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La barzelletta ebraica: Un saggio con esempi
«Che cos'è un maglione ebraico? Un indumento di lana che un figlio indossa quando sua madre ha freddo». Così come è accaduto per gli ebrei, la barzelletta ebraica ha viaggiato intorno al mondo, apprendendo innumerevoli linguaggi diversi, venendo raccontata di fronte a folle piuttosto ostili, ma mantenendo sempre le proprie peculiarità. E dunque, che cos'è che anima la barzelletta ebraica? Perché tanto spesso si pensa agli ebrei come spiritosi? E quanto può essere antica una barzelletta? In questo saggio scintillante Devorah Baum riflette sulle barzellette ebraiche, su ciò che le contraddistingue, su perché sono importanti per l'identità ebraica e su come funzionano. Un volume che è allo stesso tempo un compendio e un commentario leggero e penetrante. A rendere più stimolante la lettura, la traduzione d'autore di Elena Loewenthal.
144 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 26, 2017
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June 25, 2021
A friend of mine at work fits into a very small subset of people – someone I know in real life who reads my book reviews. After reading my review of Inside Joke recently, he suggested I might like this book. One of the things I found a bit odd about the Inside Joke book was that I didn’t actually laugh at any of the jokes, and there were hundreds of them. The only ones I found funny, I had heard before, but even those were a minority of all of the jokes in the book. I was starting to think, in that over-thinking way I am more a little prone to, that this might be because I just don’t find ‘jokes’ funny anymore. This is matched by a similar shift you can witness in comedians away from ‘jokes’. Comedians are now much more likely to tell rambling stories that may or may not have punchlines along the way.
And I liked this theory a lot. It fit rather nicely with another theory I have that runs somewhat parallel to this. That things that were hilariously funny in the past are best remembered, rather than re-lived. You know – films that you remember hurting yourself laughing at only a decade or so ago, are now so embarrassingly unfunny that you wonder if, in the intervening years, someone has altered them somehow, taking out all of the amusing bits and adding in mountains of cringe. This is, of course, a large part of the reason why I wouldn't ever dream of re-watching 'Call Me Genius', 'The Party' or 'The Graduate'. With so much to be lost and so little to be gained, I would prefer all of these films to remain treasured memories rather than re-lived tragedies.
But this book has done a lot to spoil my, ‘I’ve just grown out of jokes’ theory. There were times I LOL-ed while reading this. Something I was never in danger of doing while reading the Inside Joke. In fact, I didn’t even laugh on the inside with the inside joke, ironically enough.
Now, when my friend at work recommended this book to me, I mentioned to him something else I mostly believed to be true prior to reading this book – that is, that the Jews and Irish have a similar sense of humour. And again, I’m not as sure I agree as much with that now that I've read this book either. There are similarities, obviously, but as is true with these things more generally, the differences are probably at least as interesting.
I was a bit upset that this book didn’t contain my all-time favourite Jewish joke.
In a small town there once lived a Priest and a Rabbi who would, every morning, find themselves walking along the same road while out on their morning constitutional. Over the years they became firm friends and would discuss everything from the morning's new, to their favourite pastries, to whether God really needed to treat Job quite as badly as he had. Then one day the Rabbi said to the Priest, “We’ve known each other for such a long time, can I ask you a question? And look, you can refuse to answer, obviously, and I would completely understand, but have you ever slept with a woman, even once?” The Priest was silent for a long while – ironically enough, as he weighed up the possible consequences of confessing his sins, and then finally said, that, yes, he had slept with a woman once, a while before he was ordained, he wasn't proud of it, but yes, it had happened. They walked along in silence for some time and then the Rabbi said, ‘It’s much better than a ham sandwich, isn’t it?’
