No Joke: Making Jewish Humor

Wisse (Yiddish & comparative literature, Harvard Univ.; The Modern Jewish Canon) traces the history of Jewish humor from its first major formal appearance in the fiction of Heinrich Heine right up to material by Larry David. Wisse backtracks to the diaspora experience, contingent status of Jews throughout European history, and conflicting readings of the Talmud to underpin her analysis of themes underlying various Jewish-joke traditions. Those who love the American Jewish comedic tradition running from Sholem Aleichem's work to that of Jerry Seinfeld will certainly chuckle. While providing generous examples of Jewish humor, some of Wisse's ruminations are only for experts to grasp. (What is really so funny about Kafka? Wisse's explications are not friendly to the generalist.) She occasionally overreaches, too. Her claim that the weakling who wins his girl is a specifically Jewish staple neglects to account for Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Buster Keaton, all gentiles. The hard-line anti-Palestinian views she invokes in the conclusion to justify her hostility to certain contemporary Israeli comics undercuts some of the subtlety in her argument that ethnic humor is a force for cultural understanding and pride.