Description
Book SynopsisThis book explores the fascinating discourse on Jewish wit in the twentieth century when the Jewish joke became the subject of serious humanistic inquiry and inserted itself into the cultural and political debates among Germans and Jews against the ideologically-charged backdrop of anti-Semitism, the Jewish question, and the Holocaust.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Joke and Its Questions | 1
1 Secondary Moves: Arthur Trebitsch and the Jewish Joke | 24
2 Of Caricatures, Jokes, and Anti- Semitism: The Case of Eduard Fuchs | 60
3 Of Watchmen and Comedians: Jewish Jokes and Free Speech in Weimar Germany | 95
4 “Far from where?”: Erich Kahler and the Jewish Joke of Exile | 119
5 Of Jokes and Propaganda: The Mobilization of the Jewish Joke in the Nazi Era | 153
6 Jewish Joke Reparations and Mourning in Post- Holocaust Germany | 182
Conclusion: Final Thoughts and Last Laughs | 219
Afterword: The Jewish Joke in Trump’s America | 224
Acknowledgments | 231
Notes | 235
Index | 299
