Jewish Comedy: A Serious History

Author: Jeremy Dauber
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393247880
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198

Book Description
Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award “Dauber deftly surveys the whole recorded history of Jewish humour.” —Economist In a major work of scholarship that explores the funny side of some very serious business (and vice versa), Jeremy Dauber examines the origins of Jewish comedy and its development from biblical times to the age of Twitter. Organizing Jewish comedy into “seven strands”—including the satirical, the witty, and the vulgar—he traces the ways Jewish comedy has mirrored, and sometimes even shaped, the course of Jewish history. Dauber also explores the classic works of such masters of Jewish comedy as Sholem Aleichem, Isaac Babel, Franz Kafka, the Marx Brothers, Woody Allen, Joan Rivers, Philip Roth, Mel Brooks, Sarah Silverman, Jon Stewart, and Larry David, among many others.

No Joke

Author: Ruth R. Wisse
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691149461
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Book Description
In this book, Ruth Wisse evokes and applauds the genius of spontaneous Jewish joking--as well as the brilliance of comic masterworks by writers like Heinrich Heine, Sholem Aleichem, Isaac Babel, S. Y. Agnon, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Philip Roth. A.

Old Jewish Comedians

Author: Drew Friedman
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
ISBN: 1560977418
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 36

Book Description
This comprehensive collection of portraiture of comedians born before 1930 includes the famous (Milton Berle, Groucho Marx, Jerry Lewis, Mel Brooks, Jack Benny), the not-so-famous (Benny Rubin, Shelly Berman) and the largely unknown (Al Kelly, Menasha Skulnik). The Reuben Award-winning Friedman presents a thorough visual history of these greatest Borscht-Belt comedians.

A Small Book of Jewish Comedians

Author: Tony Nourmand
Publisher: Reel Art Press
ISBN: 9781909526839
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Book Description
An unmissable gift book, A Small Book of Jewish Comedians is a perfect (please God) post-pandemic pick-me-up In 1978, Time magazine estimated that around 80 percent of professional American comics were Jewish, and Jewish humor remains a foundation stone of American popular culture and humor. This book is not intended as a definitive tome but is instead a joyful and irreverent celebration of great photography and some of the greatest one-liners of the 20th century, ripe in satire, anecdote, self-deprecation and irony. Featuring photographs of comedians such as Larry David, Fran Lebowitz, Mel Brooks, Sid Caesar, Lenny Bruce, Sarah Silverman, Joan Rivers and George Burns, the book's portraits are accompanied by one-liners such as: "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." (Groucho Marx); "When I was a boy the Dead Sea was only sick." (George Burns); "It was a Jewish porno film ... one minute of sex and nine minutes of guilt." (Joan Rivers); "You know who wears sunglasses inside? Blind people and assholes." (Larry David); "I am not the type who wants to go back to the land; I am the type who wants to go back to the hotel." (Fran Lebowitz).

Jewish Comedy Stars

Author: Norman H. Finkelstein
Publisher: Kar-Ben Publishing
ISBN: 0822599422
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 100

Book Description
Profiles Jewish comedians, from Fanny Brice and Jerry Lewis to Sarah Silverman and Jon Stewart.

The Big Book of Jewish Humor

Author: William Novak
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Book Description
Two rival businessmen meet in the Warsaw train station. "Where are you going?" says the first man. "To Minsk," says the second. "To Minsk, eh? What a nerve you have! I know you're telling me you're going to Minsk because you want me to think that you're really going to Pinsk. But it so happens that I know you really are going to Minsk. So why are you lying to me?" Four men are walking in the desert. The German says, "I'm tired and thirsty. I must have a beer." The Italian says, "I'm tired and thirsty. I must have wine." The Mexican says, "I'm tired and thirsty. I must have tequila." The Jew says, "I'm tired and thirsty. I must have diabetes."

