Book Review: ‘A Field Guide to the Jewish People’

A Field Guide to the Jewish People by Dave Barry, Adam Mansbach, and Alan Zweibel; Flatiron Books © 2019, ISBN 9781250-191960; 244 pages; $25.99.

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO  — I have to admit that I am ambivalent about this book.  There is some funny shtick in it, to be sure.  But there is also material that religious Jews will find offensive, that knowledgeable Jews will already know, and that interested Gentiles will find confusing.

Co-author Dave Barry is a well-known syndicated humor columnist; Alan Zweibel has written comedy for television programs including Saturday Night Live and Curb Your Enthusiasm;  and Adam Mansbach is the author of Go the F*ck to Sleep and You Have to F*****g Eat – the titles of which indicate a certain enthusiasm for F-bombs, which, in my opinion, appear all too frequently in the current collaboration.

Co-authors Barry, Mansbach and Zweibel have their comedy credits – and that may be enough to make this book popular, despite its very questionable taste.  Mixing Torah and F-Bombs, to my way of thinking, is more derision than humor, and the fact that two of the co-authors are themselves Jewish (Barry is a Presbyterian) doesn’t excuse that.

The book is divided into four main sections; Jewish life cycle events and customs; The Jewish holiday cycle; Jewish history from creation to the Holocaust, and well-known Jewish jokes that I remember my own father telling me.  Today, Marty Harrison would have been 109 years old.

In discussing the tetragrammaton – that is the four-letter Hebrew name of God – the authors tell us, “Even English translations of the name [HaShem] are considered too holy to write.  Thus we render the words ‘G-d,’ ‘L-rd,’ and even ‘The Alm-ghty!’  To be on the safe side, we also omit the vowels from such sentences as ‘Abe Vig-da’s performance in the G-dfather was f*****g brilliant.”

This was a fairly typical format.  Barry, Mansbach and Zweibel start with a fact – that observant Jews don’t like to write the name of God, nor even the description of God, for fear of detracting from His holiness.

Then they go on to make a joke, which Gentiles and unschooled Jews might take seriously, that this is carried to such an extreme that Vig-da can’t be spelled out, nor the G-dfather.

Then, it what might be a Mansbach moment, we get the F-bomb punchline, that Vigoda was F*****g brilliant.”

I’m not sure what it is about Mansbach that he thinks constant repetition of this word makes jokes funnier.  I know there are readers who will disagree with me, but to my mind this is simply sophomoric.  It’s the kind of joke you’d expect junior high school boys to snicker about behind the gymnasium.  It just doesn’t belong with a discussion of religious precepts.

I said there was some shtick that I thought was funny, even perceptive, as in the following case.  Explaining the customs at a bar/ bat mitzvah, the  trio of authors wrote, “The format is for the parents to take turns addressing the young adult, repeatedly telling him or her, with great sincerity, that he or she is the most brilliant and talented individual the human race has ever produced. A child whose major life achievement is having reached the eighth grade without burning down any major buildings will be hailed by the parents as a combination of Albert Einstein, Jonas Salk, Anne Frank, Sandy Koufax, Barbra Streisand and Moses.  It is a heavy burden of expectation to place on these young people, but most of them respond positively by going out into the world and not returning to the synagogue until they are in their late thirties.”

Analyzing a joke kills it, I know and I apologize, but let’s take a look at the structure of this humorous observation.

First, we get exaggeration – “the most brilliant and talented individual.”

Next, some individuals we Jews can be proud about:  some national in scope (for example, pitcher Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers), and some global celebrities such as Einstein, Salk, Frank, Streisand, and Moses.

Then, the punch line, which conflates two very true facts about Jewish life in America.  Bar/ Bat Mitzvahs tend to over-emphasize the achievement of 13-year-olds, and there is a dramatic drop off in synagogue attendance after a child completes that ceremony.

Bar mitzvah praise may have absolutely nothing to do with a teenager’s subsequent desire to skip synagogue services, but the surprise way the two concepts are conflated makes the story humorous.

I’m glad that Mansbach didn’t throw his street language into that one.

Setting the joke up with some factual material, then extrapolating from that material to make the whole idea sound absurd, is an oft repeated technique in this book.   The F-bomb, alas, is an oft repeated word.

Some people will enjoy this collaboration.   My own reaction?   “Hmmmm …. Feh!”

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com