Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

provided by

This clip shows three Jewish comedians, Sandy Gutman, Deb Filler and Moshe Waldoks, talking about their lives and work via on-camera interviews and through examples of their comedy. They refer to their childhood experiences, and elements of their Jewish heritage and recent history, particularly the Holocaust, are described. Footage of New York Harbour, including the Statue of Liberty and old family photographs are used to illustrate the stories.

Educational value points

• The clip introduces three children of the latest of many Jewish diasporas (dispersions). Persecution, loss of state and expulsion have resulted in a number of diasporas for the Jewish people. The first was from Babylon in the 1st century BC and later again when the Roman Empire controlled Judea. As slaves under the Romans, Jews were moved around the empire and, throughout the Middle Ages, religious persecution and heavy taxation continued to result in forced migration.

• The diaspora that is the subject of the clip occurred as a result of the Holocaust. During the Second World War (1939–45), it is estimated that more than 6 million Jews and 5 million non-Jews were murdered by the Nazis in specially constructed concentration camps. In one of these, Auschwitz, more than 2 million Jews lost their lives. By 1945, the Jewish populations in Europe had fallen from 9 million to 3 million. Jews were singled out for systematic extermination by the Nazis under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, who believed that the racial purity and superiority of the Aryan super-race would enable the Third Reich to last for a thousand years.

• Sydney comedian Sandy Gutman (1954–) aka Austen Tayshus, who is introduced in the clip, is a well-known contemporary Australian comedian. His father was a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to Australia after the War. Gutman released the Billy Birmingham-penned Australiana in 1983. It is still the biggest-selling comedy record in Australia. A spoken-word piece, Australiana draws its inspiration from weaving the names of Australian places, flora and fauna into the events of a barbecue.

• The clip hints at the struggles with cultural identity that first and second generation migrants experience. Deb Filler talks about the desperate struggle to 'fit in’ after arriving in New Zealand and her feelings of being caught between different cultural forces, those of the country and religion of her parents, and those of their adopted country.

• The continuing influence of the Holocaust on future generations is clearly indicated. Moshe Waldoks (1949–) describes the responsibility his mother felt to be a 'memorial’ to what had happened to the family. Deb Filler as a young girl tries to take the place of the missing family members to provide emotional support for her father. Sandy Gutman says that the Holocaust was the seminal influence for his father’s generation and informs 'every moment’ of his own life.

• Humour is used as a tool for personal expression and cultural explanation. Themes of displacement and alienation run through the childhood reflections of each of the comedians. Themes of racism, cultural and personal alienation and religious stereotyping provide the material for their routines.

This clip starts approximately 11 minutes into the documentary.

An interview with Sandy Gutman (Austen Tayshus).
Sandy When my parents would go out, in the evenings, and they’d be and then they’d come home late, I’d stand at the window sobbing, you know, because you know, I thought something had happened to them. And uh, my brother – my brother always slept through.

An interview with Deb Filler.
Deb I – I think my childhood was a very unhappy one. I um, I don’t mean I was an unhappy or badly treated child, I just mean that I think I was very perplexed. I think a lot was expected of me, to be the eldest child of this family, so desperately struggling to fit in. And so and I couldn’t relate culturally to what my family was like and what the rest of New Zealand was like. It was like England in the ‘50s.

Deb playing a scene at a comedy show.
Deb, in character Sit down, Debbie dear. I’ve got some butterfly cakes straight from the oven. Pass the mock cream, Felicity. Now tell me, Debbie dear – do you kneel in your synagogue? You don’t. I didn’t think so. That Star of David around Debbie’s neck is a symbol of the Jewish people, isn’t it, Debbie. You know what it means, dear? Do you mind if I tell you? Well, David fought Goliath and he won! The Jewish people have had to put up with a lot of obstacles, but they’ve won, haven’t they, dear. Oh, hello, Christine! No, no, no, come on in. We’re just having afternoon tea with Debbie Filler, the little Jewish girl.
(laughter)

Moshe Waldoks walking around a shop.
Moshe A guy walks into a store and he goes, 'Do you sell salt?’ 'Salt? Salt? Sure I sell salt. Come in the back.’ And he goes in the back and there are 15 barrels of salt. Fifteen barrels! Every kind of salt in the world. He says, 'I’ve never seen so much salt in my life! You must sell a lot of salt. You must be a great salt salesman’. He says, 'Me? I’m not too good. The guy who sold me the salt, he was good.’

A montage of Moshe getting off a ferry and walking around looking at the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island.
My parents came to the United States on the 4th of July, American Independence Day. And for years, every Independence Day, the 4th of July, my mom would pack a picnic lunch and the family would get on the ferry and come over to Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island. My mother said it even out loud, she said we were, we were going to be going to be the…the promised land. We were the gift, we were the continuity.

Moshe being interviewed sitting on a red couch.
Her role was to be a zacher. A memorial. And the story she tells, she was pushed out of the line, you know, her father was being transported, and as her father, she wants to go where her father, and her father pushes her out of the line and says, 'No, no, no, you don’t come with me. You will be a zacher' And she claims that because of that, she maintained this will to live and to tell the story. You will hear this from many survivors.

Deb A lot of my empathy went to my father, as a child, knowing that something had miraculous had occurred and that he didn’t have anybody, except us.