In this country, where anti-Semitism was once a taboo subject for comedy, Jews made a CD called "Jewface," comprised of mocking lyrics about Jews by Jews. One of the songs, by composer Irving Berlin, born Israel Isidore Baline, creator of such classics as "White Christmas" and "Easter Parade," is a 1916 ditty called "Cohen Owes Me Ninety-Seven Dollars," about a man obsessing on his deathbed over an uncollected IOU. Berlin also wrote "I'm a Yiddish Cowboy," and Kinky Friedman, the country singer and sometime candidate for governor of Texas, famously produced an album by "Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys," poking fun at Jews, Christians and everybody else. The producers of "Jewface" say their satirical songs will appeal to Generations X and Y, who were brought up on edgier and irreverent lyrics. Cultural critics call it "in your face."
It's hard to push the envelope. But Sacha Baron Cohen, an English Jew who plays a mustachioed Kazakhstani journalist, has pushed that envelope a fair piece in his movie, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." He has become a new millionaire with his improvised character wallowing in anti-Semitism (and a lot of other vices). In one notorious scene, he asks a gun dealer to name the best weapon for killing a Jew, and the dealer replies nonchalantly, "a 9mm or a .45," as if the dealer were a follower of Heinrich Himmler.
This is the red meat of satire, cutting to the white bone of truth. Borat, vulgar and relishing going over-the-top, is not a barbaric Islamist, seeking young men and women to blow themselves up in the name of Allah, but a civilized man whose cold conscience guides a rapier wit.
Critics may fear that Borat encourages anti-Semitism, but he actually exposes the very ordinariness of the vice. Jews have always used humor, from before vaudeville days, to expose and taunt their enemies in the way that cabaret performers in Berlin of the 1930s ridiculed the Fuehrer before he closed them down. Laughter, like truth, is a disinfectant that frightens bigots because they can't stand the stink when it's poured on them. So let there be light -- and mirth.