With an ongoing international conference, Jewish humor in recent years has been a subject of serious scholarly inquiry. Most academic publications, however, have been individual works representing a particular thesis or viewpoint, generally on literary aspects. The present collection of essays by scholars from England, France, the United States, Denmark, Israel, and Australia explores characteristics of Jewish humor from a variety of perspectives, including anthropology, literature, psychology, sociology, and religion. Geographically, the work distinguishes between the Jewish humor of Israel and that of the diaspora; historically, it traces Jewish humor to the Bible. The linkages with Judaism and the Yiddish language are explored. Essays deal with the Jewish use of humor in stressful and tragic situations, with self-disparagement in Jewish humor, with anti-semitism and stereotyping, and with Jewish women as the objects of humor. The contributions to world culture of humorists Sholom Aleichem, Woody Allen, Philip Roth, Charlie Chaplin, and numerous contemporary performers are discussed as are the Jewish theorists of humor, including Sigmund Freud, Henri Bergson, and Arthur Koestler. An interdisciplinary book, it will be of interest to students and researchers of Jewish tradition and folklore, Jewish-American literature, American studies, and humor, popular culture, anthropology, psychology, and sociology.
Author(s): Avner Ziv, Anat Zajdman
Year: 1993
Language: English
Pages: 224
Contents......Page 6
Preface......Page 8
Introduction: Jewish Humor — A Survey and a Program......Page 14
Part I: Psychosocial Characteristics of Jewish Humor......Page 22
1 The Schlemiezel: Black Humor and the Shtetl Tradition......Page 24
2 Sholom Aleichem's Humor of Affirmation and Survival......Page 34
3 Exploring the Thesis of the Self-Deprecating Jewish Sense of Humor......Page 50
4 Three Jews and a Blindfold: The Politics of Gallows Humor......Page 68
5 Are Jews Funnier than Non-Jews?......Page 80
6 Since When Is Jewish Humor Not Anti-Semitic?......Page 92
7 The Origins and Evolution of a Classic Jewish Joke......Page 108
Part II: Men and Women in Jewish Humor......Page 126
8 Love among the Stereotypes, or Why Woody's Women Leave......Page 128
9 Philip Roth and Woody Allen: Freud and the Humor of the Repressed......Page 142
10 From Eve to the Jewish American Princess: The Comic Representation of Women in Jewish Literature......Page 152
11 The Transactional Implications of the Jewish Marriage Jokes......Page 164
Part lll: Humor in the Promised Land......Page 184
12 Jewish Humor in the Service of an Israeli Political Leader: The Case of Levi Eshkol......Page 186
13 The Development of Humor in Israeli Children's Literature in the Twentieth Century......Page 198
Selected Bibliography......Page 206
G......Page 208
T......Page 209
Z......Page 210
G......Page 212
N......Page 213
Z......Page 214
About the Editors and Contributors......Page 216
