ethnic humor, 1–2, 5, 187, 199–200, 221, 227
exaggeration, 3, 27, 57, 71, 115, 130, 240
exile, Jewish, 16, 95, 99, 117, 184, 189–90, 192, 197, 242
Exodus, Book of, 115
expectations, comic, 2, 6, 76, 106, 116, 152
fartumlen, 147
fascism, 17, 226, 235
fear, and humor, 50–51, 63, 117, 147, 227
Fiddler on the Roof, 66, 103, 162, 205. See also Tevye the Dairyman
films, 46, 65, 75, 118, 124, 131, 146, 179–81, 199, 203–6, 212–15, 230–33, 240–42. See also names of individual films
Final Solution, 17, 147
flusterwitze (whispered jokes), 178
folk humor, 3, 13, 16, 20, 67, 79, 85–88, 153–56, 187
folklore, 13, 86, 154, 202
Fraiberg, Selma, 63
France, 36, 68, 257n3
Freed, Arthur, 231
Freiheit (Yiddish Communist daily), 92
Freud, Sigmund, 3, 7–13, 32–35, 42, 45, 54–55, 75, 89, 133–35, 178, 228, 251n6, 265n10; Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, 3, 32, 89
Friedman, Bruce Jay: Stern, 132, 237
gallows humor, 82, 141, 154, 178. See also ghetto humor; Holocaust humor
Gaon of Vilna (Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon), 69
Gashashim. See Hagashash hahiver
gematria, 210
Genesis, Book of, 22, 94, 184
German humor, 16, 18, 35, 57–59, 88, 148–52, 158, 176–242, 260n2
Germany, 37, 68, 100, 136, 138, 144, 148, 176, 179, 183, 188–89, 224, 242
ghetto humor, 17, 149–54, 177–78, 242–43. See also gallows humor; Holocaust humor
ghettos, 9, 17, 21, 44, 49–50, 147, 149, 151–54, 161, 176–77, 242–43
“Gimpel the Fool” (Singer), 98–99, 237
God, 19, 21–23, 41–42, 72, 78, 81, 84, 94, 99, 105, 114–16, 137, 151, 171, 182–84, 188–90, 193, 195, 233, 249n5, 258n11
Goebbels, Joseph, 136
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 36, 40, 48; Travels in Italy, 40
Gogol, Nikolay Vasilyevich, 62–63; “The Nose,” 62
Goldberg, Molly, 130, 239
Goldfaden, Abraham: The Two Kuni-Lemls (The Fanatic), 73–75
Goldman, Albert, 25
golem, 222
Goodman, John, 131
Gordon-Levitt, Joseph, 231
Great Dictator, The (Chaplin), 179
Grossinger’s Catskill Resort Hotel, 128
Grossman, David: See: Under Love, 215
Grotjahn, Martin, 12
gulags, 17, 149. See also concentration camps
Gulf War, 207–9
Gutfreund, Amir: Shoah shelanu (Our Holocaust), 216–17
Gypsy, 104
Haaretz, 136
Hagashash hahiver (Hagashashim), 199–206, 211, 263n15; Hill Halfon Doesn’t Answer, 204–6; “The Judge and the Referee,” 199; “Kreker vs. Kreker,” 203–4
Haggai, Book of, 78–79
Halkin, Hillel, 13
Halpern, Moishe Leyb, 96
Haman, 23, 95, 151, 209
Hanina, Rabbi, 81
Hanukkah, 120
Harvard University, 1, 5–7, 11, 227, 234, 245–47
Hasidism, 43, 69–72, 74–77, 79–80, 115
Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), 68–71, 75, 80, 145
Hatikvah (The Hope), 28, 187
Hebrew language, 62, 50, 80, 156, 183–84, 193–94, 197–99, 210, 212, 214–15, 232–34; Academy of the Hebrew Language, 198; punning in, 80–81; specific words in, 34, 98, 151, 184, 196, 200, 208, 210; vs. Yiddish, 16–17, 68–69, 150, 158, 185
Hebrew literature, 13, 18, 68, 71, 136, 159, 188, 190, 192, 217
