Jewish Humor Research Articles

JEWels: Teasing Out the Poetry in Jewish Humor and Storytelling

JEWels: Teasing Out the Poetry in Jewish Humor and Storytelling

Laughing to keep from [use input undefined]: ChatGPT, Jewish humor, and cultural erasure

This paper uses the embodied, Jewish identities of its three authors, and the experimental methodology of kibbitzing as a form of collective inquiry and self-reflexive praxis in order to demonstrate the limitations of chatbots to produce humorous narratives from an explicitly Jewish epistemology. By contrasting the affordances of large language models (LLMs) and their associated chatbots with the context-based logics of Jewish joke craft and storytelling, this article goes on to demonstrate the risk of cultural erasure that is posed by the positivist, denotative meanings associated with ChatGPT’s attempts at producing jokes for, or about, Jews.

Jewish Wit – In the Original, and in Translation

Abstract This essay, based on Prof. Hessing’s keynote lecture delivered at the opening of the Gronemann-conference in 2022, explores notions of “Jewish wit” in Sammy Gronemann’s German novel Tohuwabohu (translated as Utter Chaos). It focuses on the incongruities and comic potential of the tensions between German and Yiddish in the novel, questioning notions of “original” and “translation” as applied to the interrelationships between Eastern European and German Jewish cultures. By highlighting the linguistic and cultural shifts experienced by these Jewish communities, Gronemann’s novel serves as a focal point for dissecting the nuances of multilingual Jewish humor and the underlying tragedies of Jewish life, especially amidst historical upheavals like World War I and the Holocaust. The essay concludes with insights into Gronemann’s ironic perspective on Zionism and the thematic significance of “Tohuwabohu” as a metaphor for the modern Jewish experience.

Kaplan Louis, At Wit’s End: The Deadly Discourse on the Jewish Joke

The subject of Louis Kaplan’s erudite book, true to its subtitle, is the “deadly discourse on the Jewish joke” in Germany and Austria from the Weimar and Austrian Republics through Nazism. According to Kaplan, the Jewish joke and Jewish wit—the German term der jüdische Witz encompasses both—alienated many Jews, not to mention non-Jews, especially those with antisemitic tendencies. To understand their antipathy to Jewish humor, Kaplan examines the outsized role of the Jewish joke in various cultural debates. The book’s final chapter explores the Jewish joke’s discursive reemergence in West Germany in the early 1960s. What made this discourse in its various permutations “deadly” was the danger of the malicious reproduction of the putative trademarks of Jewish self-conception in Jewish humor—self-deprecation, self-criticism, and self-irony—in antisemitic rhetoric. Kaplan structures his book via individual case studies. One such example is Arthur Trebitsch, a crank Viennese Jewish antisemite, who wrote Geist und Judentum (Spirit and Judaism) in 1919. Through a series of logical contortions Trebitsch attempts to prove Aryan superiority and Jewish inferiority with an exposé of the “authentically Jewish” (echt jüdisch) joke, with its preference for rhetorical sleight of hand in degrading traditional values. Riveting is the account of Alfred Wiener’s effort, which he initiated in 1925 on behalf of the leadership of the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith (Central Verein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens). The association was German Jewry’s watchdog to monitor antisemitism. Wiener strove to censor self-mocking Jewish humor on stage, even if it also satirized antisemites; however, his initiatve received pushback from popular Jewish comedian Kurt Robitschek, who defended the right of free speech. Pivotal to Kaplan’s exposition is Nazism’s exploitation of Jewish self-critical jokes to validate antisemitism and to serve Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda. Kaplan cites the example of Rasse und Humor (Race and Humor, 1936) by Siegfried Kadner. In it Kadner justifies Nazi antisemitism by claiming that the Nazis were merely repeating the negative attributes Jews readily admitted to in their own jokes. Whereas Trebitsch and Kadner identified justifications for antisemitic claims in Jewish jokes, Wiener attempted to preempt this rationale for antisemitism by nipping typical Jewish humor in the bud.

