Old Jewish Jokes: Stand-up comedian Ivor Dembina talks Trump, Israel and fringe festivals
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For controversial stand-up comedian Ivor Dembina, the old jokes are still among the best.
"Jewish people over the years have had so much persecution that they've developed humour to deal with pain," he explained.
Dembina's show Old Jewish Jokes, which is in its final days at Adelaide's Fringe, combines traditional, one-liner-style gags with more narrative-based humour.
Despite being strongly identified with the alternative comedy movement, which favours story-telling over punchlines, Dembina has never lost his love of the wisecracks he heard growing up in a Jewish household.
"I liked hearing jokes. I used to please my parents by telling jokes," he said.
Dembina was born in 1951 and grew up in north London where, he jokes, his parents moved as refugees — from south London.
In adulthood, he ran a comedy club that helped kick-start the careers of comedians such as Ben Elton, Jo Brand, Eddie Izzard and Julian Clary. Inspired by the acts around him, he decided to give it a go.
The Jewish joke-telling tradition specialises in caustic one-liners that poke fun of authority, or play on stereotypes. Philosopher Slavoj Zizek has written of the allure and mystery of jokes:
"They are idiosyncratic; they stand for the unique creativity of language but are nonetheless 'collective', anonymous, authorless, arriving all of a sudden out of nowhere."
Dembina sees humour as a means of dealing with controversial subject matter in a way that removes some of the sting. He defends the right to tell jokes about sensitive topics, including the Holocaust and the policies of the state of Israel.
"I don't think you should use jokes to hate people. You've got to use them to heal," he said.
"Some Jewish people don't like me because for many years I've spoken out about the worst excesses of Israel's behaviour towards the Palestinians, which I think is despicable.
"I really get angry when they use the Jews' experience of the Holocaust as an excuse — 'this is what happened to us, so therefore we can do anything'.
"That is absolutely, totally unacceptable and has to be called for what it is — racism."
Dembina has travelled to the West Bank three times, he said, where he saw "first hand the cruelty of the daily humiliations inflicted on the Palestinians".
"Thank goodness a growing number of Jewish people are beginning to speak out, and I use comedy to do my bit."
Donald Trump 'like a stand-up comedian'
Dembina is also a critic of Donald Trump, but has a sneaking admiration for the US President's comic prowess.
"What's clever about Trump — he plays a caricature of himself, so you can't joke about him because he's got in first," he said.
"He's very much like a stand-up comedian. He'll just say one thing and change his mind — anything for a laugh.
"There was one moment — it was a turning point in the election when I thought 'he could win this'. They were having a debate and [Hillary Clinton] said 'can you imagine if this man was in charge of the country's laws?'
"And he said 'yeah, I'd put you in jail'.
"That was funny. It was funny. It was a great bit of stand-up comedy."
Dembina is less well-known than some big name acts but is highly respected by peers and is cited by the likes of Stewart Lee as an influence.
But the life of the stand-up comedian is often no laughing matter. Breaking through is difficult. A thick skin and a tolerance for financial hardship are necessities.
While Dembina is full of praise for fringe festivals, which give up-and-coming comics much-needed exposure, he is wary of the changing nature of them.
"Fringes have got too big," he said.
"There's so much choice that what happens is the poor customer doesn't know what to go and see."
One consequence of this, Dembina explained, was the rise of the compilation show, in which a line-up of comedians give condensed versions of their act to allow audiences a chance to sample the many offerings.
"The trouble is, if you get too many of these compilation shows, people just go round the compilation shows."
But the hassles notwithstanding, Dembina has no intention of quitting the circuit.
"I do it for fun. I want to keep on developing as a performer. It keeps me alive."
Ivor Dembina is performing Old Jewish Jokes at the Griffins Hotel, with a final performance on Saturday.
Topics: comedy-humour, arts-and-entertainment, human-interest, carnivals-and-festivals, sa, adelaide-5000
