Jews!
Direct from The Onion, with a tip of the hat to Michael.

Do you have a pet peeve—some little thing that drives you completely bonkers? For certain people, it’s the sound of a Jewish person dragging her fingernails across a chalkboard. For others, it’s when Jews don’t signal before making a turn. Me? I can’t stand it when Jews talk during movies!

Last Friday, I knocked off early from work and headed to the multiplex to catch The Pacifier. Sure enough, as soon as the lights go out, a pack of Jews waltzes in and plunks down right in front of me! All through the first preview, they had to have a Jewish debate about where to put their coats and who should hold the Twizzlers. What’s wrong with these idiots? If you want to chat, go to a coffee shop, or that Jewish community center down on Cavendish Avenue.

Where did these people learn to whisper? An Israeli helicopter?

I sure didn’t pay $10 to listen to a group of twits talk back to the screen like those obnoxious Jewish robots from Mystery Science Theater 3000! And apparently, “God’s chosen people” weren’t selected based on their ability to follow plotlines. No wonder they wandered the desert for so many years—they can’t even watch a Vin Diesel movie without getting lost.

It would help if management took stronger action against this total lack of regard. A sign saying, “Jews: Kindly refrain from talking during the film” couldn’t hurt. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable here. That theater was as loud as an Elders of Zion meeting. Is it asking too much to expect a little courtesy from your fellow moviegoers? I guess some people just weren’t raised gentile.

Look, I enjoy eating popcorn while taking in a flick, but at least I have the presence of mind to keep my munching to a conscientious level. Sometimes it feels like I’m the only one who wasn’t raised in a barn where special precautions are taken to slaughter livestock in accordance with Jewish laws and traditions.

If you can keep kosher, why can’t you keep quiet?

And how many times can these descendants of Abraham possibly need to use the washroom? If you have to go that often, sit near an aisle and leave the middle seats for those of us who aren’t circumcised. You guys may not believe in the doctrine of original sin, but everyone agrees that failing to turn off your cell phone before the movie starts is just plain rude! I swear, the next time a phone goes off, someone’s getting a yarmulke shoved down his throat.

If there were some other way to see movies, I’d do it. I’ve tried renting movies, only to have the film interrupted midway through by a Jewish telemarketer or the sounds of the Jews upstairs blasting their rap music. I can only imagine what that guy with the fiddler on his roof went through. It’s the Jewish year 5766, for cripes sake! It’s time to learn some courtesy.

About the author

Laya Millman

43 Comments

  • I don’t actually find it funny. Or offensive. I think it’s mediocre and not particularly resonant. In my experience, everyone talks during the movies except the Jews I came there with.

    That line about God’s chosen people not being selected for their ability to follow plotlines was pretty funny, though.

  • you didn’t think it was funny esther? it cracked me up. It reminded me of that SNL skit with Heather Locklear at the telethon…know what I’m talking about?

  • Yeah, I got that too, the SNL vibe–most strongly in the first section, where he talks about the pet peeves, and it’s all “when Jews do this, when Jews do that…”…

    Maybe I would have found it more compelling as a performed piece…

  • I think somebody should tell DJ that the Onion is, in fact, a humor publication.

    I’ll do it.

    DJ: The Onion is, in fact, a humor publication. A joke newspaper. Like many works of humor in the American media, many of the people behind it are Jews.

  • Lighten up people and the dam sticks out of your bums….for real

    this is funny

  • What is funny in that article. What made you laugh?
    It’s not funny. It has no creativity, wit. Please explain what is funny in that.
    ALot of you are fickle. You accept any shit that someone hands out to you. You bend over, to help them degrade you. Don’t tell me I’m an ass, I should lighten up.

  • DJ: What’s funny about this actually has little to do with Jews and much more to do with stereotypes. We all know that it’s not the Jews that are commonly perceived as being disruptive in Movie theatres. This article is meant to raise our ire at libelous generalizations aimed at Jews while making us look at ourselves and think – hmmm. I ought to be equally outraged when gross over generalizations about other groups of people are also made. This article was well crafted satire in the tradition of A Modest Proposal and it made me laugh hard – mostly at myself. I think it was an ideal post for Holocaust Memorial Day. Shabbat Shalom DJ. Please DO lighten up.

  • I think its funny because its so over-the-top and blatantly skewering the idiocy of racism. Everyone can be irritated by nails scratching a blackboard. Everyone is irritated by people who talk or make unusual amounts of noise during a movie in a public theater. What’s odd is that this person takes that extra (utterly ridiculous step) of identifying this behaviors with people who are specifically Jewish.