Laughing to Keep From [User Input Undefined]: ChatGPT, Jewish Humor, and Cultural Erasure

Laughing to Keep From [User Input Undefined]: ChatGPT, Jewish Humor, and Cultural Erasure

American Jewish humor

AbstractThis article charts the development of the particular genre generally known as “Jewish humor.” It provides and overview of the topic for those interested in the relationship between American Jews and humor and the phenomenon of Jewish humor. It aligns the history of the genre with the history of Jews in America to demonstrate the ways in which changes in Jewish American social status was reflected in the type of humor being produced, as well as the way that the evolution of popular media platforms were often shaped and dominated by Jewish content producers. It begins with Yiddish film and theatre and continues through radio and early television, stand‐up comedy, the late twentieth century boom in Jewish sitcoms, the rise of “Generation Hanukkah Song,” and finally the current move toward Internet and social media humor.

Proza Anny Fein. Rosyjsko-izraelska odsłona humoru żydowskiego

Jewish humour with a rich repertoire of forms is an integral part of Jewish culture. The article summarises the typical features of Jewish humour and presents an outline of its history from its beginning at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, through the times of immigrants to Palestine, from the first Aliyah (1882–1903), until the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, to the humour of modern Israel. The humour of Anna Fein – one of the important representatives of Russian-Israeli literature – is situated at the intersection of traditional Jewish humour, Israeli humour, and the mentality of a repatriate (the writer left Russia for Israel during the so-called Great Aliyah), creating an interesting Russian-Israeli version of Jewish humour. Fein’s humour fits in with the exemplary tone of archetypal Jewish humour. At the same time, referring not to the emotions, but to the recipient’s intellect, together with the assumption that humour must have pragmatic values, understood as the implementation of a utilitarian function, it brings the recipient closer to the postulates of Henri Bergson’s theory of laughter.

Laughter After: Humor and the Holocaust

Laughter After: Humor and the Holocaust

At Wit's End: The Deadly Discourse of the Jewish Joke

At Wit's End: The Deadly Discourse of the Jewish Joke

At Wit's End: The Deadly Discourse of the Jewish Joke

At Wit's End: The Deadly Discourse of the Jewish Joke

Christianity and the Triumph of Humor: From Dante to David Javerbaum

Christianity and the Triumph of Humor: From Dante to David Javerbaum

Humor, Psyche, and Society: A Socio-Semiotic Analysis

Humor, Psyche, and Society: A Socio-Semiotic Analysis

“E lhe porás o nome de ele ri”

A nossa pesquisa apresenta as relações entre a questão do riso e do cômico em Henri Bergson e Sigmund Freud sob a ótica da ligação da obra de ambos com a noção de “humor judaico”. A problemática é colocada em uma dupla articulação. Primeiramente, em uma perspectiva da antropologia cultural, evidenciamos as dificuldades impostas pela questão sobre a existência e a origem de um “humor judaico”. Em seguida, por meio da arqueologia filosófica proposta por Giorgio Agamben a partir de Michel Foucault, leremos o mito fundacional do judaísmo como um conjunto de enunciados, um paradigma, uma assinatura nessa antropologia do riso que se constitui na passagem do século XIX ao XX. Palavras-Chave: Bergson. Freud. Psicanálise. Riso. Arqueologia filosófica.

