Jewish Humour

From the shetl to the Borscht Belt to Woody Allen’s New York, a compendium of jokes, witticisms, and home truths for Jews and non–Jews alike.

“My grandmother was a very tough woman—she buried three husbands, and two of them were just napping.” (Rita Rudner)

“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my films—I want to achieve it by not dying.” (Woody Allen)

There have been many great Jewish humorists—Sid Caesar, Groucho Marx, George Burns, Mel Brooks—but is there such a thing as Jewish humor? Ben Eliezer sees it as the ultimate ethnic humor—full of received slights and insults (real and imagined), self–mocking, making light of disastrous circumstances. Then there are the usual preoccupations with mothers, doctors, food, sex, death, and money. But, above all, as the author notes: “Jewish humor is like all humor—it’s there to make you laugh.”