Jews Love to Argue: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

{{quote|''"Two Jews, three opinions."''|A saying}}

 

 

''What am I, your slave? You do it!''

I don't even know what that means. Anyway, this is a joke [[Self-Deprecation|more common among Jews themselves]] than among gentiles. Such conversations are generally (in fiction) liberally peppered with [[Yiddish as a Second Language]].

 

 

I'm trying not to spend too much time on this. Give me some slack.

* [[Woody Allen]]'s [[Jewish Complaining|kvetching]] in ''[[Annie Hall]]'' inevitably turned into some kind of argument.

* In ''[[You Don't Mess With the Zohan]]'', Israeli Jews love to argue... with Palestinians. It's really quite civil and all in good fun, though.

* In ''[[Life of Brian]]'', the Judean resistance groups against the Romans can't agree on anything, and spend more time fighting each other than fighting the Romans. It's an accidental example, since it's a parody of the tendency of left-wing militant groups to fragment and factionalize, but it still counts.

** A deliberate, [[Exaggerated]] example would be the marketplace scenes. From peddlers who ''insisted'' in haggling (even if you give them what the want) to people who liked to find logical holes in every sermon.

== [[Literature]] ==

* In ''[[Discworld]]'' Dwarfs are often compared to real life Jews (this was not the author's original intention but he [[Sure Why Not|seems to be running with it]].) One of the main reasons? They argue a lot, especially about their faith. As Cheery Littlebottom says in ''The Fifth Elephant'':

* In [[The Chosen]] Danny Saunders and his father entertain the congregation by arguing Rabbinical lore in front of them. Tragically, that is the only time they can communicate which is the point of the plot.

* The short story "Pushing the Envelope" by Desmond Warzel begins and ends with a [[Jewish Mother]] arguing with her son: first, that she wants him to move out of her house; then, after he does, that she never sees him anymore.

 

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

** While doing a story on [[Tomorrow's Pioneers|a Palestine kid's show explaining why they need to destroy Israel]], the show fired back with a fake Israeli equivalent, [[Stylistic Suck|"Dr. Bagelman's Hour of Hate"]], which quickly devolved into the hosts quarreling. Stewart quipped, "I shouldn't laugh, but that's actually just an audio recording from my Bar Mitzvah."

** Stewart uses this joke in his stand up, including why it proves there isn't a [[Greedy Jew|Jewish conspiracy to control the banks]]. They couldn't get the meeting started without an argument.

== Religion and Mythology ==

* This is what the Midrash and the [[The Talmud|Talmud]] are, Rabbis arguing. And in [[The Bible|the Torah]], Jews argue with God. Abraham frickin' haggles with God over the amount of righteous men needed to save Sodom and Gomorrah.

** Possibly. But there are several varying translation for 'isra', from 'rule' to 'straight'. They are the "Israelites," so wrestling with God is part of their name too.

** Moses also argues with God when he wants to destroy the People of Israel and make Moses into the (first of the) new People of Israel. Moses argues with God and ''[[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|wins the argument.]]''

*** It also ends up in Christian tradition: a good part of the gospels is about Jesus arguing with Pharisees. A good part of the epistles is about Paul arguing with other Jewish converts(over whether gentile converts have to keep Torah).

** There's a book titled, ''Arguing with God: A Jewish Tradition''. Abraham was just the start.

** There's also a story of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, a prominent (and ''extremely'' conservative) Roman era rabbi, trying to convince the Sanhedrin that he was in the right about a particular kind of oven being impervious to Levitical uncleanness. Even when overruled, he managed to call on various signs from the natural world (trees, a stream, the beams of the Sanhedrin building) to show he was in the right. Each time, the Sanhedrin ''dismissed the sign'' as the sign-bearer stepping outside of its jurisdiction. Finally, Eliezer beseeched ''God himself'' to step in...which he ''did'', identifying Eliezer as correct about the oven being tamei-proof. Cue the Sanhedrin head ''rebuking God for this'', even quoting Deuteronomy to the effect that the demands of the law put jurisdiction ''only'' among the rabbis; "it is not in the heavens". Let that sink in; the rabbis ''dismissed God for overstepping his legal bounds''. Best part? Immediately afterwards, at the throne of Heaven, God was ''laughing with delight'', saying "My children have defeated me, my children have defeated me!".

** Another story from the [[The Talmud|Talmud]] highlights the degree of affection involved in the process. Rabbi Yohanan's study partner, Resh Lakish, dies, and the other rabbis find him someone new to work with. But where Resh Lakish would argue every point Yohanan made, no matter how obviously correct, the new guy was willing to say "you're right". This did not help Yohanan's mood. According to the Talmud, Yohanan replies that Resh Lakish would pick apart everything Yohanan said, and in answering the rebuttals the discussion would move forward. But this new guy - hah! "But you [the new partner] say 'we learned a teaching that supports you.' Of course I know that I am right!" And on that thought, he goes out to shed some [[Manly Tears]] for his old argument partner..

 

== [[Stand Up Comedy]] ==

 

== [[Theater]] ==

'''MULE!''' }}

* "Four Jews In A Room Bitching" is the title of the opening number of ''[[March Of The Falsettos]]''.

== [[Real Life]] ==

* This is why Israel does not have a constitution. They (primarily orthodox vs secular) ''could not stop arguing about it.'' Also they're afraid that the Supreme Court would run away with a written Constitution if Israel had one (''[[American Courts|à l'américain]]'', with whom Israel [[The Common Law|shares a legal tradition]]), potentially raising issues for virtually everyone. The Supreme Court under Aharon Barak and his successor [[Iron Lady|Dorit Beinisch]] already started to do this ''without'' a written constitution, using the Basic Laws that serve in place of a constitution at the moment and applying them to check the government; this has naturally led to a great deal of argument in the Israeli legal community.

* Alan Dershowitz writes in one of his books that a Talmud court would not convict if there was a unanimous vote, on the grounds that it implied the accused had no advocate among the judges. This has an element of truth. The Talmud does state that the Sanhedrin must have someone at least give a reason why they shouldn't convict. Considering that the Sanhedrin had anywhere from 23 to 71 members depending on the time period and type called, this isn't difficult.

 

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[[Category:Characterization Tropes]]

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[[Category:A Nice Jewish Index]]

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]