A Club of Their Own: Jewish Humorists and the Contemporary World(Studies in Contemporary Jewry)

Volume XXIX of Studies in Contemporary Jewry takes its title from a joke by Groucho Marx: "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member." The line encapsulates one of the most important characteristics of Jewish humor: the desire to buffer oneself from potentially unsafe or awkward situations, and thus to achieve social and emotional freedom. By studying the history and development of Jewish humor, the essays in this volume not only provide nuanced accounts of how Jewish humor can be described but also make a case for the importance of humor in studying any culture. A recent survey showed that about four in ten American Jews felt that "having a good sense of humor" was "an essential part of what being Jewish means to them," on a par with or exceeding caring for Israel, observing Jewish law, and eating traditional foods. As these essays show, Jewish humor has served many functions as a form of "insider" speech. It has been used to ridicule; to unite people in the face of their enemies; to challenge authority; to deride politics and politicians; in America, to ridicule conspicuous consumption; in Israel, to contrast expectations of political normalcy and bitter reality. However, much of contemporary Jewish humor is designed not only or even primarily as insider speech. Rather, it rewards all those who get the punch line. A Club of Their Own moves beyond general theorizing about the nature of Jewish humor by serving a smorgasbord of finely grained, historically situated, and contextualized interdisciplinary studies of humor and its consumption in Jewish life in the modern world.

Table of Contents:
Symposium A Club of Their Own: Jewish Humorists and the Contemporary World Steven Beller, "The Right Mélange": Viennese Operetta as a Stage for Jewish Humor Edward Portnoy, Purim on Pesach: The Invented Tradition of Passover Yontef-bletlekh in the Warsaw Yiddish Press Stephen J. Whitfield, Jackie Mason: The Comedian as Ethnographer Jarrod Tanny, Decoding Seinfeld's Jewishness Michael Berkowitz, "Humour Wholesalers"? Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran's Anglo-Jewish Television Comedy Carol Zemel, Funny-Looking: Thoughts on Jewish Visual Humor Anna Shternshis, Humor and Russian Jewish Identity Avinoam Patt, "Laughter through Tears": Jewish Humor in the Aftermath of the Holocaust Kerstin Steitz, And Hannah Laughed: The Role of Irony in Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem Gabriel N. Finder, An Irony of History: Ephraim Kishon's German Triumph Diego Rotman, The "Tsadik from Plonsk" and "Goldenyu": Political Satire in Dzigan and Shumacher's Israeli Comic Repertoire Limor Shifman, Humor and Ethnicity on Israeli Television: A Historical Perspective Asal Dardan, From Monsters to Pop Icons: The Use of Humor in Films on Nazis and Hitler since Der Untergang David Slucki, Making Out in Anne Frank's Attic: Humor and the Holocaust in Australia Essay Richard I. Cohen, In Memoriam: Ezra Mendelsohn Review Essay Olga Litvak, The New Marranos Book Reviews (arranged by subject) Antisemitism, Holocaust, and Genocide Esther Farbstein, Beseter hamadregah: hayahadut haortodoksit behungariyah nokha? hashoah (Hidden in the Heights: Orthodox Jewry in Hungary during the Holocaust), Haim Genizi Amos Goldberg, Traumah beguf rishon: ketivat yomanim bitkufat hashoah (Trauma in First Person: Diary Writing during the Holocaust), Omri Herzog Michal Shaul, Pe'er tahat 'efer: hahevrah haharedit beyisrael betzel hashoah 1945-1961 (Beauty for Ashes: Holocaust Memory and the Rehabilitation of Ashkenazi Haredi Society in Israel 1945-1961), Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz Ben Urwand, The Collaboration: Hollywood's Pact with Hitler, Ofer Ashkenazi Cultural Studies Joy Calico, Arnold Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw in Postwar Europe, Yoel Greenberg Olga Gershenson, The Phantom Holocaust: Soviet Cinema and Jewish Catastrophe, Olga Litvak Ernest B. Gilman, Yiddish Poetry and the Tuberculosis Sanatorium 1900-1970, Jan Schwarz Rina Lapidus, Jewish Women Writers in the Soviet Union, Olga Litvak Harriet Murav, Music from a Speeding Train: Jewish Literature in Post-Revolutionary Russia, Olga Litvak Efraim Sicher (ed.), Race, Color, Identity: Rethinking Discourses about "Jews" in the Twenty- First Century, Mitchell B. Hart Yosef Tobi and Tsivia Tobi, Judeo-Arabic Literature in Tunisia, 1850-1950, Norman (Noam) A. Stillman History and Biography Mordechai Altshuler, Religion and Jewish Identity in the Soviet Union, 1941-1964, trans. Saadya Sternberg, Olga Litvak Dianne Ashton, Hanukkah in America: A History, Hizky Shoham Elissa Bemporad, Becoming Soviet Jews: The Bolshevik Experiment in Minsk, Olga Litvak Ava F. Kahn and Adam D. Mendelsohn, Transnational Traditions: New Perspectives on American Jewish History, Eli Lederhendler Cecile Esther Kuznitz, YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture: Scholarship for the Yiddish Nation, Eli Lederhendler Jess Olson, Nathan Birnbaum and Jewish Modernity: Architect of Zionism, Yiddishism and Orthodoxy, David Weinberg Yaacov Ro'i (ed.), The Jewish Movement in the Soviet Union, Olga Litvak David Shneer, Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War and the Holocaust, Olga Litvak Lee-Shai Weissbach (ed. and trans.), A Jewish Life on Three Continents: The Memoir of Menachem Mendel Frieden, Gur Alroey Zionism, Israel, and the Middle East Gideon Aran, Kookism: shoreshei Gush Emunim, tarbut hamitna?alim, teologiyah tziyonit, meshihiyut bizmanenu (Kookism: The Roots of Gush Emunim, Settler Culture, Zionist Theology, and Contemporary Messianism), Tamar Ross Israel Bartal and Shimon Shamir, Beit Salomon: sheloshah dorot shel mehadeshei hayishuv (The Salomons: Three Generations of Pioneers and Leaders), Reuven Gafni Anat Helman, A Coat of Many Colors: Dress Culture in the Young State of Israel, Jenna Weissman Joselit Mark LeVine and Mathias Mossberg (eds.), One Land, Two States: Israel and Palestine as Parallel States, Menachem Klein Studies in Contemporary Jewry XXX Note on Editorial Policy

About the Author :
Eli Lederhendler is a modern Jewish historian who specializes in American and European Jewish politics, society, and migration. He has taught at Yale University, University College London, Vassar College, Tel-Aviv University, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Gabriel N. Finder is Ida and Nathan Kolodiz Director of the Jewish Studies at the University of Virginia. His research interests lie in the Holocaust and in the rebuilding of Jewish life in Europe in its aftermath.