In this 2017 text, Jeremy Dauber, a professor of Yiddish literature, investigates the history of Jewish comedy, the contexts that created it, its most influential figures, and the changes it has undergone.
Conventional comedy wisdom counsels us to never explain the joke. Not only does this book’s premise fly in the face of that, but Dauber often cranks that defiance up to eleven, granting several jokes enough in-depth analysis to suck any pretense of humor from them. As a result, this is likely the least funny book about comedy you will ever read. It is also not a “history” in the conventionally understood sense. It does not follow a chronology and jumps frequently in time (from contemporary Jewish American comedy to subtle biblical humor to Borscht Belt icons) as Dauber moves from topic to topic. Instead, it is best understood as a sociology of Jewish comedy: a look at the relationship between jokes/jokers and the societies they often lampooned.
Read through that lens, Dauber’s account is learned and frequently insightful. He shows how Jewish comedy has changed from a quasi-defense mechanism (Jews making fun of the gentiles who ostracized them) to a reaction to assimilation (Jews making fun of other Jews who seem to have shed their Jewishness) to a force that helped define American comedy for years to come (think the success and influence of Mort Sahl, Woody Allen, and the creators of Seinfeld). He also unearths often-overlooked humor in biblical narratives, such as the irony-laden comedy of errors that befalls Haman, the jealous, scheming antagonist of the Purim story.
Though at times a dense and ponderous read, Jewish Comedy does a respectable job of unpacking the genre’s tropes, trends, and tendencies.
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