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“You can see it as a through-line from Groucho to Lenny Bruce to Seinfeld.” “Coming from a different language tradition, you’re going to pay attention to words,” he said.
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There were, in Eastern European Jewish communities, so-called “badchen,” jesters whose job it was to entertain at weddings and community celebrations.Īnd then there’s the “focus on text,” as Patt put it, the twist that actually produces the laughter. The history of funny Jews goes back a long way, Patt said. “Jews use self-deprecating humor as a way to respond to anti-Semitism,” he said, putting themselves down more effectively than any bigot could possibly do. Patt called it “A psychological defense mechanism.” Immigrant and minority groups can use humor to ingratiate themselves with popular society, Patt said, while maintaining a cultural identity. In fact, humor can serve several functions. “What does this tell us in the ways that immigrant groups use humor as a way to engage in society,” Patt asked.
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population, 80 percent of the nation's professional comedians are Jewish.” Time Magazine wrote in 1978 that, “Although Jews constitute only 3 percent of the U.S. He said Jews have been “overrepresented in the field of comedy,” particularly in the decades immediately following World War II. That’s a sentiment with which Patt would agree. On the subject of humor’s purpose, Mel Brooks said it succinctly: “Humor is just another defense against the universe.” “Humor can be used as a weapon, especially as a weapon of the weak.” “There’s different ways that Jews use humor to respond to anti-semitism,” the UConn professor said.