The last time I said that joke out loud was about 15 years ago. I was working in an office and someone said something about Jewish humour and I said, ‘oh, I must tell you my favourite Jewish joke’ and a dear friend of mine almost jumped over the table to try to stop me. You see, one of the women in the room was Jewish. There are many, many ways you can destroy the telling of a joke. And having the fear you are about to be seen as being anti-Semitic is one of the more effective ways of killing a joke nearly stone dead. I think I even changed the punchline to ‘a pork sandwich’ – my being so rattled my subconscious was working overtime to make sure no one ‘missed’ the joke - also a highly effective way to kill a joke.
This is, in fact, one of the themes of this book. You see, most Jewish jokes, if told by anyone other than a Jew, would appear to be anti-Semitic. And so this had me thinking about the difference between Jewish and Irish jokes. So, a comparison is necessary.
A Jewish joke told in this book that reminded me of an Irish joke is a case in point:
“Back in the day, two Jews, Moishe and Itzik, are walking in the Ukrainian forest. In the distance, they see two local guys walking towards them. Moishe turns to Itzik, panics, and says, ‘Itzik, what should we do? There’s two of them, and we’re all alone!”
The Irish joke this reminded me of this is the one about the English Army landing in Ireland back in the day and hearing, a voice coming from along the road that leads into the bogs, call out, “One Irishman can kill ten Englishmen”. The commander hand-picks ten of his best men and sends them on up the road. As they turn the corner, a horrible chorus of agonising screams rings out, only to be followed by a chillingly silence. Then the silence is shattered by the same voice calling, “One Irishman can kill a hundred Englishmen”. Again the commander chooses 100 of his best men and again, as soon they disappear out of sight, the air is filled with their screams, followed once again by a dreadful silence. “One Irishman can kill a whole battalion of Englishmen”. But as the commander is leading all of his men into battle, one half-alive and bloodied soldier is seen crawling back towards them. The half dead man calls out, “Go back, go back, it’s a trap, there’s two of them”.
When I was growing up, my mother would tell a joke whenever there had been a succession of Irish jokes told.
“What’s black and blue and floats at the bottom of the Yarra (Melbourne's major river)? – The next bloody person who tells an Irish joke”.
But even here there has been a shift in Jewish humour and one that matches this Irish version, but also one that I don’t think was discussed in this book. It is a shift that is exemplified in Kinky Freidman’s song:
“No, they ain't makin' Jews like Jesus anymore,
We don't turn the other cheek the way they done before.
You hear that honky holler as he hit that hardwood floor
Lord, they ain't makin' Jews like Jesus anymore.”
The thing that is mostly interesting in the humour of the Jews and the Irish is that both are the humour of the dispossessed. Dumb Irish jokes, like dumb blonde jokes, or dumb Yid jokes, actually aren’t all that funny. Funny is when the underdog gets his revenge or when those in power get their comeuppance. Perhaps, 400 years on, that is one of the reasons why Twelfth Night remains funny to us – because the only time it really punches down is to Malvolio, and even then, and despite him being cast as a prick we would most like to see humiliated, it is hard not to feel sorry as he calls out impotently as his last line in the play, “I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you…”
This is a lovely little book, and one that is lightning fast to read. Well worth it.
Oh, my second favourite Jewish joke is also not in the book.
A minister, a priest and a rabbit walk into a pub, and the rabbit says, "I'm only here because of auto-correct, aren't I?"
And I liked this theory a lot. It fit rather nicely with another theory I have that runs somewhat parallel to this. That things that were hilariously funny in the past are best remembered, rather than re-lived. You know – films that you remember hurting yourself laughing at only a decade or so ago, are now so embarrassingly unfunny that you wonder if, in the intervening years, someone has altered them somehow, taking out all of the amusing bits and adding in mountains of cringe. This is, of course, a large part of the reason why I wouldn't ever dream of re-watching 'Call Me Genius', 'The Party' or 'The Graduate'. With so much to be lost and so little to be gained, I would prefer all of these films to remain treasured memories rather than re-lived tragedies.
But this book has done a lot to spoil my, ‘I’ve just grown out of jokes’ theory. There were times I LOL-ed while reading this. Something I was never in danger of doing while reading the Inside Joke. In fact, I didn’t even laugh on the inside with the inside joke, ironically enough.