Heine, Heinrich, 14–18, 29, 35–51, 53, 56–60, 65, 67, 79, 91, 93–94, 96, 104, 111, 137, 171–72, 229, 242, 252n7, 252n15, 256–57n31, 263n5; “The Baths of Lucca,” 40–44, 59; “Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam,” 38–39; Ludwig Börne: A Memorial, 29; “Princess Sabbath,” 14–16
Heine’s Jewish Comedy (Prawer), 46–47
hermetic humor, 82–83, 149, 152
Hershele Ostropolier, 77–79, 90, 161, 254–55n12
Herzl, Theodor, 30–32, 35, 184, 189–90, 251n6, 253n29; Altneuland (Old-new land), 30
Hezbollah, 241
Hill 24 Doesn’t Answer, 204, 206
Hitler, Adolf, 17, 127, 143–44, 147–48, 151, 178–81, 189, 226, 234, 238
Hitler-Stalin pact, 93, 147
Hollywood, 126, 236, 239
Holocaust, 17–18, 65, 153, 214–16, 224, 236–37, 241
Holocaust humor, 151–54, 178–81, 213–15, 218–19, 224, 236–37. See also gallows humor; ghetto humor
homosexuality, 47–48, 232–33
horror: and Jewish humor, 183, 219
humorlessness, 13, 22; in Israel, 182–85, 187, 194–95
Hus, Jan, 222
Ilf, Ilya, 160–61; The Twelve Chairs, 161
incongruities, 16, 33, 51, 64, 75, 99, 127, 129, 131, 140, 190, 228, 232
Inquisition, 21, 51, 57, 108
In the Heart of Seas (Agnon), 189–92
inversions, 23, 51, 77, 80, 106, 177, 190. See also reversals
irony, 31, 34, 49, 75, 81, 86–87, 133, 163–64, 166, 176, 192, 197, 222, 227; of Jewish experience, 23, 27–28, 97, 151, 154, 206, 216–17
Isaiah, Book of, 81, 255n14
Israel, 3, 10–11, 18–19, 88–89, 92, 117, 134, 166–67, 182–220, 233, 239–40, 242
Israel Defense Forces (IDF), 199
Israeli humor, 10–11, 18–19, 182–220
Israel Independence Day, 206
Israel of Ruzhin, 72
Italy, 40, 183
Jabotinsky, Ze’ev, 28
Jacobson, Howard: The Finkler Question, 239–42; Seriously Funny, 221
Jerusalem, 83, 93, 188, 192, 216, 218, 220
Jerusalem Betar, 199–200, 203
Jessel, George, 123
Jesus Christ, 16, 45, 94, 137–38
Jewish Enlightenment. See Haskalah
Jewish law, 31, 43, 98, 135, 137, 141, 188, 234–35, 257n3
Jewish mothers, 64, 85–88, 113–14, 134–35, 139–40, 214, 255–56n20
Jews: in Arab lands, 20, 117, 198, 200, 209; collective identity of, 10, 156; as conditioned for disaster, 3; distinctiveness of, 118; egalitarianism among, 8–9; as an “ever-dying people,” 228; and; and modernity, 13–14, 20, 24, 43–44, 62, 67–68, 73–75, 88, 98–99, 143–44, 147, 190, 192, 202, 242; as “the people of the joke,” 13; rifts among, 24, 49, 69–70; unity among, 49–50, 62, 65, 203
Jews and Humor (Greenspoon), 13
Job, Book of, 22, 65, 81
Johnson, Samuel, 80
Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (Freud), 3
Jones, Ernest, 8
Joyce, James, 191
Judaism, 9, 22, 26, 42, 61, 88, 137, 156–57, 235; conversion to, 108, 131, 257n3; observant, 21, 140; rabbinic, 88; Reform, 49
Jude, Der, 53
Judenwitz, 39, 59
Julian the Apostate (Flavius Claudius Julianus), 105
Juvenal, 105
kaddish, 89, 171
Kafka, Franz, 22, 28, 51–57, 104, 132, 214–15, 221–22; ” 53; The Trial, 221
Kahn, Gus, 129
Karbusicky, Vladimir, 222–27, 242; Jewish Anecdotes from Prague, 222–27
