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502 Pádurean Cut-off from the public input-output, the Jewish anecdotes, and especially their ethnosocial content, faded away, as the Israelite community was assimilated and lost its visibility as an ethnic group. A further echo was however noticed, as the loyal counterpart of Bula—the most famous joke character from the last halfcentury, born in backstairs gags mocking Ceausescu and the Communist party— was named Strulä (Shtrulah). The Jew jokes, regularly consisting in Ytzig and Shtrul dialogues, reappeared publicly after the fall of Ceausescu, although their visual accompaniment was no longer at hand and has never again been consistently used. The traditional content, chiefly the financial pursuits, was revived, certifying the contemporary belief that Jewish old habits never died.” The Jewish jokes are once again among the most popular ethnic jokes. Conclusion The Jewish tête-à-tête epitomizes a larger human interaction and group of activity: the one-on-one relation becomes a symbol for the community, for the collective undertakings. Setting up this interaction in a visual composition was a pictorial response to a social reality, signaling their large number and their (dangerous, hilarious, or picturesque) Otherness. However, it reflected more than a social normality: it was a stereotypical approach. The discussed group did not make a regular appearance in urban landscapes, but very much in the art of those artists who regularly painted Jews; in other words, it was not a societal ingredient, but a deliberate topic, searched for and inserted in compositions. And this mise-en-scene drew in an even more deliberate subject: the Jewish dialogue. With regard to Roland Barthes’s methodology, it is admissible that the iconic message of the pictorial Jewish téte-a-téte is accustomed from the onset to the linguistic message. Technically, from the position of the artist, but even more perceptually, from the position of the audience, the absence of words overburdens the When Dej asked Crisan to tell some jokes, the actor immediately agreed. Knowing that the majority of the members of the government were Jews, Crisan insisted on telling political jokes exclusively with Jews. This was on Dej’s liking, as he could not bear his Israelite political companions that were brought to power by Soviet Russia. One of the jokes is constructed on a two-phase dialogue between two old friends, Ytzig and Shmoil. Ytzig tries a couple of times to inform Shmoil on the telephone of the latest Truman’s and Churchill’s broadcasts, only to be hung up on each time by the latter. The two meet one day at the flea market. A blustering Ytzig demands from Shmoil an explanation for his telephonic turndowns. He finds out that the telephones are tapped by Securitate (the secret services in communist Romania) and that, the next time, he should encode the conversation, using the initials of the subjects instead of their full names: A for Adenaeur, C for Churchill, T for Truman and so on. The following day, Ytzig, with his lesson learned, calls Shmoil. Before the later could react, he blurts out: Did you hear what balderdash Gheorghe Gheorghiu D said last night on the radio? Fortunately, Dej appreciated the joke and found himself extremely amused by it (Cilibia 2008: 51-54). 5 In accordance with the survey discussed in the beginning of this article, 20% of the Romanians considered that the Jews’ most important flaw is niggardliness.
