The intertextual Jewish joke at the turn of the twentieth century and the poetics of a national renewal

Abstract

AbstractThe article examines the role of the intertextual Jewish joke at the turn of the twentieth century, in its historical and cultural contexts. The case studies would be Alter Druyanow’s popular anthology,Sefer Habediha Vehahiddud(The Book of Jokes and Witticisms, Frankfurt 1922), and his archived, unpublished collection of sexual jokes. The frequent use of quotations from sacred Jewish texts, characteristic of these collections, is discussed in light of the distinction between sub-genres of the intertextual joke: the allusive joke, the parodic joke, and the satiric joke. While most reflect the folklorist’s ambition to bridge the gap between Hebrew as a holy language and Yiddish as a Jewish vernacular, a deeper examination of the jokes may discover Druyanow’s subversive motivations as a national activist as well. Druyanow and his contemporaries engaged the biblical and rabbinical sources freely, as vessels capable of sanctifying the secular subject matter of the Jewish national revival. Moreover, the unpublished collection exposes satirical elements embodied in the intertextual Jewish joke of the time, potentially threatening the traditional Jewish worldview.