Works on Jewish humor and Jewish jokes abound today, but what formed the basis for our contemporary notions of Jewish jokes? How and when did these perceptions develop? In this groundbreaking study and translation, noted humor and folklore scholar Elliott Oring introduces us to the joke collections of Lippmann Moses Buschenthal, an enlightened rabbi, and an unknown author writing as "Judas Ascher." Originally published in German in 1812 and 1810, these books include jokes and anecdotes that play on stereotypes. The jokes depict Jews dealing with Gentiles who are bent on their conversion, Jews encountering government officials and institutions, newly propertied Jews attempting to demonstrate their acquisition of artistic and philosophical knowledge, and Jews engaged in trade and moneylending-often with the aim to defraud. In these jokes we see the antecedents of modern Jewish humor, and in Buschenthal's brief introduction we find perhaps the earliest theory of the Jewish joke. Oring provides helpful annotations for the jokes and contextualizing essays that examine the current state of Jewish joke scholarship and the situation of the Jews in France and Germany leading up to the periods when the two collections were published. Intended to stimulate the search for even earlier examples, Oring challenges us to confront the Jewish joke from a genuine historical perspective.

About the Author

Elliott Oring is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at California State University, Los Angeles. He is author of Joking Asides: The Theory, Analysis, and Aesthetics of Humor, Engaging Humor, and Jokes and Their Relations. He is also past editor of Western Folklore and is currently on the editorial boards of Humor: International Journal for Humor Research and Journal of Folklore Research.

Reviews

As a reference text, both Oring's analysis and Lang's translation will prove to be invaluable to scholars looking for the etiology of a certain comic trope, or those trying to trace the history of certain comedic ideas.

* Reading Religion *

Oring . . . provides readers with an opportunity to test his ideas about Jewish jokes on a rich set of empirical material. Going back to one of the first known sources of Jewish jokes, he helps us to trace their genesis.

* European Journal of Humour Research *

The First Book of Jewish Jokes is an interesting hybrid: a joke book that offers a glimpse of what was considered funny in the past and two excellent essays by Oring that place the jokes into historical context. Readers interested in Jewish folklore and those curious about the nature of Jewish humor in the 19th century will find this work of interest.

* The Reporter Group *

The title The First Book of Jewish Jokes may seem to indicate that this book is a joke collection. It is, but it is also a complex, demanding work, rich in context and interpretation, engaging and compelling.

-- Steve Siporin * Folklore *

All told, this is an excellent piece of scholarship. . . it can serve as a capstone to Elliott Oring's lifetime project on understanding the joke and the Jewish joke in particular.

* Western Folklore *

The present volume contains a complete critical edition of both works, translated from the German by Michaela Lang and annotated with analogs from other Jewish joke collections. Elliott Oring has added a concordance of texts that Buschenthal took from Ascher and two lengthy introductory chapters discussing the collection and its author and describing the social and political life of European Jews in Buschenthal's day. . . . Perhaps the most significant question that Oring addresses in this work is this: "Why did Jews adopt the joke genre as a symbol of their nationhood" (7)? Buschenthal's project was meant, as his subtitle put it, as "a contribution to the characterization of the Jewish nation," intended to both showcase Jewish distinctiveness and humanize their image.

-- Moira Marsh * Journal of Folklore Research *



Book Information
ISBN 9780253038326
Author Elliott Oring
Format Paperback
Page Count 170
Imprint Indiana University Press
Publisher Indiana University Press