Karpinovitch, Avrom, 154–55
Kassow, Samuel, 154
Kaufman, George S., 229
Kaye, Danny (David Daniel Kaminsky), 130, 231, 237; The Court Jester, 231
Keret, Etgar, 217
Kerman, Danny, 182, 218
KGB, 164–65
Kierkegaard, Søren Aabye, 117
Kiev, 62, 64, 87
King of the Schnorrers (Zangwill), 107–13, 251n3
Kishinev, 60
Kishon, Efraim, 197
kosher laws (kashruth), 31, 88, 135, 141, 156, 234
kova tembel, 196
Kraków, 20, 221
Kramer vs. Kramer, 203
Kraus, Karl, 50, 91, 265n10
Kulbak, Moshe, 93, 97, 167–72, 176; Zelmenyaners, 97, 167–71
Kuni Leml in Tel Aviv (Goldfaden), 75
lamed-vovniks, 151
laughing at, vs. laughing with, 112–13, 131, 164
“Laughing Tiger,” 63
laughter, 64, 112, 152, 172, 175, 180–81, 185, 198, 211–13, 219, 227, 231; collective, 125; humiliation channeled into, 10; Jewish, 11, 28, 106, 126, 128, 130, 139, 145, 243; God’s, 184; physical benefits of, 24–25, 28, 102; and religious ecstasy, 75; in response to joking, 1–6, 9, 31, 33, 82–83, 103, 120, 155, 176, 218–20; rueful, 16; salvific properties of, 65, 115, 141, 214, 243; Sarah’s, 22; and stand-up comedy, 129, 234; and tears, 63, 90, 125, 128–29, 155; tolerating, 242; and trembling, 115; as universal, 14, 20
Lebensohn, Micah Joseph, 159
Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich, 160, 162
Levenson, Jon, 246
Levi, Yeshayahu “Shaike,” 199, 201. See also Hagashash hahiver
Levin, Shmaryahu, 26
Levi Yitzhok of Berdichev, Rabbi, 115
Lewis, Jerry (Joseph Levitch), 122, 201
Lexicon of Yiddish Literature, 93–94
Liebermann, Max, 242
Life Is Beautiful (Benigni), 179
literacy, Jewish, 68, 228, 233. See also education
Lodz, 144, 155, 176
Loew, Judah, 222
London, 12–13, 21, 40, 73, 80, 106, 110, 113, 118, 230
Lower East Side, 14, 96
Lubitsch, Ernst, 179–80, 242; To Be or Not to Be, 179–80
Mad Men, 230
madness, 18, 25, 88, 102, 108, 207, 257n3
maggidim, 127
“Make ’Em Laugh,” 230–31
Malamud, Bernard, 131–32, 237; A New Life, 132
Malbim (Meir Leibush ben Jehiel Mikhel Weiser), 81
male humor, 83, 85, 211, 233
male, the Jewish. See masculinity
Man Booker Prize, 239, 241
Mandelstam, Nadezhda, 160
Mandelstam, Osip, 160–61; “Kremlin mountaineer,” 160
Manger, Itsik, 92–96; Songs of the Megillah, 95
Markfield, Wallace: To an Early Grave, 132
Markish, Peretz, 156
Marranos, 57
marriage, 32, 74, 109, 118, 134, 136, 188, 191, 257n3
marshalik, 67
Martin, Dean, 201
Marx Brothers, 24, 77, 230; Duck Soup, 230; Night at the Opera, 230
Marx, Groucho, 118–19, 127, 145, 230
Marxism, 170
Marx, Karl, 156–57
masculinity, 129–31, 134, 136–38, 237
MASH, 205–6
Maskilim (“Enlighteners”), 68–69, 73, 76, 100
Mason (Maza), Jackie, 129–30
matchmakers, 32, 71, 80
maxims, 86–87, 151–52, 229. See also proverbs
Mayer, Hans, 47–48
Mazeh, Rabbi Jacob, 157
Megillah. See Esther
Meir, Golda, 186
melodrama, 173–75, 231
mentshele, 187, 263n5
meshumodim (apostates), 91–92
messianism, 44, 87, 159
midrash, 13, 24, 94
