Shay Goldstein and Dror Rafael are two guys with a morning radio show on 103FM. Thye’re kind of “out there”, but very, very popular. I used to listen to them quite a bit until I transferred my allegiance to their competition on 99FM, Tal Berman and Aviad Kisos. But today for some reason I was tuning in to Shay and Dror, and they cracked me up.
They have a daily segment called “surprise phone call”, where they simply call someone without notice, usually a person who was in that day’s news. It usually provides some great entertainment from the victims, who are caught totally off guard.
Well, in today’s news there’s an item in Haaretz [Heb] about a dispute between Poland and the U.S., concerning a shed that was “lent” from Auschwitz to the holocaust museum in D.C. – and the Polish now want it back.
So, who do Shay and Dror call? They call Auschwitz. Listen to the link below, it starts from minute 2:30 (from the end, the clock goes backward). It’s mostly in English, except for in the beginning, where Shay is surprised by the warm welcome to Auschwitz-Birkenau and says “When we went there the first time nobody stood there and said ‘Welcome to Auschwitz!’”
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noam
my god, this is bad. even if we find these rants about what “she or her grandfather did to us” funny, the self-irony totally goes over this woman’s head. when a joke goes entirely over the head of an innocent person whose not “in on it”, that’s exploitation. it’s disgraceful and unfunny.
now, that can be fine if it aims to expose one’s racism/sexism/etc… in this case, this lady was nice and deserved none of this. luckily she didn’t get much of it.
and what’s even worse is i’m not entirely sure that goldstein’s aggression towards her or some fictitious polish grandfather were even said in irony, given the idiot he is.
yuck.
Igor
Pretty disgusting.
un2here
Were Shay’n Dror ever there? No, so they are talking about a “We” that actually does not include them, and it shows, they know nothing about the subject: Did the lady at the receiving end ever harm anybody? Her parents or grandparents? Anybody else from Poland? … Poland?!?
Just567
I live in Poland… I just listened to this radio clip. Why do they attack this Polish woman, saying that ‘you people’ (Polish???) did this to us? During ww2 Auschwitz/Oświęcim was in Germany, not Poland – and it was built by German Nazis, not Poles. It seems unfair, mean, and just wrong that they treated this woman with such disrespect.
Danny
Relax, this is meant as satire and comedy. You can argue whether it’s funny or not (not very, in my opinion), but these two guys have in the past have called nearly every person who has ever made headlines in Israel – including, once on their television show, a representative of the Iranian revolutionary guard (that WAS funny).
noam
@UN2HERE – the “we” they refer to is Jews. They’re trying to be funny. It’s not working.
This is what many Israelis consider funny. Many people forget that black humor can only work when it’s clever and good. Shai and Dror belong to those who think being rude, ignorant and self-righteous is, in itself, smart and funny.
I think that by saying “you people” they’re being sarcastic, making fun of the attitude of many Israelis – but you never know. Maybe they really are stupid baboons. Maybe they really don’t differentiate between Nazi Germany and Occupied Poland. Sad stuff.
Embarrassing on every level. Why Ami posted this is beyond me.
Philos
I think they took it down….
caden
For every Jan Karski there were multiple Jedwebnes and Kielces.
ToivoS
I find this anti-Polish sentiments among so many American and Israeli Jews difficult to understand especially with respect to their actions during WWII. People must realize that 3 million non-Jewish Poles (out of a population of 16 million) were deliberated executed or starved to death during this period. Accusing the Poles of complicity in the holocaust is beyond unfair.
sh
Outborats Borat by a long, long shot.
Ami Kaufman
@sh – do you mean by their hutzpah? I suppose. I’ve been listening to them on and off for years now, much less lately. But actually this specific call is “mild” compared to other stuff they’ve done.
sh
No, not for their hutzpah at all – in my eyes hutzpa’s not a negative thing per se. For bad taste. Perhaps I should explain that too. I mean it in the sense of insensitivity, utter and complete woodenness. There’s no connection between that and humor. Insensitivity to whom? To ourselves, the girl will have known she was talking to a bunch of loonies. What’s witty about several people bullying a receptionist?
Ami Kaufman
@sh – Yes, insensitivity is their schtick. And they’re not inventing the wheel, by the way, in this respect.
.
A lot of people are offended by what they’ve been doing, but there are also a lot over the years who “get it”.
.
You’re right, there’s nothing witty in bullying the receptionist. The humor, I believe, comes from the weird conversations themsleves. For example, I think when Shay says “Hello? Auschwitz?” in an Israeli accent is hilarious – and actually, a type of humor that I think only Israelis (not Jews, Israelis) will get. And when he asks what he can reserve and so on… But that’s just my sense of humor (which also here on +972 in some satire I’ve wrote has crossed some red lines for readers).
.
Basically, what I’m trying to understand from you is: when you say insensitive to ourselves, do you mean we shouldn’t laugh at the holocaust? Israelis are known to use black humor on this topic every now and then – some more than others.
.
In this case at least, I don’t think the girl was “harmed” in any way. She’ll never hear it played again, and she probably just went to her boss 5 minutes later and told him/her about a crazy call she just had, where two crazy Israelis tried to give her a guilt trip, and that was it.
JONNI
comment deleted and user banned
sh
“do you mean we shouldn’t laugh at the holocaust?”
No.
.
But I don’t see this example of what they do as humor at all, let alone black humor.
How about this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTF7zXvQx0k
or the movie Dr Strangelove?
But I came here as a teen and my kind of belly-laugh would sink like a stone and be labeled “English humor” at the time.
Ami Kaufman
monty python rule
Piotr Berman
It is not like in Poland NOBODY jokes about Holocaust, but given certain limitations on free speech, it is usually anonymous and much condemned. For examples, some punks (apologies to punks and skinheads if they were skinheads) sprayed paint over a commemorative table in Jedwabne “byli latwopalni” = “they were combustible”.
I would also add prophetic words of a Polish poet who survived Auschwitz, but never really recovered mentally and committed suicide few years later. “Our legacy will be metal scrap and sardonic hollow chuckle of [future] generations”.
sh
“monty python rule ”
They do. Thing is, they probably wouldn’t if it hadn’t been for this fella:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfz9O_mSY1U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmJSrVNKnr0&feature=fvwrel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeUjuZ0p78M&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7uwM2Ogl9Q&feature=related
.
This American-Jewish comedian didn’t shy away from holocaust humor – it must be about half a century old by now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQUgyyzhuho&feature=related
Mareli
The part about taking reservations was funny, but they may have just given the receptionist the impression that the callers were a couple of nuts. I don’t think she got their drift, and maybe it’s just as well. She, after all, didn’t kill anyone.