Now, when my friend at work recommended this book to me, I mentioned to him something else I mostly believed to be true prior to reading this book – that is, that the Jews and Irish have a similar sense of humour. And again, I’m not as sure I agree as much with that now that I've read this book either. There are similarities, obviously, but as is true with these things more generally, the differences are probably at least as interesting.
I was a bit upset that this book didn’t contain my all-time favourite Jewish joke.
In a small town there once lived a Priest and a Rabbi who would, every morning, find themselves walking along the same road while out on their morning constitutional. Over the years they became firm friends and would discuss everything from the morning's new, to their favourite pastries, to whether God really needed to treat Job quite as badly as he had. Then one day the Rabbi said to the Priest, “We’ve known each other for such a long time, can I ask you a question? And look, you can refuse to answer, obviously, and I would completely understand, but have you ever slept with a woman, even once?” The Priest was silent for a long while – ironically enough, as he weighed up the possible consequences of confessing his sins, and then finally said, that, yes, he had slept with a woman once, a while before he was ordained, he wasn't proud of it, but yes, it had happened. They walked along in silence for some time and then the Rabbi said, ‘It’s much better than a ham sandwich, isn’t it?’
The last time I said that joke out loud was about 15 years ago. I was working in an office and someone said something about Jewish humour and I said, ‘oh, I must tell you my favourite Jewish joke’ and a dear friend of mine almost jumped over the table to try to stop me. You see, one of the women in the room was Jewish. There are many, many ways you can destroy the telling of a joke. And having the fear you are about to be seen as being anti-Semitic is one of the more effective ways of killing a joke nearly stone dead. I think I even changed the punchline to ‘a pork sandwich’ – my being so rattled my subconscious was working overtime to make sure no one ‘missed’ the joke - also a highly effective way to kill a joke.
This is, in fact, one of the themes of this book. You see, most Jewish jokes, if told by anyone other than a Jew, would appear to be anti-Semitic. And so this had me thinking about the difference between Jewish and Irish jokes. So, a comparison is necessary.
A Jewish joke told in this book that reminded me of an Irish joke is a case in point:
“Back in the day, two Jews, Moishe and Itzik, are walking in the Ukrainian forest. In the distance, they see two local guys walking towards them. Moishe turns to Itzik, panics, and says, ‘Itzik, what should we do? There’s two of them, and we’re all alone!”
The Irish joke this reminded me of this is the one about the English Army landing in Ireland back in the day and hearing, a voice coming from along the road that leads into the bogs, call out, “One Irishman can kill ten Englishmen”. The commander hand-picks ten of his best men and sends them on up the road. As they turn the corner, a horrible chorus of agonising screams rings out, only to be followed by a chillingly silence. Then the silence is shattered by the same voice calling, “One Irishman can kill a hundred Englishmen”. Again the commander chooses 100 of his best men and again, as soon they disappear out of sight, the air is filled with their screams, followed once again by a dreadful silence. “One Irishman can kill a whole battalion of Englishmen”. But as the commander is leading all of his men into battle, one half-alive and bloodied soldier is seen crawling back towards them. The half dead man calls out, “Go back, go back, it’s a trap, there’s two of them”.
When I was growing up, my mother would tell a joke whenever there had been a succession of Irish jokes told.
“What’s black and blue and floats at the bottom of the Yarra (Melbourne's major river)? – The next bloody person who tells an Irish joke”.
But even here there has been a shift in Jewish humour and one that matches this Irish version, but also one that I don’t think was discussed in this book. It is a shift that is exemplified in Kinky Freidman’s song:
“No, they ain't makin' Jews like Jesus anymore,
We don't turn the other cheek the way they done before.
You hear that honky holler as he hit that hardwood floor
Lord, they ain't makin' Jews like Jesus anymore.”