military humor, 166, 185, 194–97, 199, 204–6
mimicry, 45, 47, 53, 64
Mishnah, 88
Misnagdim, 69–70, 80
misreadings, 81, 163, 255n14
misunderstandings: of Jewish humor, 4; as joke technique, 190, 198
mitzvahs, 26, 84
Mizrahim (Sephardim), 199–200, 205, 209–11
Mogulescu, Zelig, 231
Molière, 70, 212
morality: and joking, 48, 50, 71, 77, 83, 153, 179, 228–29, 237–39, 242–43
Moscow, 155, 157, 162, 165
Moses, 43, 76
Moses Little Lump, 49–50, 79
Moshonov, Moni, 210
movies. See films
Muni, Paul (Meshulim Meier Weisenfreund), 125–26
Muslims, 20–21, 211, 240–41, 243
Mussolini, Benito, 151
mysticism, 69, 71–72, 75–76, 136
Nadir, Moshe (Isaac Reiss), 92–93, 96–97, 125; “My First Deposit,” 96
Nahman of Bratslav, 43–44, 76–77, 98
nationalism, 22, 65, 95, 183
Nazism, 136, 138, 148–50, 155, 177, 179, 215, 219, 228, 240
nebbishes, 129
need for humor. See reliance on humor
Nevo, Ofra, 210
New York, 14, 57, 73, 84, 92, 96–97, 103, 122, 185, 230
New Yorker, 118
New York Friars’ Club, 122
Nicholas II, 84
Night at the Opera (Marx Brothers), 230
nirtzeh, 150
Nobel Prize for Literature, 93, 193, 235, 263n10
noses, Jewish, 37, 41–42, 45, 59–62, 90, 252n15
Nudelman, Moishe (Mark), 103
Numbers, Book of, 170
O’Connor, Donald, 230–31
Odessa, 27, 159, 161, 173–74
offensiveness, 2, 79, 136, 146, 219, 234–36
Old Jews Telling Jokes, 243
Olsvanger, Immanuel, 3–4, 249n1
Only Yesterday (Agnon), 18
Oppenheim, Menashe, 146
origins of Jewish humor, 13, 19–20, 67
Oring, Elliott, 13, 21, 194–96
Orwell, George, 150
Oslo Peace Accords, 218
Ostjude (East European Jew), 59
Palestine, 18, 30–31, 127, 136, 138, 194, 196, 217, 219
Palestinians, 209, 240
Palmah, 194–97, 199
paradox, 27–28, 75–77, 88, 143, 153, 228
Paris, 199, 225
parody, 40, 54, 87, 108, 160, 169, 191, 204, 210
passivity, Jewish, 178, 209. See also accommodation
Passover, 80, 89, 98, 150, 152, 156
Peres, Shimon, 202
Peretz, I. L., 57
Perl, Joseph, 71–73; Revealer of Secrets, 71
Petrov, Evgeny, 160–61; The Twelve Chairs, 161
physical comedy, 230–33
Pinkas Synagogue (Prague), 221
Plimpton, George, 132
pogroms, 60–61, 73, 82, 95, 143
Polacek, Karel, 224
Poland, 27, 57, 70, 79, 93–95, 97, 106, 118, 143–46, 149, 155, 158, 176, 186, 212, 219, 225–26
Poliakov, Yisrael “Poli,” 199, 201. See also Hagashash hahiver
political censorship. See censorship
political correctness, 200, 211, 234–39
political humor, 71, 145–47, 164–66, 187–88, 202
Potter, Stephen, 112–13
powerlessness, Jewish, 20, 76, 153, 182–84, 186, 209
Prague, 51–53, 221–22, 224–25
Prawer, Sigmund, 46–47
prayer, 19, 23, 65, 72, 77, 82–83, 86, 89–91, 114, 137, 144, 155–56
“Princess Sabbath” (Heine), 14–16
Producers, The (Brooks), 179–81
profanity, 16, 93, 130, 136. See also vulgarity
professional comedy, 12, 77, 104–6, 122–32, 144, 187, 197, 199, 218. See also Borscht Belt; comedians
prosperity, 78, 80, 129, 137, 239
Protestantism, 42, 44, 48, 230, 258n11
proverbs, Yiddish, 23, 86–88, 153. See also maxims
