Dear Diary

Title: Dear Diary

General Information about Item:

Informant Data:

Eyal was born and raised in Kibbutz Ein Hamifratz, Israel. He is currently the assistant coach of the Dartmouth women’s varsity volleyball team. He competed on the Israeli National team for many years, attended the University of Hawaii, and played a professional beach volleyball player in the AVP . Hebrew is his native language, but he is also fluent in English.

Contextual Data:

Cultural Context: The state of Israel is located in the Middle East, with Hebrew being its primary language. Over 9 million people speak the language worldwide. Humor has been present here in this location, historically through works of Judaism, but in today’s culture primarily expressed in a mainstream, anecdotal form, most frequently mirroring American humor.
Social Context: The interviewee is a native Hebrew Speaker, who learned English while growing up and preparing to serve in the Israeli military. He later graduated with a degree in computer science from the University of Hawaii. The joke was told to him by a native Hebrew Speaker back in Israel. The interviewee said this joke was a ‘family friendly’ joke he had learned from friends when growing up.

Item:

This joke in Hebrew is a play on words. It is about an eskimo. The joke is funny because it is actually a play on words, which is not apparent until the end of the joke.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Hebrew Transcript:

“MA ES’KI’MO’I KO’TEV BA’YO’MAN SHE’LO: YO’MA’NI HA’YA-KAR.”

English Transcript of Translation:

A man writes in his diary, “Dear diary, what is an eskimo person?” But the “Dear diary” in Hebrew, if you break it down, the “dear” can be read as “it was cold.”

Informant’s Comments:

When I asked the informant for some jokes he had learned as a teenager, this was the first one he gave. He said it was one of the few ‘family friendly’ jokes he could share. He also noted that in Israel wittiness and word play are very common. Not only is it funny, but is meant to test someones wits and smarts.

Collector’s Comments:

This joke is a funny example of a short joke, which provides a normal context, then finishes with an unexpected punch line. I did not really understand the joke at first, and still don’t quite understand the humor, but the fact that the informant had to think of ‘family friendly’ jokes and came up with this one felt like he was trying to relate to me as an American in an appropriate way. Although there are no specific references to the Jewish culture or life in Israel, the joke still provides insight in to the type of witty and sarcastic humor often found in modern Jewish humor.

Collector’s Name: Zoe Leonard & Bun Straton

Tags/Keywords:

Dartmouth Folklore Archive