The thing that is mostly interesting in the humour of the Jews and the Irish is that both are the humour of the dispossessed. Dumb Irish jokes, like dumb blonde jokes, or dumb Yid jokes, actually aren’t all that funny. Funny is when the underdog gets his revenge or when those in power get their comeuppance. Perhaps, 400 years on, that is one of the reasons why Twelfth Night remains funny to us – because the only time it really punches down is to Malvolio, and even then, and despite him being cast as a prick we would most like to see humiliated, it is hard not to feel sorry as he calls out impotently as his last line in the play, “I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you…”
This is a lovely little book, and one that is lightning fast to read. Well worth it.
Oh, my second favourite Jewish joke is also not in the book.
A minister, a priest and a rabbit walk into a pub, and the rabbit says, "I'm only here because of auto-correct, aren't I?"
June 13, 2021
"E cosí, se a un certo punto della loro storia gli ebrei hanno sviluppato una particolare inclinazione per il lato comico, presumibilmente ciò si deve al fatto che hanno avuto bisogno di mitigare il terrore di un mondo in cui le differenze non erano piú tollerate"
Saggio molto divertente per tentare di far capire ai non ebrei come me l'immenso universo della comicita' ebraica, e non solo! Scrittura scorrevole ed arguta, una piacevolissima lettura.
Saggio molto divertente per tentare di far capire ai non ebrei come me l'immenso universo della comicita' ebraica, e non solo! Scrittura scorrevole ed arguta, una piacevolissima lettura.
July 6, 2025
A bit of a laugh is always a good thing - some oldies, some side splitting newies. Interesting analysis in each chapter about both the cultural meaning and execution of the joke. Well worth reading.
December 31, 2017
This is just brilliant. It is packed with genuinely very funny jokes and also has some very shrewd things to say about what they signify and how they are used.
The first thing to say is that The Jewish Joke is very, very funny. I spent a lot of time laughing out loud and at times truly had to wait until I'd recovered and wiped my eyes before reading on. Perhaps not one for reading in public, then, but it's just a joy and the book is worth buying for the jokes alone.
Devorah Baum also adds some analysis of the significance of jokes to Jews and to other people, and she does it excellently. She takes her subject seriously but never too solemnly and plainly loves the jokes as jokes, so her analysis is brief, witty and insightful. I found that it really added to my enjoyment, when clumsy, over-earnest analysis would have killed any enjoyment stone dead. Her analysis is very shrewd, too. She is excellent on the slippery problem of what is acceptable and what is unacceptable, and on the enduring importance of humour to survival, among other things. There are lots of nuggets in this book, but here are just four little passages I marked:
"While it’s important to be mindful of sensitivities, it’s just as important to remain wary of the humour police, those punchline vigilantes who so often wind up silencing the very people they’re claiming to defend."
"What humourlessness always fails to recognise is just how useful a sense of humour can be for confronting what one finds offensive, including offensive jokes."
"Jokes…remain the most bearable form available for transmitting a traumatic history."
"There are few utterances more flush with unchecked privilege, after all, than the sneering sound of someone insisting, in the face of another’s hurt, that they really ought to be able to ‘take a joke’."
The Jewish Joke is hilariously funny and readably thoughtful, too. It is one of the best things I've read this year and very, very warmly recommended.
The first thing to say is that The Jewish Joke is very, very funny. I spent a lot of time laughing out loud and at times truly had to wait until I'd recovered and wiped my eyes before reading on. Perhaps not one for reading in public, then, but it's just a joy and the book is worth buying for the jokes alone.
Devorah Baum also adds some analysis of the significance of jokes to Jews and to other people, and she does it excellently. She takes her subject seriously but never too solemnly and plainly loves the jokes as jokes, so her analysis is brief, witty and insightful. I found that it really added to my enjoyment, when clumsy, over-earnest analysis would have killed any enjoyment stone dead. Her analysis is very shrewd, too. She is excellent on the slippery problem of what is acceptable and what is unacceptable, and on the enduring importance of humour to survival, among other things. There are lots of nuggets in this book, but here are just four little passages I marked:
"While it’s important to be mindful of sensitivities, it’s just as important to remain wary of the humour police, those punchline vigilantes who so often wind up silencing the very people they’re claiming to defend."