At Wit’s End: The Deadly Discourse on the Jewish Joke by Louis Kaplan

Reviewed by: At Wit’s End: The Deadly Discourse on the Jewish Joke by Louis Kaplan Jennifer Caplan Louis Kaplan. At Wit’s End: The Deadly Discourse on the Jewish Joke. New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2020. Pp 352. Paper $30. ISBN: 9780823287567 The Hasidic rebbe Nachman of Breslov once said, “one can understand the nature of a land by knowing its humor. In order to understand something, one must know the jokes related to it.”1 This idea that the truest nature of a place, or perhaps a people, is revealed through jokes presages what Louis Kaplan is arguing in At Wit’s End: The Deadly Discourse on the Jewish Joke. Kaplan’s book proves that not only are there still new things to be written about Jewish humor, but also that “Jewish humor” as a topic defies easy classification within a specific field or discipline. Additionally, Kaplan reminds us (importantly) that there are vital conversations to be had about Jewish humor that do not (or should not) involve the humor of the United States. Kaplan’s book offers a deep dive into the discourse around the Jewish joke in Germany from the late-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century. This study, Kaplan argues, “demonstrates how giving thought and earnest reflection to the meaning of the Jewish joke (as well as to its provocative laughter) provides an unusual and unique perspective by which one can gain insights into this deadly serious historical moment occupied with the Jewish question” (12). As such, this is not the German microcosm to recent macrocosmic looks at Jewish comedy. Although Kaplan references, and occasionally includes, Jewish jokes, his aim is to analyze the discourse around, and impact of these jokes. He argues that, “the collapse of a clear-cut distinction between Jewish self-irony and anti-Semitism troubles the work of any analyst who hopes to interpret these jokes in a straightforward or nonambivalent way” (219–220). Any analysis of the impact of Jewish jokes, especially those told by Jews, could easily devolve into victim blaming, or reifying the simplistic canard that such jokes are not “good for the Jews.” Kaplan, however, is careful never to allow the linkage between Jewish self-irony and anti-Semitism to become overdetermined. Kaplan structures his analysis around case studies, each from a moment in German history, in order to look at both a publication concerned with der jüdische Witz and the impact of or discussion around it. He begins (perhaps ill-advisedly) with a look at Arthur Trebitsch’s Geist and Judentum (Spirit and Judaism), the most well-known publication by the most well-known “Jewish anti-Semite.” Trebitsch made a career of excoriating and “exposing” Judaism [End Page 245] for the insidious cesspool he believed it to be. Although Trebitsch’s book is not primarily about Jewish jokes, he uses “Jewish wit” as an example of the ways in which Jewish culture was inferior to German culture. “Wit” for Trebitsch is not an expression of positive cleverness, but is instead proof of a craven, manipulative mind. Although beginning with Trebitsch makes sense for Kaplan’s progression, beginning the book with something that was not primarily about or concerned with jokes, and with a figure who is almost universally recognized as “bad for the Jews” starts the reader with an extreme example, which makes some of what comes after difficult to fit into the schema established by chapter one. Nevertheless, the book continues chronologically through the studies, and chapter two is an extraordinary work that brings something truly necessary to the conversation about Jewish humor. In this chapter Kaplan looks at Eduard Fuchs, who Kaplan describes as a “German neo-Marxist visual cultural historian and art collector” (60). This chapter is invaluable for two reasons. First, Kaplan identifies Fuchs as an example of “anti-Semitism of the left.” Fuchs’ case is an important reminder not only that bigotry and bias are not exclusive to right-wing circles, but also that left anti-Semitism is not a new phenomenon. Second, and more importantly, this chapter introduces art and art analysis to the conversation around Jewish jokes. Studies of Jewish humor are by nature multimedia affairs, but...

