From Russia with Lunch (22 page)

What Moses brought with him from the
shtetl
was a coping mechanism – a way of putting the trials of life on hold for the time it takes to deliver a punchline while easing your acceptance into a new society of strangers. Which as I read it is a succinct definition of stand-up comedy. His avenue for this was the Yiddish Theatre of Cape Town and its dinner tables. Mine is the stage and page. Yet the ultimate aims are the same and we make our way in life using a similar MO. My mother tells me that while we look similar, my delivery and that of her father are identical. Which is where I know the joy lies for me as I hope it might for him. Wherever he may be.

Aside from enriching my future with a sense of the past and present, travelling to Lithuania has made fact what was once a suspicion. Despite the issues I have with aspects of the faith into which I was born, I view the world through a Jewish lens. In its humour I find voice, succour and the most reliable of antidepressants. It is also a force of cohesion which has underpinned familial bonds on joyful occasions and bound us even tighter in tragedy's shadow.

Along with my siblings, I am the custodian of my family's take on Jewish comedy – which has retained its essence across two languages and three continents. Since the Lithuanian journey ended, two once-vague notions have been clarified. Whenever I am on stage giving the punters nyucks for their bucks in some suburban Australian pub, invisible fault lines through space and time connect the gags to Lithuanian
shtetls
.

I also now have a suitable answer to my mother-in-law's question. My people, I could tell her, are a mother, brother, sister and a joke-catalogue of a grandfather who frequently reduced me to a cackling mess. My people are also Jerry Seinfeld, Joan Rivers, Jon Stewart, Shelley Berman, Jackie Mason, Shecky Greene, Sid Caesar, Woody Allen and a host of others. Not for their common religion but for their culture and the way it makes them view an often indifferent and callous world. Better still, I could combine both of these elements and invite her over for a mock
bris
.

Acknowledgments

Over the course of writing this book and in the years preceding it, I have become indebted to friends and colleagues without whom you would probably be holding Dan Brown's latest. In Lithuania, the journey was enriched by Ruta Arwiniouskiene, Mark the anonymous Aussie groom, Robert Stackiokas, Debbie Makin, Vytautas Vargas, Vilius Botyrius, Giedre Stankeviciute and the inimitable Seftel Melamedas.

Closer to home, Herbert and Paul Epstein's dedicated family research added to the book beyond measure. I would also like to thank my agent Fiona Inglis for her unshakeable faith and my publisher Madonna Duffy who routinely believes that after I talk the talk, I can walk the walk. Then there's the magnificent Jo Jarrah, the kind of editor writers dream about. Combining razor sharp skills with the tact of a diplomat, she ‘got it' from page one and I am eternally thankful for her talent.

In magazine land, the entire staffs of
Madison
and
Shop Til You Drop
magazines are a godsend of encouragement in the often solitary world of book writing. I would, however, like to single out Elizabeth Renkert, Stephanie Colls, Louise Stewart, Jessica Montague, Jessica Irvine, Alex Carlton, Kate Spies, Danielle De Gail, Kate Vickers, Jenny King, Roshan Sahukar, Emma Markezic and, of course, Paula Joye. Other publishing types who have wittingly or otherwise contributed to the cause include Wendy Moore, Lynn Testoni, Kerrie McCallum, Tracey Platt, Jo Bates, Jacqui Mooney, Corinne Ng, Deborah Tan, Lynette Ow, Alison Boleyn, Natalie Reilly, Mark Dapin, Rob Johnson, Phil Abraham, Todd Cole, Lisa Wilkinson and Marina Go.

In the stand-up comedy world, I wish the following unlimited stage time and killer sets: Janet McLeod, Mark Williamson, Ali McGregor, Liam Nesbitt, Dan Moore, Kathryn Bendall, Rob McHugh, Michael Brown, Dave Bloustein, Jennifer Wong, Ben Elwood, Kent Valentine, Sam Bowring and Dave Gorman.

On the home front, the family support of Richard and Stephanie Smiedt, Lynn Niselow and Renecia Miller is valued beyond words. The same applies to Miguel Ayesa, Robyn Katz, Rob Johnson and John Burfitt. Finally, I'd like to give a ‘go, you big red fire engine' to Adam Hills, my mate of twenty years, provider of cover quotes and a shining example that joy is contagious.

Also by David Smiedt
ARE WE THERE YET?

Chasing a Childhood Through South Africa

Life in 1980s South African suburbia was pretty close to perfect. As long as you were the right colour and weren't burdened by a conscience.

In 2003 David Smiedt travelled to South Africa to find a very different country to the one he and his family left in 1989. Growing up in Johannesburg, he had a typical Apartheid-era white childhood.

Now, in a post-Apartheid nation full of confusion and contradictions, David journeys across the country in search of a father he's almost forgotten. From Soweto to Cape Town, from Kruger to Kimberley, what he finds is shocking, entrancing, surreal and stunningly beautiful.

Are We There Yet?
is both warmly funny and intensely moving – a rare and timely tribute to a complex country.

‘A story of South Africa past and present, humorous, elegant and deeply evocative.'

Bryce Courtenay

‘A riveting account of “going back”.'

Weekend Australian

ISBN 978 0 7022 3384 5

First published 2008 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia

www.uqp.com.au

© David Smiedt

This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any foram or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

Typeset in 11.5/14.5 Minion by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane University of Queensland Press

Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
National Library of Australia

Smiedt, David
From Russia with lunch: a Lithuanian odyssey

Smiedt, David – Travel – Lithuania.
Lithuania – Description and travel.
Lithuania – Social life and customs. I. Title.

947.93092

Author photo, back cover: Lindy Martin.
Author photo, page i: Photobat.

ISBN 978 0 7022 3656 3 (pbk)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5754 4 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5755 1 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5756 8 (kindle)