"What humourlessness always fails to recognise is just how useful a sense of humour can be for confronting what one finds offensive, including offensive jokes."
"Jokes…remain the most bearable form available for transmitting a traumatic history."
"There are few utterances more flush with unchecked privilege, after all, than the sneering sound of someone insisting, in the face of another’s hurt, that they really ought to be able to ‘take a joke’."
The Jewish Joke is hilariously funny and readably thoughtful, too. It is one of the best things I've read this year and very, very warmly recommended.
January 31, 2018
"...Shlemiels and Shiksas..." - The Jewish Joke by Devorah Baum (2017 Profile Books Hardback)
Witty and wise and rather wonderful - "The Jewish Joke - An Essay With Examples (Less Essay, More Examples)" by DEVORAH BAUM was recommended to me by a reviewer I admire and trust - Sid Nuncious - and the dapper little English gent was bang on the money.
I bought the hardback for a tenner off Amazon - a wee thing about the size of an oversized iPhone 8. Published by Profile Books in 2017 – its 180+ pages come with 24 chapters of about five or six leaves each - thereby allowing you to dip into one or two installments of an evening for only a few minutes and come back the next night for more laughs and chucklesome insights.
Devorah has Chapter Titles like "How Do You Tell The Difference Between A Jewish Mother and a Jewish Mother-In-Law" or "How Do You Tell The Difference Between Morality and Neurosis?" - or the ever popular "How Do You Tell The Difference Between A Jew And A Parrot?"
What she does is set up an 'angle' in each of the discussions - she'll pepper the next with absolutely loads of very funny Jewish jokes (in italics) and then examine in brilliant minutiae exactly what's going on - morally, psychologically and even physically. There's that famous Jewish self-deprecation in the face of horrible odds - Two Jews are in a Nazi firing squad - the Squad Captain asks - any last requests - the first Jew shouts, "There's been a terrible mistake!" The second Jew says, "Moishe, don't make trouble..." Obsession with Religion - the Jews wander for 40 years in the desert in the Bible - why - because none of the men would ask for directions.
The book is full of these wickedly witty observations and half the joy here is the constant discovery that there’s more on the next few pages to come (you don't laugh at them - you laugh with them). She also tries hard to get a grip on the slippery nature of the Jewish people and succeeds without being preachy or pseudo-intellectual. And as you read the quotes and words – I like too how you can so ‘hear their voices’ coming off the pages – the funny peculiar way Jews deal with life in all its random messiness. So come the final chapters you’re chock-full of admiration at their genuine God-given funny bones combined with the sheer brass schnitzels and brain power it takes to stand up there behind some microphone in the dark and give people the joy of laughter.
The themes are well worn. Deborah has of course a field day with the Jewish Boy and his domineering scheming mother (even if she does love him or her) - the Jewish Father arguing with God or his friends (they're both schmucks in his eyes) - the braggadocio Jew going on about his huge business or love prowess when he probably has little of either. And in amongst the first-name mentions of characters like Moishe, Saul, Ira, Schmuley, Itzhik, Jerry the Dentist and Ismael the Doctor and their nosey neighbours the Goldsteins – there are of course doubting Gentiles, rowdy Synagogues and randy Rabbis. You get endless studying of the Torah, Hebrew and strict adherence to Yom Kippur, Yiddish and Kosher Food (God forbid there should be shell fish at the Mitzvah). There are Jewish slang phrases we’ve all heard in so many Woody Allen movies like Schnorrer, Schlemiel, Shiksa and Kvetching. Oy vey indeed Mrs. Rosenberg. And of course the big one - Religion – where she surmises that some Jews feel God abandoned them (especially historically) – while others would like to measure a suit for the rotund absentminded git (at a very good price of course).
