The intertextual Jewish joke at the turn of the twentieth century and its ideological functions

What is it about?

A common assumption regarding the Jewish joke of Eastern Europe at the turn of the twentieth century has been its unique attachment to the sacred Jewish texts. The article examines these jokes in their historical, cultural and literary contexts, and point at their dialectic affinity to the sacred Jewish texts. While most of the jokes reflect the folklorist’s ambition to bridge the gap between the holy language and the Jewish vernacular, a deeper examination of the jokes may discover the subversive intention of the authors who engaged the biblical and rabbinical sources freely, as vessels capable of sanctifying the secular subject matter of the Jewish national revival.

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Why is it important?

The article explores and explains a fundamental characteristic of Jewish humor (its attachment to sacred Jewish texts) , and explains its function in its historical context. It defines the different sub-genres of the poetic joke: The allusive joke, the parodic joke and the satiric joke. It points at the traditional aspects of the Jewish joke in Hebrew and teaches about the interrelation between humor and religion, side by side with the joke's subversive aspects and ideological functions. Finally, it discusses for the first time not only canonical collections of Jewish jokes, but also a censored collection of sexual Jewish jokes.

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