Funny Story! The Best Jewish Humor Books of the Past 75 Years
Hosted By: My Jewish Learning
Need a laugh these days? We’re right there with you. Let’s dig into some humorous history.
Jewish humor has long been a defining feature of modern literature, balancing satire, irony and absurdity with deep explorations of identity, family and cultural belonging.
This four-part course examines landmark works of humorous Jewish fiction and satire. Among the books we’ll be exploring are bestsellers like Philip Roth’s “Portnoy’s Complaint,” critical darlings like Grace Paley’s “The Little Disturbances of Man” and Fran Ross’s cult classic “Oreo,” as well as parodies like “How to Be a Jewish Mother” and “For This We Left Egypt?: A Passover Haggadah for Jews and Those Who Love Them.”
Across these sessions, we will explore how Jewish writers have harnessed comedy not just to entertain but also to probe the absurdities of assimilation, the weight of tradition, and the push and pull of Jewish identity.
Your teacher is Andrew Silow-Carroll, one of the industry’s most respected Jewish journalists and an expert on 20th-century Jewish humor.