If I was to be pedantic - you could add that some jokes are better than others and the formula begins to slow towards the final few chapters. But although she does forget to mention or quote some of my all-time favourites like Don Rickles, Mel Brooks and the frankly Godlike Billy Wilder (huge innovators in comedy) - many other famous Jewish comedians (old and new) are rightly name-checked and quoted - Jerry Seinfeld, Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Amy Schumer, Sacha Baron-Cohen, David Baddiel, Lena Dunham (of Girls fame), Sarah Silverman, Rita Rudner, Joan Rivers, Cathy Ladman, Maureen Lipman, Jackie Mason and Groucho Marx - to name but a few.
After enjoying this you should make a beeline to a Comedy TV series I’ve been raving about for a while now. "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" is set in Fifties New York and is entirely Jewish in its humour - a very witty show about stand-up comedians and breaking free from emotional chains. It won two American Golden Globes in January 2018 for Best Comedy and for its lead actress – Rachel Brosnahan.
Why do Jewish Comedians have that lethal way with humour and jokes - is it history, hardship, necessity, talent, genius, drive? And how do they maintain a healthy self-deprecating humility that guides their generosity and humanity in the face of persecution and bigotry? I don't know. But in a roundabout way – "The Jewish Joke" celebrates their extraordinary contribution to our world. This wicked little book truly reveals how Jews make us laugh – even bellyache - to the point where there are tears rolling down your face. And isn’t that just the best...
Witty and wise and rather wonderful - "The Jewish Joke - An Essay With Examples (Less Essay, More Examples)" by DEVORAH BAUM was recommended to me by a reviewer I admire and trust - Sid Nuncious - and the dapper little English gent was bang on the money.
I bought the hardback for a tenner off Amazon - a wee thing about the size of an oversized iPhone 8. Published by Profile Books in 2017 – its 180+ pages come with 24 chapters of about five or six leaves each - thereby allowing you to dip into one or two installments of an evening for only a few minutes and come back the next night for more laughs and chucklesome insights.
Devorah has Chapter Titles like "How Do You Tell The Difference Between A Jewish Mother and a Jewish Mother-In-Law" or "How Do You Tell The Difference Between Morality and Neurosis?" - or the ever popular "How Do You Tell The Difference Between A Jew And A Parrot?"
What she does is set up an 'angle' in each of the discussions - she'll pepper the next with absolutely loads of very funny Jewish jokes (in italics) and then examine in brilliant minutiae exactly what's going on - morally, psychologically and even physically. There's that famous Jewish self-deprecation in the face of horrible odds - Two Jews are in a Nazi firing squad - the Squad Captain asks - any last requests - the first Jew shouts, "There's been a terrible mistake!" The second Jew says, "Moishe, don't make trouble..." Obsession with Religion - the Jews wander for 40 years in the desert in the Bible - why - because none of the men would ask for directions.
The book is full of these wickedly witty observations and half the joy here is the constant discovery that there’s more on the next few pages to come (you don't laugh at them - you laugh with them). She also tries hard to get a grip on the slippery nature of the Jewish people and succeeds without being preachy or pseudo-intellectual. And as you read the quotes and words – I like too how you can so ‘hear their voices’ coming off the pages – the funny peculiar way Jews deal with life in all its random messiness. So come the final chapters you’re chock-full of admiration at their genuine God-given funny bones combined with the sheer brass schnitzels and brain power it takes to stand up there behind some microphone in the dark and give people the joy of laughter.
