Alt+SHIFT: Complicated Stories of the Simple Life
Yitzchak Blau returns for a special summer supplement to his popular Alt+SHIFT series—that’s the keyboard shortcut allowing us quick transition between input languages on our keyboards. For many readers of TRADITION that’s the move from Hebrew to English (and back again). The TraditionOnline series will appear weekly until September, offering R. Blau’s insider’s look into trends, ideas, and writings in the Israeli Religious Zionist world helping readers from the Anglo sphere to Alt+SHIFT and gain insight into worthwhile material available only in Hebrew. See the archive of all past columns in this series.
Yair Jacobi, Lo Kazeh Sippur: Sippurim Mesubakhim al Hayyim Peshutim (Yediot Aharonot, 2025), 272 pp.
Contemporary Orthodoxy has entered the worlds of television, movies, and comedy as producers and not just consumers with frum standup artists making a living in both Israel and America. One particularly popular comedy troupe was the quartet of hesder bogrim called Underdos. The group members have gone their separate ways and we shall here survey a humorous literary offering from one of the four, Yair Jacobi’s Lo Kazeh Sippur, whose Hebrew subtitle might be rendered as “Complicated Stories of the Simple Life.” (I’m mindful of the grave state of things in Israel at the moment, and do not mean to be lighthearted in presenting this as the first offering of our series—but I also bear in mind that laughter has helped sustain us a people throughout history.)
The volume is quite funny, drawing humorous parallels between the absurdities of daily life in Israel with the more heavy facets of our troubled existence in the Jewish State. In one scene Jacobi’s son’s request for a water pistol is treated as if he was applying for a real gun license; in another he critiques the appointment of judges for the local chulent completion with the fury of Israel’s judicial reform controversy; another introduces a child to the world of Knesset politics as if it was broaching the delicacies of the birds and the bees.
Jacobi knows how to be serious and insightful as well. One chapter notes how the same comedian who entertains the masses cannot captivate his own children. He adds some interesting reflections of the role Asara be-Tevet plays in Holocaust commemoration. Unlike Yom ha-Shoah, this fast day sets up a model of the Holocaust as something in the background not dominating our thoughts.
Some of the humor is directed more specifically at his own migzar (sector) of Religious Zionists. Note his description of the three main youth groups. In Bnei Akiva, every counselor and participant has a girlfriend; in Ezra, every counselor and participant has a girlfriend but doesn’t talk about it; and in the most right-wing group, Ariel, every counselor and participant has Yoreh Yoreh ordination from the Chief Rabbinate.
He also picks up on the kitsch of bringing ba’alei teshuva to speak at yeshiva high schools to describe their previous lives of debauchery in lurid detail and then say how happy they are to have moved passed this. However, the result of these presentations may actually be heightened student interest in experiencing the juicier parts of the speaker’s life for themselves. Recalling his own experiences as a yeshiva high schooler, Jacobi confessed to his Rosh Yeshiva the potential damage from one such lecture, but found the rabbi lost in thought, perhaps wondering if it was too late for him to experience an appropriate adventure which he could then regret.
I have long understood how poets and novelists benefit from being part of a tradition granting power to references and imagery. It turns out that the same applies to comics. Jacobi brings his car for a pre-Pesach cleaning and the Arab workers want to know if he wants a basic cleaning or a special “kitniyot cleaning.” In one hilarious scene, both Moshe and Yosef come to their Sukka on the fourth day of the holiday since Jacobi and a guest (Asher Ben-Abu of Underdos) each invite a different Ushpizin based on the diverse customs. When Moshe says that he will return the next day, Jacobi asks him to give them a precise time so that no one builds a golden calf.
Jacobi utilizes traditional phrases very cleverly. A story about a pool for children includes three different puns on berekha (pool) and berakha (blessing). One son asks him: “Father, do you not have one berekha for me” (a play on Genesis 27:38) and another son references the “source of berekha ” (a play on Lekha Dodi). When bees ruin the fun, a son calls out: “You have brought upon me a curse and not a berekha (pool)” (Genesis 27:12).
The search for a wedding outfit inspires “zu halifati” from the custom of kapparot; halifa is the Hebrew word for a suit. Jacobi wants to call an afternoon playgroup for kids “eikha tarbitz be-tzoharayim” (Song of Songs 1:7). Tarbitz‘s original meaning of “lie down” becomes “to hit,” a too frequent occurrence among children. Page 69 alone incorporates references to four pesukim, two biblical stories, and two well-known rabbinic sayings.
One weak point for me was an overdose of sketches involving Jacobi attempting to escape domestic chores—washing the dishes, watching his children, or running a play group. At some point, the bit about the put-upon father and husband gets stale and it’s not always his best material to begin with.
Humor is a powerful tool and certainly aids during trying times. We hope that Jacobi and his three Underdos buddies continue to bring smiles to our faces in good times and bad for many years.
Yitzchak Blau, Rosh Yeshivat Orayta in Jerusalem’s Old City, is an Associate Editor of TRADITION.