Maybe there's nothing to laugh about here, after all, last night a terrorist group located in the Gaza strip fired several bombs at Israel. Fortunately, nothing hit.
Okay, little secret, I have dream of being a stand-up comic. There's just one problem: I'm not funny.
But I try to be, and so I figured out how to say in Hebrew, "I understand zero Hebrew. " Not funny, but kind-of creative right? I made that statement to a man who was asking where I was from blah, blah, blah and he looked at me like he didn't understand what the hell I was talking about. Okay, so that line is not going to work.
It is common to explain to native Hebrew speakers that we are "olim hadasheem," i.e. new immigrants. Once explained, Israelis become very kind and understanding. Well, David and I are blundering through this new culture with very little help. We are figuring things out by trial and error, mostly error.
So we've started calling ourselves in a humorous way, stupid olim. I learned how to say, "we are stupid olim," in Hebrew and tried that line out on a lady. She didn't even crack a smile, just furrowed her brow and looked confused. I guess she didn't understand the idea of self-deprecation as humor.
My question is, what is funny to Israelis?
The other day we had the internet service installer come over, and he spoke English quite well. For the record, except in certain areas, DSL is the only method available to get online. I asked him, "Do Israelis have a sense of humor? Do they tell jokes and laugh."
He said, "Yes absolutely."
I said, "I rarely even see Israelis smile, and I've never heard a laugh."
And he said, "Well, they're all depressed."
"Because of the situation with their neighbors?"
"No, not just that, because they're in Israel."
Now see that was funny.
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