The themes are well worn. Deborah has of course a field day with the Jewish Boy and his domineering scheming mother (even if she does love him or her) - the Jewish Father arguing with God or his friends (they're both schmucks in his eyes) - the braggadocio Jew going on about his huge business or love prowess when he probably has little of either. And in amongst the first-name mentions of characters like Moishe, Saul, Ira, Schmuley, Itzhik, Jerry the Dentist and Ismael the Doctor and their nosey neighbours the Goldsteins – there are of course doubting Gentiles, rowdy Synagogues and randy Rabbis. You get endless studying of the Torah, Hebrew and strict adherence to Yom Kippur, Yiddish and Kosher Food (God forbid there should be shell fish at the Mitzvah). There are Jewish slang phrases we’ve all heard in so many Woody Allen movies like Schnorrer, Schlemiel, Shiksa and Kvetching. Oy vey indeed Mrs. Rosenberg. And of course the big one - Religion – where she surmises that some Jews feel God abandoned them (especially historically) – while others would like to measure a suit for the rotund absentminded git (at a very good price of course).
If I was to be pedantic - you could add that some jokes are better than others and the formula begins to slow towards the final few chapters. But although she does forget to mention or quote some of my all-time favourites like Don Rickles, Mel Brooks and the frankly Godlike Billy Wilder (huge innovators in comedy) - many other famous Jewish comedians (old and new) are rightly name-checked and quoted - Jerry Seinfeld, Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Amy Schumer, Sacha Baron-Cohen, David Baddiel, Lena Dunham (of Girls fame), Sarah Silverman, Rita Rudner, Joan Rivers, Cathy Ladman, Maureen Lipman, Jackie Mason and Groucho Marx - to name but a few.
After enjoying this you should make a beeline to a Comedy TV series I’ve been raving about for a while now. "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" is set in Fifties New York and is entirely Jewish in its humour - a very witty show about stand-up comedians and breaking free from emotional chains. It won two American Golden Globes in January 2018 for Best Comedy and for its lead actress – Rachel Brosnahan.
Why do Jewish Comedians have that lethal way with humour and jokes - is it history, hardship, necessity, talent, genius, drive? And how do they maintain a healthy self-deprecating humility that guides their generosity and humanity in the face of persecution and bigotry? I don't know. But in a roundabout way – "The Jewish Joke" celebrates their extraordinary contribution to our world. This wicked little book truly reveals how Jews make us laugh – even bellyache - to the point where there are tears rolling down your face. And isn’t that just the best...
February 27, 2024
This was a really good book, but i struggled to understand what was going on sometimes. Maybe I am just not used to reading books about ideas though. I liked the jokes too!
January 23, 2019
I could have done with just the jokes and skipped the essay, which was abstract, and, at times, boting.
November 15, 2021
I embarrassed myself a lot reading this on the Tube from Golders Green.
The thing that I'm about 85% convinced about 'The Jewish Joke' - and what I believe makes it great - is that I reckon it would be entertaining even without the jokes. Yes, it's full of phenomenal jokes which I doubt I will be telling my non-Jewish friends, but Baum's investigation of the psychology behind them is clear and fascinating. And anyway, as she suggests by referring to the stand-up routine in Paul Beatty's excellent 'The Sellout', maybe I don't want anyone else to understand them?
The thing that I'm about 85% convinced about 'The Jewish Joke' - and what I believe makes it great - is that I reckon it would be entertaining even without the jokes. Yes, it's full of phenomenal jokes which I doubt I will be telling my non-Jewish friends, but Baum's investigation of the psychology behind them is clear and fascinating. And anyway, as she suggests by referring to the stand-up routine in Paul Beatty's excellent 'The Sellout', maybe I don't want anyone else to understand them?
July 16, 2022
I only read it for the jokes. No, seriously, one of my kids gave it to me as a gift. It took me a couple tries over a few years to get through. The structure was hard to get used to it - it’s in the manner of a (book-length) scholarly essay , with short bits of deconstruction between copious quoting of jokes - many of them classics. It tackles some of the typical questions- where do these jokes come from, who’s “allowed” to tell them, who are the jokes “on,” and more in that vein. In the end, I was glad I finally stuck with it.
September 17, 2018
A very entertaining book. By its nature, the humor is not new. I've heard many of the jokes before, and some are taken directly from Leo Rosten's "The Joys of Yiddish."
