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JTA
EST 1917

Jewish humor

It’s a common rule of public speaking: Tell a joke, and you loosen up the crowd. This idea isn’t a recent one–it can actually be found in the Talmud. “Before he began his lesson to the scholars,” says the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 30b), “Rabba used to say a joking word, and the scholars were amused. After that, he sat […]

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There’s something about the comedy hip-hop group The Lonely Island that screams Jewish. The group is an assemblage of three comedians who’ve made videos together since junior high school, and eventually became regular features on Saturday Night Live. Two of them, Akiva Schaffer and Andy Samberg, are Jewish (Jorma Taccone is not). No doubt the group’s style of comedy has […]

Israel Zangwill (1864-1929) was a British humorist, a writer, and an early Zionist activist. He eventually left the Zionist movement in order to lead a movement called Territorialism, which called for a homeland for the Jewish people wherever they could get it–be it South America, Germany, or elsewhere. Zangwill tried to arouse sympathy for Territorialism among Britain’s intellectual elite, but this never fully […]

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