolix) author Leslie Bennetts in the breezy new bio Last Girl Before Freeway: The Life, Loves, Losses, and Liberation of Joan Rivers.
In the book, Rivers confidante Sue Cameron sums up her friendās reasoning: āI donāt want to be brokeā and āI donāt want to be killed by an Arabā were the comedianās two nonnegotiables, and she felt that the GOP were more likely than the Democrats to share those priorities.
It was the latter preoccupation that kindled one of the biggest controversies in a career studded with them (both authentic and overblown). In August 2014, a few months before her death, a TMZ reporter asked Rivers about then-raging Operation Protective Edge, and she lost it:
When you declare war, you declare war. They started it. Youāre dead, you deserve to be dead. Donāt you dare make me feel bad about that. They were told to get out. They didnāt get out. You donāt get out, youāre an idiot. At least the ones that were killed were the ones with the low IQs.
Rivers added that Hamas were āterroristsā who āwere reelected by a lot of very stupid people who donāt even own a pencil.ā
All perfectly sound, so I was crestfallen when Rivers issued a defusing statement a short time later. Normally, she remained defiantly unapologetic, like the time a few months earlier when she quipped that sharing a home with her daughter was so claustrophobic, āthose women in the basement in Cleveland had more room.ā
Pearl-clutchers pushed Rivers to apologize for mocking two recently liberated sex slaves, but she doubled down:
They got to live rent-free for more than a decade. One of them has a book deal. Neither are in the psych ward. Theyāre okay. I bet you within three years one of them will be on āDancing With the Stars.ā
Again: So what? I feel the same way about Elizabeth Smart, who seems awfully chipper for a girl who was raped three times a day by a dirty hippie. But whatās oddly revealing about Riversā retort is how weirdly it reflects, albeit in a fun-house mirror, the abiding concerns of her life: home, fame, sharing oneās dirtiest secretsāeven avoiding the nuthouse: Her father threatened to commit young Joan unless she gave up showbiz.
And something else: Riversā sheer horror of failure and loss of control. She wasnāt so much grieved by her hapless husbandās suicide after he derailed her career and left her $37 million in debt as she was disgusted by what she saw as his weakness.
Those āPalestiniansā too stupid to leave, those Cleveland women too weak to escapeāhell, Who let themselves get kidnapped in the first place? you can hear her mutteringāthere was no room in Riversā otherwise charitable heart for such losers.
Sound familiar?
āI donāt like people who were captured.ā That was Donald Trump making fun of John McCainās stint in the Hanoi Hilton. Jimmy Kimmelās fake Dr. Seuss-style childrenās book ābyā Trump, Winners Arenāt Losers, was so funny (even Trump laughed along) because it was so astonishingly plausible.
Most Jews donāt like Trump much, but a Jewish friend who does finds that hysterical:
They say heās loud? They should hear themselves in restaurants; sometimes I have to leave. Trump has bad taste? You should see the inside of their houses, with the marble and the gold. Heās in the New York real estate businesses, heās crazy for Israel, his grandkids probably call him āZaidieā...
If only Joan Rivers had lived to see it: The first Jewish president. And a Republican, even.
From Joan to Donald