Unlike Rosten's book, this one is nothing like a dictionary. As the author describes it, the book is a long essay with examples. She writes in the footnote to a joke about Jews and Chinese food
"The jokes I've included in this book belong to two categories: those that illustrate the arguments of the essay and those, like this one, that have no obvious place in the essay but were too good to leave out."
Read it. You'll like it.
Unlike Rosten's book, this one is nothing like a dictionary. As the author describes it, the book is a long essay with examples. She writes in the footnote to a joke about Jews and Chinese food
"The jokes I've included in this book belong to two categories: those that illustrate the arguments of the essay and those, like this one, that have no obvious place in the essay but were too good to leave out."
Read it. You'll like it.
May 5, 2019
Lots of funny material here. Jews and those with a Jewish sensibility should enjoy the humor. Not sure about other readers, but maybe. I expected light reading, but there was lots of analysis intermixed with the jokes. Nothing necessarily wrong with that except that I found the narrative disjointed and at times a bit abstruse. My brain might not toggle smoothly between funny and serious. My 3-star rating is meant to convey a B+ evaluation.
August 12, 2021
The analysis is nonexistent, and nearly all the jokes are from The Big Book of Jewish Humor and The Joys of Yiddish. Thumb through those instead.
September 16, 2018
Humor is a complicated thing; why something is funny can be hard to explain and sometimes even hard to understand. While I enjoyed the collection of jokes, I didn't come from the book with a more refined understanding of the humor based on the context and analysis presented, which was a bit of a disappointment.
November 25, 2024
A gift from my wife who thought it would be right up my alley, as an ostensibly serious investigation of the Jewish joke, as essay with many examples. After reading it, I could not for the life of me tell you what the thesis of the essay actually is, although many of the example jokes were delightful.
January 25, 2018
The examples are flawless and beautifully curated. Would have loved a little more essay
It's great fun and the bursts of authorial insight are particularly good. Left me wanting more.
But a good tour of the classics.
(missing the Jews on the train, joke number 27 however)
It's great fun and the bursts of authorial insight are particularly good. Left me wanting more.
But a good tour of the classics.
(missing the Jews on the train, joke number 27 however)
January 9, 2020
Lo confesso, a un certo punto ho iniziato semplicemente a cercare le barzellette.
Se sia colpa mia il non essere riuscito ad appassionarmi alla parte di riflessione, oppure responsabilità dell'autrice, non cambia il risultato della lettura: non mi ha preso fino in fondo.
Se sia colpa mia il non essere riuscito ad appassionarmi alla parte di riflessione, oppure responsabilità dell'autrice, non cambia il risultato della lettura: non mi ha preso fino in fondo.
February 19, 2024
Remember when TV shows did a best of episode and introduced scenes then showed the hilarious clip? This book is kind of like that: a brief introduction followed by a joke. Some of them are delightful nevertheless.
July 4, 2018
Come for the jokes, stay for the typesetting
August 8, 2018
See my review at http://www.thereportergroup.org/Artic...
March 28, 2019
Very poignant. Very, very funny.
April 29, 2019
A collection of jokes with analysis.
I found many of the jokes funny - the analysis didn't really grab me.
Reading time around one hour.
I found many of the jokes funny - the analysis didn't really grab me.
Reading time around one hour.
August 15, 2021
De fato, vale mais pela reunião das piadas do que pelo ensaio. Ri muito, em todo caso.
May 12, 2024
The rumors (reviews) are true… the jokes are great!! The writing is overly scholarly, inelegant, and jumbled. But you know what, we had a great time!
March 7, 2025
Very well argued and chock full of wonderful jokes.
March 24, 2024
not many good jokes
May 12, 2018
I'm not Jewish, but this was an entertaining look at Jewish humor, peppered with some LOL jokes. I believe comedians are the canary in the coal mine, and if we censor them (with PC, or just scorn) we will lose are very soul. All humor is critical, and comedians are essential to keep the world humble. This book sheds some light on how they do it.
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