More Old Jewish Comedians

Author: Drew Friedman
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
ISBN: 1560979143
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 37

Book Description
This comical collection of of Jewish comedian portraiture is a sequel to 2006's wildly successful Old Jewish Comedians, which earned Friedman raves from Jerry Lewis, Howard Stern, The Believer,Entertainment Weekly and many more, and earned Friedman his own roast at New York's legendary Friar's Club. This all-new collection includes the famous (Woody Allen, Carl Reiner, Joan Rivers, Mel Brooks, Soupy Sales, etc.), the not-so-famous (Jerry Stiller, Zeppo & Gummo Marx, Larry Storch, Zero Mostel, etc.) and the largely unknown (Molly Picon, Herbie Faye, Jan Milton, etc.). The Reuben Award-winning Friedman, one of the great caricaturists of his age, presents a thorough visual history of the 20th Century's greatest Borscht-Belt comedians.

Fish in the Dark

Author: Larry David
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 0802191282
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 82

Book Description
From the comic genius behind Curb Your Enthusiasm—a play with “a perfect second-act twist, and a solid last-minute kicker” (Vulture). Fish in the Dark marked Seinfeld co-creator Larry David’s playwriting debut, his Broadway debut—and his first time acting on stage since eighth grade. David starred as Norman Drexel, a man in his fifties who is average in most respects, except for his hyperactive libido. As Norman, his more successful brother Arthur, their elderly mother, and a host of other characters try to navigate the death of a loved one, old acquaintances and unsettled arguments resurface—with hilarious consequences.

Groucho Marx

Author: Lee Siegel
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300216637
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Book Description
Born Julius Marx in 1890, the brilliant comic actor who would later be known as Groucho was the most verbal of the famed comedy team, the Marx Brothers, his broad slapstick portrayals elevated by ingenious wordplay and double entendre. In his spirited biography of this beloved American iconoclast, Lee Siegel views the life of Groucho through the lens of his work on stage, screen, and television. The author uncovers the roots of the performer’s outrageous intellectual acuity and hilarious insolence toward convention and authority in Groucho’s early upbringing and Marx family dynamics. The first critical biography of Groucho Marx to approach his work analytically, this fascinating study draws unique connections between Groucho’s comedy and his life, concentrating primarily on the brothers’ classic films as a means of understanding and appreciating Julius the man. Unlike previous uncritical and mostly reverential biographies, Siegel’s “bio-commentary” makes a distinctive contribution to the field of Groucho studies by attempting to tell the story of his life in terms of his work, and vice versa.

Let There Be Laughter

Author: Michael Krasny
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062422057
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 202

Book Description
From the host of NPR affiliate’s Forum with Michael Krasny, a compendium of Jewish jokes that packs the punches with hilarious riff after riff and also offers a window into Jewish culture. Michael Krasny has been telling Jewish jokes since his bar mitzvah, and it’s been said that he knows more of them than anyone on the planet. He certainly states his case in this wise, enlightening, and hilarious book that not only collects the best of Jewish humor passed down from generation to generation, but explains the cultural expressions and anxieties behind the laughs. "What’s Jewish Alzheimer’s?" "You forget everything but the grudges." "You must be so proud. Your daughter is the President of the United States!" "Yes. But her brother is a doctor!" "Isn’t Jewish humor masochistic?" "No. And if I hear that one more time I am going to kill myself." With his background as a scholar and public-radio host, Krasny delves deeply into the themes, topics, and form of Jewish humor: chauvinism undercut by irony and self-mockery, the fear of losing cultural identity through assimilation, the importance of vocal inflection in joke-telling, and calls to communal memory, including the use of Yiddish. Borrowing from traditional humor and such Jewish comedy legends as Jackie Mason, Mel Brooks, and Joan Rivers, Larry David, Sarah Silverman, Jerry Seinfeld and Amy Schumer, Let There Be Laughter is an absolute pleasure for the chosen and goyim alike.