    As _if_ anyone would tolerate these same activities better when done by people who had other ethnic or religious status. Implicitly the writer seems to be suggesting “None of these things would have bothered me if the people hadn’t been Jewish.” It’s completely and purposefully absurd.

    By the way, I heard a very similar over-the-top improper dialogue recently on an edition of the Daily Show dealing with a controversy at Harvard. Some students there are running a cleaning service and the interviewer from the Daily Show was deliberately saying extremely inappropriate things about Guatemalans, Mexicans, gays, Chinese people, etc.

  • Love “A Modest Proposal.” Now that I’m reading the above for the nth time, I’m growing to appreciate it. But I still didn’t laugh as hard as CK reports he did. Which is fine, because that’s the kind of diversity we court here at Jewlicious.

  • That was an extremely funny article. Think about what CK said and read it again. And… good call. It was somewhere in-between the old SNL skit and “A Modest Proposal”

  • I thought it was pretty funny but where does this guy live. If Jews are so annoying move out of the ghetto man. It would be like me moving to Harlem and complaining about african americans.

  • Thank you for your kindness, Laya.

    Plenty of people enjoyed your post, but I appreciate the focus on me.

  • It all about you TM! I mean, if i can’t entertain you, really, what is my purpose here?

  • Uh, great! While you are at it, you may wish to post, at the end of the monster discussion, a link to a topic where the discussion could continue.

    Alternatively, you could split the comments in half and create a part I and part II.

    Jus’ sayin’.

  • I understand why you think it is funny, I just don’t find this kind of work of a high level humor. What creativity is there?And also, if she made this remark about African Americans or Hispanics there would be people who were unhappy w/ it.
    I don’t see where I am supposed to find everything funny.

  • I was thinking about posting a “new story”:

    “Orthodox No Longer Attempting to Address Pre-Marital Sex Due to Overloaded Servers”

    You know, just to have somewhere for the commenters to go. But then TM emerged with his “join us in the living room” concept, which accomplishes the same thing: allowing the server to dry its tears and move on with its life.

  • DJ: *sigh* you wrote: And also, if she made this remark about African Americans or Hispanics there would be people who were unhappy w/ it

    That’s exactly the point! That’s what makes it funny. I give up. I think I’ll go peel potatos now.

  • A 90 yo man went to his doctor and asked for something to lower his sex drive.

  • DJ: OK, here goes:

    Doctor says lower it?
    Old man says yes. These days it seems like my sex drive is all in my head – I’d like you to lower it a couple feet if you can.

    Badabing! I’ll be here all week.

  • What is funny, and what no one seems to get- is that the Onion seems to be playing off a joke about black people supposedly having a reputation for talking during the movies. Not to stray to far, but some Timorese who sat behind me at Sin City were talking a bit too much.

  • Here’s a funny Jewish joke: a haredi boy from Bnei Brak starts dating ha-Rav Shlomo Amar’s daughter, and the girl’s secular older brother, apparently at the behest of his mom, gets together with some Arab friends, kidnaps the boy and beats the crap out of him for hours.

    Oh wait. That actually happened.

  • Heh. That’s almost as funny as the IDF soldier who is also a neo Nazi and hates Jews and Israel.

    Oh wait. That actually happenned too.

    Jews are funny, eh? And so are Timorese.

  • Wow. This got serious. I was just offended because I actually do play my rap music really loud. I hate it when people tell me to turn down my 50 Shekel and Jib Jab “Matzah” cartoon.

    Also, the fiddler comment is true. I have one, and I’m pretty frickin close to going up there myself and breaking his fiddle, pulling his payous, and poking him in the eye.

    Now, then, can the Elders of Zion please return to your plotting. We have a world to run, people!

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  • For those who don’t get what the high schooler is trying to do, that E was intended to be a swastika.

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    sorry last one fucked up

  • heil???

    Are you sure?

    My buddies at stormfront often do it like this:

    Hi Hitler!

    As in “Doop dee doop dee doop. Oh look! There’s our fuhrer! Yo, Hitler dude! Hi! – Yo, Hitler, Hi Hitler!”

    Heil? That sounds… UnAmerican.
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    Yo sven – is this what you wanted? I know it’s simple and all and not at all glorious, but ya know, neither is the Third Reich – boy did those guys fuck up!

  • Next time things aren’t going your way, just use this simple phrase, one phrase that will communicate to everyone exactly what you’re feeling:
    “My swastika just isn’t working.”

    You know, it’s possible that “Hail” was a misspelling. You know, like he’d like it to hail hard on Hitler, so he’d slip on pellets of ice, or something.