Talk:Jewish humor

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...this page needs major revision! I just wouldn't know where to start. Queerwiki 19:53, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This is taken from the Judaism article. It is ostensibly about Jewish humor. However, there is no analysis of the humore. I don't think this should be put in the article, unless their is some analysis that relates this either to Jewish culture or theories of humor:

The actions of the legendary adherents of Hasidic Judaism are examples of Anecdodal humour, especially the Baal Shem Tov, Zev Wolf and Levi Yitzchak.

The "actions" are examples of anecdotal humor? This doesn't really read well.

Example:
At the festival of Simhat Torah, the day of rejoicing in the law, the Besht's disciples made merry in his house. They danced and drank and had more and more wine brought up from the celler. After some hours, the wife of the Baal Shem went to his room and said "If they don't stop drinking, we soon won't have any wine left for the rites of the sabbath, for Kiddush and Havdalah."

He said "You are right. So go and tell them to stop." When she opened the door to the big room, this is what she saw: the disciples were dancing around in a circle, and around the circle twined a blazing ring of blue fire. Then she herself took a jug in her right hand and a jug in her left and went down to the celler. Soon after she returned, with both vessels full to the brim.

Like most tales of this sort, the ending and the moral is left for the reader to guess at.

Nu? How have readers (or listeners?) interpreted this? By what criteria do they interpret it? How do they know it is "humor" and not another genre of story? Slrubenstein

Contents

[edit] My revisions

I rewrote the page to cover better the history and range of humor, along with a bit more explanation of the nature of Jewish humor. If anyone has better example jokes, especially of Israeli jokes or jokes told by the Hasidic masters, please insert them! (Though I was happy to use one from Woody Allen's Hasidic Tales, a real one would be preferred) --Goodoldpolonius2 04:56, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ashkenazaic

This seems to be rather specifically Ashkenazaic Jewish humour. Shouldn't we identify it as such? -- Jmabel | Talk 00:12, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

Does anyone know any Sephardic humor? I don't know if we need to specifically identify the article as Ashkenazaic humor - this is the "Jewish humor" referenced when the phrase is used in English, drawing on the traditions of Eastern Europe through the Catskills to today. Besides, it is clearly broken into catagories - Eastern European, American, Israeli, etc -- we just need a Sephardic one. I would love for someone to improve the Israeli section, and add a Sephardic one, though. --Goodoldpolonius2 04:18, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

American Ashkenazic jews.

[edit] Novak / Waldoks book

I added the following to the list of references:

  • Novak, William & Waldoks, Moshe Big Book of Jewish Humor, originally published by Harper Perennial (1981) ISBN 006090917X.

It's where I got my info for my changes to the Chelm section, although I don't have a copy at hand. It's an excellent book: if someone wants to really improve this article, they could find a ton of material there. Fun, too: it contains large numbers of jokes and comic stories, from the Talmud to Lenny Bruce, and traces themes in Jewish humor, including the differences between the humor of different times and places. I originally picked it up expecting a joke book, it's much more than that. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:25, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I liked that also - I didn't have it handy, so I didn't reference it - thanks for the addition. --Goodoldpolonius2 04:14, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Humor/ humour

The title of this article is "jewish humour", but the humor spelling is used throughout. Since the focus of this article is primarily American, does anyone have a problem with it being moved to "Jewish humor"? RMoloney (talk) 00:01, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Possibly funnier variant

From the article:

In an Orthodox synagogue, the rabbi's wife is always pregnant. In a Conservative synagogue, the cantor [singer of prayers] is always pregnant. In a Reform synagogue, the rabbi is always pregnant.

The variant I knew:

At an Orthodox wedding, the bride's mother is pregnant. At a Conservative wedding, the bride is pregnant. At a Reform wedding, the rabbi is pregnant.

I think that's a better joke. Unless somone objects, I'd like to substitute it. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:28, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Jew jokes

I am wondering about the appropriateness of Image:jew jokes.jpg, currently at the top of the article. A 1908 book with that title would presumably have been (mostly anti-semitic) jokes about Jews, not joles by Jews. Unless someone specifically knows otherwise, it should be removed from this page. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:08, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

My suspicion is confirmed: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome/haven-challenges.html, search there for "jokes at the expense". Removing. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Jewish culture

I'm spreading the word about this WikiProject, which is intended to be a forum for discussion on all aspects of Jewish culture / contribution to society (apart from the explicitly religious). Please feel free to join in and help out! RMoloney (talk) 23:38, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Danger of turning into a jokebook

Recent additions: they're reasonably good jokes (although the barbershop one is a bit obvious), but do they really add to the article? Do they tell us anything additional about Jewish humor? My own feeling is that the gallows humor one does, but the other two do not. Should we be working on something in Wikibooks so this doesn't grow endlessly? -- Jmabel | Talk 20:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

A wikibooks jewish jokebook sounds like a fine idea. I'm also wondering if a "Jewish Comedians" page would be appropriate, for example for the section on Woody Allen. FiveRings 00:25, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Talmudic Humor

The relevant phrase about absurdity is modifying "elaborate legal arguments and situations" not the joke in question. It is therefore appropriate to characterize that these arguments are frequently seen as absurd, rather than make a POV comment about their innate absurdity. JoshuaZ 18:48, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The first sentence of this page puzzled me

Can someone tell me what is so funny in the Torah? It's got a lot of laws and myths, but no humour. --24.199.67.217 00:05, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't get the rabbi golfing joke?? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Iansanderson (talk • contribs) June 18, 2006.

