Jewish Comedy: A Serious History

03/11/2018
61 min
[video_views]

Speakers: Jeremy Dauber, Toby Lichtig

Jeremy Dauber delivers a breath-taking and enthralling illustrated history of Jewish humour ‘in all its vast and variegated forms from antiquity to yesterday’, from the Book of Esther to Seinfeld, by way of Mel Brooks and Philip Roth, offering an erudite yet entertaining history of Jewish comedy, not evading the question: what is Jewish humour and what makes a joke a Jewish joke?

About the speakers

Jeremy Dauber

Jeremy Dauber is a professor of Jewish literature and American studies at Columbia University. His books include Jewish Comedy and The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem, both finalists for the National Jewish Book Award. More recently he is the author of Mel Brooks: Disobedient Jew and American Comics: A History. Image © Tilly Blair Photography

Toby Lichtig

Toby Lichtig is the Fiction and Politics Editor of the Times Literary Supplement. He writes for a range of publications and has appeared as a guest critic on various television and radio programmes. He also freelances as a documentary producer. Toby was chair of judges of the 2018 JQ/Wingate Prize and of the EBRD Literature Prize 2020-23.

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Jewish Comedy: A Serious History

03/11/2018
|
61 min

Speaker

Jeremy Dauber

Jeremy Dauber is a professor of Jewish literature and American studies at Columbia University. His books include Jewish Comedy and The Worlds of Sholem...

Toby Lichtig

Toby Lichtig is the Fiction and Politics Editor of the Times Literary Supplement. He writes for a range of publications and has appeared as a...