“Remember: ‘All those who didn’t eat chicken don’t get dessert’, “I chided Sam Levenson last March. Telephoning him to set up an interview after his United Jewish Appeal appearance here, I had unwittingly interrupted his dinner. He began the conversation with: “Do I disturb you when you’re eating your chicken?” Recalling one of Levenson’s most famous lines, I had the pleasure of turning it on its creator.
When I met Levenson the next morning, his generally somber mood disappointed me. He was more philosophical than funny Familiar with his jokes since childhood, I expected an up-beat and amusing encounter. After Levenson died of cardiac arrest last Wednesday at the age of 68, I realized his insights into the serious side of Jewish life in America in 1980 are perhaps as great a legacy as his humor.
CONCERNED ABOUT FUTURE OF JUDAISM
“I’m more of a teacher than I used to be,” the pudgy comedian told me. “This is not a time for jokes. “Discussing “brilliant Jews who have lost their heritage,” he seemed deeply concerned about the future of Judaism in America.
“Cultures are like a palette,” he explained “When you mix them all together you get a mishmash. It’s enough already. I know where I belong where I want to belong — as a responsible defender of my people,” he emphasized. He defined a Jew as a person “willing to follow the destiny of the (Jewish) people.”
Levenson said his humor worked because it was “intentionally authentic” and truly represented what he was thinking about. “Jewish humor is falsified when it could be other ethnic humor,” he said. “And I try not to have a victim. No one suffers, or the idea suffers. My stories come out of the life we lead. I seek out deliberate aspects of my private life that other people have experienced. I find it works, I see nodding heads. The whole purpose of art and humor is to seek out the common denominator in people.
“The family is the best common denominator. Hardly anyone didn’t have one,” Levenson quipped, his humor seeping through his gloom.
“I love Jewish mothers. They’re a maligned race,” he continued. “in all human relationships there is no greater love than a mother’s love for her children.” in another humorous aside, he added: “There are two times when a child is busy kicking … during the fifth month (of pregnancy) and at age 14.”
NATURE OF JEWISH HUMOR
Asked to define Jewish humor, Levenson said: “Jewish humor comes from being what we are. Future human will depend on how Jewish we remain — whether there are Jewish entertainers, or entertainers who happen to be Jewish. “He condemned the type of humor that presents a “negative, self-destructive, anti-Semitic view of Judaism.”
“Often the subject is not Jews, but we use it against ourselves, “he added. “For example, the subject is resorts, so we use Miami and pick on Jews. In my humor, the Jew is victorious and no one can down him. I don’t permit myself, in humor, to demean the Jewish people. I use our greatest contributions to arts, science, culture Judaism has to be protected.”
CAUSE FOR PESSIMISM
Levenson said his pessimism was caused by the life-style in America today, which he summed up as “plastic lunch.” “When we were poor, there were fewer things to eat up our time. With more success, we have less time, “he explained.” In our house the emphasis was on reading books. Kids today need more education in values and what they mean. “He described psychiatry as “an idea that didn’t succeed, and suggested it be replaced by old-fashioned “sachel” (common serae).
Levenson grew up in a household that was financially poor, but rich in inspiration for his unique humor. He said his mother indeed told him an his seven siblings to by they didn’t like chicken, assuring enough food for company. This was followed by: “All those who didn’t eat chicken don’t get dessert.”
As Levenson talked, he seemed nostalgic for this simpler world of his childhood. “I didn’t eat in a restaurant until I was 25, “he told me. “My mother didn’t trust anything she didn’t make herself. That included meatballs, pants and children.”
In his last book, “You Don’t Have to be in Who’s Who to Know What’s What,” Levenson said English is lacking a word “to described a to tally mature human being, who can with joy rather than conflict express the essence of being at one and the same time masculine, feminine, paternal, maternal, whose strength showed through tenderness, who can see any member of the human race as ‘bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh,’ who espouses the cause of Human Lib.”
The Yiddish word, Levenson explained in his book, is “mensch.” “To call a person a ‘real mensch’ is to pay him or her the highest tribute.” Sam Levenson was a real mensch.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
