The Last Jewish Joke

“In the last three or four decades of the twentieth century, Jewish jokes became a central feature of popular culture in the US and, as Michel Wieviorka tells us, in France, too. Today, those jokes don’t have anything like their old resonance. Wieviorka ingeniously connects this observation to an illuminating account of the newly precarious position of diaspora Jews and their growing distance from an increasingly illiberal Israel.” Michael Walzer, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton “The Last Jewish Joke is a rich and rewarding reflection on humor, identity, and Jewish life. Michel Wieviorka, a renowned French sociologist, combines astute cultural analysis and poignant personal memories, using the Jewish joke as a prism through which we can glimpse the shifting shape of Jewish identity and standing in France and the US over the past half century.” Michael J. Sandel, Harvard University ""Wieviorka…argues that the great Jewish comic tradition – one that historically appeals to empathy through gentle self-mockery – is in danger of dying out.  His book is both a homage to that humour, which he sees as rich in generosity, absurdity and self-ironising asides, and the story of its evolution through the 20th century, jumping from the shtetl to Hollywood to France to Britain and beyond."" The Daily Telegraph “It is right and proper that the flag flies for Jewish jokes. Our entertainment culture would be poorer without them. A cheer or two, then, for Michel Wieviorka.” Graham Elliott, The Critic