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70 A Bad Man’s Desserts T O L D B Y S H L O M O B E N V E N I S T I T O Y E H U D A K A R Y U In Istanbul there was an Armenian peddler who dealt in glassware. Every day the peddler and his donkey would pass next to the shop of a Jew named Zebulun. Stopping in front of the Jew, he would tell him, “Your brother wants to speak with you,” and point at the little donkey. This hurt Zebulun, since he had a brother named Issachar who was a scholar. “What reason do you have to get angry?” the Armenian used to say. “Does it not say, in your holy Torah, that ‘Issachar is a strong-boned ass’?”* Zebulun’s Turkish neighbor would say to him, “I’d like to see you give it to the bastard.” One morning, Zebulun filled his pockets with horseflies. By chance, that day the Armenian came with all his merchandise loaded on the donkey . As usual, he said to him, “Here’s your brother!” “Yes, yes,” replied Zebulun, “and I have a secret to tell my brother.” The peddler saw that a double delight awaited him this morning. “Go ahead and tell him,” he said. The Jew went over to the donkey’s ear. While the Armenian thought he was speaking to the donkey, he put flies in its ear. Naturally, the donkey started jumping around. All the merchandise broke. When the peddler sued, the judge asked Zebulun: “What do you have to say for yourself?” He answered: “Your Honor, every morning this man passes by my shop and points to his donkey as if it were my brother. Now we have . . . a little sister . . . who is about to get married. When I told him not to be late—the poor fellow was so happy that he started dancing.” The judge turned to the Armenian and delivered his verdict: “The Jew is innocent. This is the judgment for someone who makes fun of a Jew.”** 587 * Genesis 49:14 •• This is a pun in the original Ladino: “djugo” means “judgment” and “djudzo” means “Jew.”  588  Folktales of the Jews: Volume 1  588  Folktales of the Jews: Volume 1 COMMENTARY FOR TALE 70 (IFA 332) Told to Yehuda Karyu by Shlomo Benvenisti, originally of Turkey, in 1958.1 Cultural, Historical, and Literary Background This joke of ethnic conflict interweaves biblical references with themes current in the Djuha narrative cycle. The Armenian in the tale appears to be versed in the Bible. The reference to the donkey as Zebulun’s brother is from the verse “Issachar is a strong-boned ass” (Genesis 49:14). In the Bible, Zebulun and Issachar are the fifth and sixth sons of Lea (Genesis 30:16–20, 35:23); and in the present tale, as it often happens, the family has followed a biblical naming pattern . The allusion to Zebulun’s scholar-brother Issachar as a donkey is particularly offensive because it implicitly recalls the epithet “an ass laden with books” (sura 62:5), which is used for a person who accumulates books without understanding them. In the Koran, the phrase occurs in an abusive speech against the Jews. However, the reference to the brother Issachar as a scholar is not necessarily personal but rather mythical because, according to the aggadah, Issachar was a tribe of scholars (MR Genesis 72:5; MR Song of Songs 7:4). According to tradition , Zebulun and Issachar complemented each other in their avocations: The first being a tribe of sailors involved in commerce and the other, as noted, a tribe of scholars.2 The Jew’s retort parodies the biblical story of Balaam and the ass (Numbers 22–24), but mostly it draws on the Djuha/Nasreddin Hoca narrative cycle. To hurry up his donkey, Nasreddin Hoca puts pepper or sal amoniac ointment in the animal’s rectum, which overpowers him. This theme occurs in what may be the oldest Nasreddin Hoca manuscript.3 In several tales, Nasreddin Hoca addresses his donkey or another animal as if it were a transformed person or addresses a person as his “lost” donkey.4 The present story concludes with a pun in the Ladino (Judeo-Spanish): “Esto es el djugo non se burla kon djudgo” (This is the judgment for someone who makes fun of a Jew), which evokes the conclusion of the biblical story of Balaam as well, suggesting the...

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