The Genius of the Jewish Joke - Softcover

Berger, Arthur Asa

9781568219776: The Genius of the Jewish Joke

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1568219776 ISBN 13: 9781568219776

Publisher: Jason Aronson Inc, 1997

Schlemiels and schlimazels, Albert Einstein and Jewish mothers-in-law - what do jokes about Jews reveal about Jewish identity and self-worth? Does it matter if a Jewish joke is told by a Jew or a non-Jew? Are Jewish jokes masochistic? Are they funny? The Genius of the Jewish Joke supplies not only countless jokes and riddles about Jewish characters and communities, but also reveals the relationship between Jewish humor and attitudes about Jewish culture and identity.

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About the Author:

Arthur Asa Berger is professor emeritus of broadcast and electronic communication arts at San Francisco State University. He is the author of numerous articles, book reviews, and books on media, popular culture, humor, and tourism, and he is the series editor of Transaction’s Communication and Mass Culture and Humor series.

From Publishers Weekly:

The numerous jokes in this analysis of Jewish humor will provoke smiles and chuckles, but there is nothing laughable about Berger's scholarly look at the genre of the Jewish joke. Berger dissects Jewish humor from psychological, literary, political and cultural aspects, contending that Jews used humor as a "survival mechanism" to cope with suffering, powerlessness and marginality. The jokes reflect an "existential courage," a resistance to persecution rather than an internalization of the victim mentality, he posits. The author of many books on media, popular culture and humor, Berger (professor of broadcast and electronic communication arts at San Francisco State University) cites a host of sources, including Freud, to support and illustrate his theories. He explores humor in both generic and specifically Jewish terms, lists 45 techniques of humor, discusses comic types like schlemiels and schlimazels and examines the role of stereotypes in ethnic humor. In this finely argued study, Berger discounts the theory of Jewish humor as masochistic, arguing instead that the self-criticism in Jewish jokes is "liberating and life-enhancing."
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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