Современная еврейская проза США

The essay presents an overview of Jewish American prose of the second half of the 20th — first two decades of the 21st century within the context of multicultural literature of the USA. The definition of Jewish literature remains a matter of debate. The author of the essay based on the opinions of critics concludes on the criterion for assigning a writer to Jewish literature. It is the artistic embodiment of the personal Jewish experience and identity in the works of literature, the view “from inside,” the perspective of collective memory and the connection to history and culture. Jewish literature today is one of the most developed ethnic segments of multicultural American literature. Writers under study are recognized throughout the world, their works have been translated into many languages, including Russian, they are known to readers and have already become the subject of study by literary scholars. Today, Jewish American literature is represented by two generations of writers. “Senior” generation includes the authors born in the 1920s–30s who began their literary careers in the 60s when there was a generational change in national literature. “Young” generation is represented by the writers who began their literary careers in the 2000s. On the example of the works of the most famous authors of both generations, the author of the essay talks about the factors determining the specific features of Jewish American prose and its characteristic themes, problems, and motives: the search for identity and roots, the representation and rethinking of the Holocaust, ethnic stereotypes, the image of the Jewish family, and the traditions of Jewish humor. The study of the works of modern Jewish writers in the United States allows us to draw conclusions about the display of border consciousness, national and ethnic identity, and collective memory in fiction.

Neopicaresque, Jewish Humor and Denunciation of Cosmopolitanism in Franz Kafka’s Amerika and Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March

The neopicaresque novel is a nascent genre that was invigorated in the aftermath of World Wars I and II in Britain and the United States. Contemporary studies of neopicaresque depict the image of the picaro as the “alienated”, “the outcast” and the “rebellious” character. This study is an attempt to redefine the Jewish neopicaresque novel and proposes that Jewish humor and denunciation of cosmopolitanism are indispensable aspects that need further investigation. It endeavors through these two aspects to comment on the Jewish exilic experience in cosmopolitan America. Further, the study proposes that Jewish humor and denunciation of cosmopolitism unearth the inability of the ghetto-minded Jewish immigrant to fathom the traumatic and rapid social and political vicissitudes that lead him to escape this chaotic life. These propositions are expounded through a close reading of Franz Kafka’s Amerika: The Man who Disappeared (1914) and Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March (1953). These Jewish travel narratives are discussed as Jewish neopicaresque novels that demonstrate the exodus of Eastern Jewish immigrants to America in the aftermath of WWI and II. The study draws on Freudian psychoanalytic theory of Jewish “self-critical “and “self-deprecating” humor. Considerations of the cultural dilemma of the Jewish ghetto immigrant and his negative depictions as “the wanderer Jew” and the “displaced-person” are addressed from the critical perspective of contemporary cosmopolitan discourses of Cathy S. Gelbin and Sander L. Gilman and Ulrich Beck. Keywords: Jewish neopicaresque novel, Jewish humor, cosmopolitanism, Kafka’s Amerika, Soul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March.

How the Other Half Looks: The Lower East Side and the Afterlife of Images

How the Other Half Looks: The Lower East Side and the Afterlife of Images

God Laughed: Sources of Jewish Humor

God Laughed: Sources of Jewish Humor

The Potential of Literary Translation in Intercultural Communication: Ota Pavel’s Short Stories for the Russian Reader

The purpose of this article is to reveal the specifics of the translation of cross-cultural texts by the Czech writer Ota Pavel. The main research methods are a description of potential difficulties and possible solutions, a comparative analysis of the translation and the original, contextual analysis, the use of analog texts to indicate the genre nature of the translated text. The main conclusions of the article are as follows: to convey the style of Ota Pavel, the translator must recreate the model of the world presented in the original text, which includes the specific features of Czech and Jewish cultures, by transmitting such characteristics of the text as slow narration, an abundance of retreats, repetitions, details, comparisons, specific Jewish humor using such translation tools as historical and cultural translation comments and compulsory translation transformations. The latter include: lexical transformations (translational transcription, tracing, lexical-semantic substitutions); lexical and grammatical transformations (explication, transformation); grammatical transformations (syntactic assimilation, division of sentences, combining sentences, grammatical replacements).
 Keywords: cross-cultural texts, analog texts, contextual analysis, adaptation, translation transformations

Arab Labor, Jewish Humor: Memory, Identity, and Creative Resistance on Israeli Prime-Time Television

Arab Labor, Jewish Humor: Memory, Identity, and Creative Resistance on Israeli Prime-Time Television