Idioteex

Posts Tagged ‘Israel’

Anana Presents: Music From Israel

The story of my business – Meetings with humor: How Not to take work seriously  

 
Have you laughed today?

My name is Debbie Iancu Haddad (32), I’m a mother of two darling children, a phd student at BGU and I am a lecturer on humor and laugh yoga instructor.

I was born in Israel to a British mother & Romanian father who met in the immigration center (mercaz klitah) in Beer-Sheva. When I was 10 months old the family returned to England for six years, and re-emigrated in 1981.

Growing up bilingual in Israel was a huge help and has seen me through a BA, an MA and a third of a Phd. Even though I take studying seriously (almost no one who knows me would say too seriously) – my research interests focus on humor. My MA was an exploration of Diet humor and my doctorate research is about humor as a communication tool used by managers and head masters. If that isn’t enough I’m also a laugh yoga instructor. You may ask “don’t I take anything seriously?” Well the answer is: “No. But thank you for asking”. 

I opened my business in 2006 when I was unemployed following the birth of my 2 nd child. I had just been accepted into the BGU department of education as a phd student but was not granted a scholarship because my grade point average was 2.5 points below the cutoff (some would call that funny…). I needed to find work that would on the one hand keep the mortgage payments going out and on the other hand give me enough time to study. My friends in the department used to joke that we would never make any money from anthropology… but there was one guy who gave lectures to schools on his MA subject. Since my MA subject was Diet Humor, and since almost everyone diets I thought there might be some people interested.