A joke within a dream

Last night, for the first time I can remember, I told a joke in a dream.

It was at some sort of family gathering, and somebody asked for a joke. I said “Two Jewish peanuts were walking down the street, and one was a salted.”

I remember that the next thing that happened in the dream was that I found myself analyzing the moment. The sheer stupidity of being attacked just for being, specifically, a Jewish peanut was actually the point.

And in fact my dream audience had laughed, which didn’t surprise me. It was the right joke for my audience, because people in our family have all had experiences of being assailed just for being Jewish.

I don’t think the timing of this dream was random. The other day an old friend in California told me that his Lyft driver started ranting angrily at him for being a Jew. My friend said he hadn’t heard that sort of language for many decades, and certainly not in California.

So I suspect it was on my mind.

In fact, I suspect this sort of thing is on a lot of peoples’ minds these days. It used to be that people in charge of our country didn’t call people ugly names, and make random verbal attacks on those with the least power in society.

Alas, the era of civilized behavior at the top seems to be over, at least for now. Maybe we will all wake up soon and realize that it as all just a stupid joke within a dream.

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