Pryor, Richard, 136
psychoanalysis, 8, 12, 32, 63, 133
punch lines, 1, 6, 82, 87, 125, 127, 142, 219, 233
punning, 45, 50, 80–81, 153, 229–30, 252n14. See also wordplay
Purim, 23, 67, 95, 105–6, 151, 209
rabbinic exegesis, 80, 191, 210, 228
rabbinic tradition, 22, 127, 191, 197, 210
rabbinic wit (sikhes khulin), 80–85
rabbis, 13, 21, 26, 30, 69–73, 77, 88, 93, 100–102, 109, 115, 128–29, 140, 157, 209, 222, 233–34; Hasidic, 70–72; jokes about, 19, 32, 81–82, 87, 91, 116; Purim, 23, 106; Talmudic, 22, 80–81, 224
Rabinovich, S
holem. See Sholem Aleichem
racial humor, 5, 136. See also ethnic humor
radio, 124, 177, 197, 199
Radner, Gilda, 210
Raskin, Richard, 113–15
Ravnitski, Yehoshua, 64
Rawidowicz, Simon, 228
Reik, Theodor, 8, 12, 183, 219, 265n10
reliance on humor, Jewish, 21, 24, 143, 149, 153–54, 182, 187, 228–29
religious humor, 23–24, 38, 42, 48–49, 72, 74, 78–79, 91–92, 99, 116, 125
repression: Jewish, 135, 137, 228; political, 18, 148–49, 166, 177–78, 225–26; and psychoanalysis, 133, 228. See also censorship
reversals, 23, 50, 76, 79, 106, 120, 175, 183, 196, 210; as joke technique, 26, 33, 174. See also inversion
Rilke, Rainer Maria, 94
Ringelblum, Emanuel, 152–54
Riskin, Rabbi Shlomo, 234
Rivers (Molinsky Sanger Rosenberg), Joan, 130
Roman (Kirschenbaum), Freddy, 122
Romanticism, 36, 38–40, 43, 48, 69
Rosten, Leo (Leonard Q. Ross), 118–21; The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N, 118–21; The Joys of Yiddish, 121; The Joys of Yinglish, 121
Roth, Henry: Call It Sleep, 132
Roth, Philip, 28, 131–42, 176, 212, 220, 241, 259n25; The Breast, 133; Portnoy’s Complaint, 132–42, 176; Our Gang, 133
Rothschild, Salomon, 30, 45, 49–50, 79
Russia, 12, 60, 63, 67–68, 70, 84, 97, 106, 148, 156, 158, 186, 188, 230
Russian civil war, 161
Russian humor, 18, 27, 62, 155–67, 188, 260n11
Russian Jews, 64, 68, 70, 73, 84, 97, 101, 108, 158, 162, 172
Russian-Polish war, 161
Ruth, Book of, 94
sabbath, 14–16, 27, 49, 65, 79, 88, 91, 109–10, 131, 153, 156; jokes about, 6, 33, 81, 85; in Yiddish theater, 125, 144
sabra, 184, 194, 196, 213
Sadan, Dov, 187, 246
Sadat, Anwar, 207
Saddam Hussein, 208–9
Saphir, Moritz, 258n11
Sarah, 22, 94
Satan, 190–91
satire, 27, 31, 46–48, 187, 190, 243, 258n11; British, 107, 111, 113, 117, 239–42; German, 50, 242; in Israel, 202, 210; Jewish Enlightenment, 70–72, 80, 145; Jews as targets of, 105, 237; morality in, 48, 141; of Nazism, 179–81; in Russia, 160, 176; social, 111, 117, 187, 240
Saturday Night Live, 210–11, 231
scatological humor, 46, 71, 78–79, 83. See also vulgarity
Schiller, Friedrich von, 36
schlemiels, 12–13, 20, 100, 129, 146, 231, 237–38
schleppers, 184
schlimazels, 20, 129
Schmidman, Joshua, 26
Schnitzler, Arthur: Der Weg ins Freie (The road into the open), 8–10, 35
schnorrers, 15, 32–33, 79–80, 107–12, 121
scholarship on humor, 12–13
Scholem, Gershom, 136, 138, 192, 220
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