He can't admit he was golfing on the Day of Atonement, so he can never boast about his hole-in-one. - Jmabel | Talk 23:54, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cut

I seriously doubt that the general statement made here about a change in the tone of Jewish humor is true; the joke is poorly told; and whoever wrote it is apparently unfamiliar with the word "Moroccan":

Nowadays, however, the humour has greatly changed. Instead of "kind" self-humour, the jokes became far more vulgar and racist, describing Persians and Yemenites as cheap, Romanians as thieves, Morrocians as very violent and so forth. Example:
  • A Marrocian sits in a bar and drinks. A man comes rushing in and yells, "Haim, your wife's cheating on you!" The Marrocian gets mad, puts his knife between his teeth, rushes out--and gets run over by a truck. His last thoughts are, "boy, do I have to relax. I'm single and my name is David."

Jmabel | Talk 00:00, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

The main issue is not that you doubt or not, but the claim is unreferenced. BTW, the joke is at least 40 years old and it was not about Moroccans. `'mikka (t) 00:51, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Someone willing to do a related article on...

(1) The album You Don't Have to be Jewish, which featured traditional joke types (though without analysis - don't get the wrong idea!) and was also part of (2) a 1960s mainstream trend of Jewish-oriented humor ... Allan Sherman was part of this same thing.Lawikitejana 17:52, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cut

The following was cut as "irrelevant":

An all Jewish anti-Semitic cartoon contest was announced in February 2006 in response to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.

I think it was relevant, but could use considerable fleshing out to show how it fits in on several levels with Jewish humor (the very notion of Jews setting out to show that they could do better antisemitic cartoons than their actual enemies?) but I'm not planning to do it right now. Someone might want to work on this. - Jmabel | Talk 08:05, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about the Joel Leyden thing. I got two stories confused: Leyden sponsored an SEO competition to prevent the Iranian contest from reaching the top on Google. I got the two stories crossed. - Jmabel | Talk 03:41, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More than topics?

What struck me as a bit odd is that this article only mentions topics which may make a joke "Jewish," with no mention of styles, techniques, or methods which can make a joke "Jewish." Am I the only one that feels this way? I feel like the article only gives examples, but doesn't explain anything (i.e. there is no content about why there was Jewish humor in relation to the soviet union, while there is a joke that is an example) Bgold4 06:05, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jewdar

Are there any objections to adding a reference to Jewdar to this page? The stand-alone article was recently deleted, but I felt that it perhaps had a place in this article. Article is userfied here. Thoughts? -- weirdoactor t|c 15:34, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Or perhaps it might better belong in Secular Jewish culture? Problem: the humor section links here. Hmmm. -- weirdoactor t|c 17:31, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
(comment copied from Jewdar 2nd AFD) I object. The term seems to have no verifiable connection to the traditional corpus of Jewish humour (which is what that article is about). Is there any literature including it mentioning which would be worthwhile there? —xyzzyn 16:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Regarding Jewish culture, same objection as for humour. For those who haven’t read the deleted article, it had twelve references for uses of the term. From memory, about a third were written from a Jewish perspective, a quarter were from anti-Semitic websites and the rest from unrelated sources. Of the usable references (i. e. those passing close scrutiny under WP:RS) only one used the term as a major theme (and that one was from The eXile, best characterised as slightly left of Der Stürmer).
(In the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t like the Jewdar article and voted to delete.) —xyzzyn 17:48, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I get the sense that you don't believe that information about "Jewdar" is encyclopedic, and has no place on Wikipedia, in any form, as part of any article, and that others who voted to delete would probably feel the same way, at least judging from their comments. Would that be an accurate assumption? Or is there, in your opinion, a place for even a short mention of “Jewdar” somewhere on Wikipedia? I'm asking to gauge whether or not I should expend any more energy on this. Thanks. -- weirdoactor t|c 18:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I found the deleted article in its entirety and in every part thoroughly unencyclopaedic. Since I have no other knowledge of the term than of what was in the article, I am skeptical about its validity and about the possibility of an encyclopaedic description. Conversely, I do not think that there would be much opposition to the term itself if you were to write about it in a way that respects the site’s standards and avoids the objections from the AFD. If you wish to try that, my advice is to start from scratch. —xyzzyn 18:41, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree, the article is unencyclopedic. This by itself may not completely rule out the mention/explanation of the term Jewdar in Wikipedia, but it has so little to do with Jewish Humor that it should not be referenced in this article. If there was an article entitled "Antisemitic Humor", I’d have suggested referencing it there. Jimmy1988 13:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
"Anti-Semitic"? Interesting. By that logic; should we merge/re-direct gaydar to homophobia? I'm puzzled as to how you believe that "jewdar" has "little to do with Jewish Humor". I've only seen or heard the word used by other Jews, or in a "Jewish Humor" context, never as an attack or in a racist context, save for the reference to some white supremacist website in the article itself. -- weirdoactor t|c 16:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
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