By Danny Bloom
CHIAYI CITY, TAIWAN — Just to show you how some Jews in Britain use humor in a different way than Jews in the United States and Canada, there is a new humor book of Jewish jokes out now titled Michael Winner’s Hymie Joke Book. Yes, the author’s name is part of the title.
Winner, born in 1935, is an elderly Jewish actor and director in London, retired now, but he still writes a popular food column for a newspaper in London.
His new book is what I consider to be a tasteless collection of old and stale — and often tasteless — Jewish jokes. Some of them are funny, yes. But the main character in all the jokes is a bloke named “Hymie.” I guess Mr. Winner never heard of Jesse Jackson’s unfortunate “hymietown” remark a few years ago that landed Jackson in hot water.
Maybe England likes its Jews this way? I really do not understand how or why a book could be titled the way this one was. It’s even for sale on Amazon and advertised by title in all the major UK newspapers.
According to the publicity surrounding this ill-titled book, Winner’s ”Hymie jokes” now reportedly appear every week as a ”tail-piece” to his ”Dinners” column in the Sunday Times and have allegedly ”acquired cult status, with readers even sending in Hymie jokes to add to his own and [asking for] a collection of them.”
Thus this new book was born. It should never have been published with this title, unless in the UK, calling a Jewish man “Hymie” is perfectly acceptable.
Many of the jokes you’ve heard before. For example, there’s the one about the rabbi who finds a beautiful prostitute in his hotel room, who says she is the gift of a certain congregant. The rabbi telephones the man and denounces him. The prostitute meanwhile starts to leave. The rabbi detains her, saying “I’m not mad at you.” Another
This kind of Jewish humor that belongs more in the 1950s than in 2012. Since Winner was born in 1935, his conciousness as a British Jew is a bit different than most Jewish humorists and comedians in North America.
“The Sunday Times food writer Michael Winner risks jail every week,” says one British blogger in London. “He tells Jewish jokes. Worse, they invoke Jewish stereotypes and they tempt us, howsoever reluctantly, to laugh at Jews. He gets away with it because he is Jewish.”
The son of East European Jews who emigrated to Britain, Winner was born in London a few years before World War II began. He studied law and economics in college and served as an editor of the university’s student newspaper. Slowly, after college, he made his way into British show business, directing BBC television programs and cinema shorts, and occasionally writing screenplays. Winner’s first U.S. film was Lawman, released in 1971 and starring Burt Lancaster and Robert Duvall.
Michael Winner’s Hymie Jokes is not his first book. An autobiography titled Winner Takes All: A Life of Sorts‘ was published in 2006. He’s also written a dieting book titled The Fat Pig Diet Book.
Although some of the many jokes in Winner’s collection are indeed funny, the decision to call the main character in most of the jokes Hymie was unfortunate, at least in the opinion of this reviewer. Perhaps in Britain, Hymie is a warm and fuzzy word for a Jew, but in North America, it sounds wrong. Michael Winner, what were you thinking?
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Bloom is Taiwan bureau chief for San Diego Jewish World and an inveterate web surfer. He may be contacted at dan.bloom@sdjewishworld.com
Dear JacquiB, thanks for your note and yes, your explain did calm me down. Thanks again. That’s what cross-pond communication is all about, Cheers. — Danny
Hymie as a male Jewish name is acceptable. Using it as to describe a Jew as a ‘Hymie’ is NOT. It used to be quite a common Jewish name so it is no wonder that Michael is familiar with it although the fashion nowadays is for more Biblical names.
The fact that the central character in the jokes is called Hymie is, presumably, just to identify them as being Jewish without needing to lengthen the joke by saying so. Jewish self-deprecation is a well known characteristic of Jewish humour although, when I use it, my non-Jewish friends think I am just putting myself down. My Jewish friends, on being told the same joke just laugh appreciatively.
I hope this calms Mr Bloom down.