Jewish Comedy A Serious History [Paperback]

A brilliant and groundbreaking book.Thoughtful.& Fascinating.A serious study, and most interesting at its most serious and obscure.Both erudite and breezy.& Daubers breadth left me breathless and his depth left me in his debt.A serious and good philosophical work& that doesnt consist entirely of jokes but has an awful lot of them in it.& Some of its jokes are laugh-out-loud funny, and some of them are poignantly beautiful.An excellent new survey of Jewish humor from the Old Testament through Adam Sandler.A comprehensive, accessible treatment of a complex subject. As the famous 1960s ad campaign for Levys rye bread told us, you dont have to be Jewish to enjoy it.Hugely smart and hugely readable.& Here is a serious book full of the reasons Jewish humor is as funny and influential as it is, whether its a response to persecution or a social satire or intellectual or raunchy or ironic or folksy.Sharp and wide-ranging.& Dauber finds comedy in unexpected places.This book is brilliant, endlessly revelatory, and Jeremy Dauber is that rare scholar and critic of real depth who doesnt just make his subject accessible but animates it with the strength of his prose. Hes also one of the few writers Ive encountered who can explain a joke without killing it. Bravo.Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award