I always think that it's strange that the Jews, The People of the Book, eventually became much better known as The People of the Joke. Strange because laughter in the Old Testament is not a good thing: When God laughs, you're toast. If you say, "Stop me if you've heard this one," He does for good.
The kings of the earth stand ready, and the rulers conspire together against the Lord and his anointed king ... The Lord who sits enthroned in heaven laughs them to scorn...(Pslams 2:2-4)
And the Hebrew prophets did like being teased, as these tykes learned when they taunted the prophet Elisha:
He went up from there to Bethel and, as he was on his way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, "Get along with you, bald head, get along." He turned round and looked at them and he cursed then in the name of the lord; and two she-bears came out of a wood and mauled forty-two of them (2 Kings 2:23).
So how has all this analysis affected me as a cartoonist of the Jewish persuasion? Fortunately, not at all, because, one, I've never been persuaded by my religion or any other, and two, I just found out about all this on Wikipedia.
Nevertheless, I will be speaking at Rutgers University along with Eddy Portnoy on Yiddish and Jewish cartooning. That despite the fact that out of the 938 cartoons that I've done for The New Yorker, only one is distinctly Jewish and that for obvious reasons.
If there is any influence Jewish culture has on my cartoons about religion, it's the disputatiousness of the that culture, the questioning everything just for the hell of it and then the questioning of the questioning to be even more annoying.
When, I was first dating my wife, who is not Jewish, we once were having what I thought was an ordinary conversation and she said, "Why are you arguing with me?" I replied, "I'm not arguing, I'm Jewish." I thought that was clever. She didn't.
Some humor scholars claim this stems from the practice in the Talmud of pilpul, which Leo Rosten described as "unproductive hair-splitting that is employed not so much to radiate clarity ... as to display one's own cleverness..."
I go along with that except I like to think that some clarity and cleverness are not mutually exclusive. Anyway, that's my aim in cartoons like these.
Now, am I worried that these jokes will bring His wrath down upon me down with a bolt from the blue. Not really, but everytime there's a thunderstorm, I hide in the cellar.
Find out more about Yiddish Cartoons.
Robert Mankoff, 'New Yorker' Cartoon Editor : NPR
Robert Mankoff | Cartoon Editor, The New Yorker | Big Think
That's funny?Jews in New Yorker cartoons - Articles of Faith ...
Ask the Author: Ask the Author Live: Bob Mankoff on Cartoons : The ...
I'm not Jewish; I was raised Catholic (all the guilt, none of the questioning of judaism), but I am a comedian and former cartoonist, so I know a little about comedy.
Hadassah Young Women > Education > Jewish Humor 101My Jewish Learning
Jewish Humor 101 The Torah tells us that Sarah, the matriarch of the Jewish people, laughed when told she'd give birth in her old age. Since that moment, it seems, Jews have continued laughing--at themselves and their predicaments, at each other, even at God. And beneath that laughter, and the humor that sparked it, lies the story of the Jewish people throughout the age.
　
History
Jewish humor ... got its start in 19th-century Eastern Europe, where Yiddish folk tales found the humor in the often-difficult everyday life of the shtetl (village). The great Jewish novelists and playwrights--like Sholem Aleichem, whose stories were the basis for Fiddler on the Roof--infused their writing with this humor, enshrining it ... and ensuring that humor would become one of the hallmarks of Yiddish literature.
With the steady growth of the American Jewish community and the Jews' acceptance into mainstream American society in the 20th century, Jewish humor likewise found a welcoming home. Beginning with Yiddish publications/plays and gradually moving to English, Jewish comedians poked fun at the immigrant experience ... foibles and frustrations of Jewish-American life. What Is Jewish Humor?
So what makes humor Jewish? ... there are some characteristics that stand out as common to much of Jewish humor. Jewish humor ... laughs at authority and blurs boundaries ... between sacred and secular or Jew and non-Jew. ... displays a fascination with language and (often twisted) reasoning. ... Jewish humor often played the role of coping mechanism. With the anti- , poverty, and uncertainties Jews faced throughout so much of their history, there often seemed little to do but laugh.
　
　
http://www.hadassah.org/site/c.9iKRJcNRIlI2F/b.6504639/k.6981/My_Jewish_LearningbrJewish_Humor_101.htm
Semitism
If Mankoff is an atheist, why does he hide in the cellar every time there's a thunderstorm?
Your comment is ridiculous, but not particularly funny.
My son has autism.When he was diagnosed ,the pain was unbearable.I was depressed daily,after all this isn't something an anti biotic is going to help.
As the weeks and months went by I began to notice lovable and highly skilled talents in my boy.However the "shadow" is always in my gut.
I became unemployed last year and I began to write and write and write about my son's behaviors that could have interpreted in two clear ways.
1) Pathetic and devastating
2) remarkable and Hilariously funny.
I choose the latter.............in fact I was asked to publish my stories which I recently did.
This choice of humor and acceptance made all the difference.
Zidlow
After searching for a minute and a half I still can't find a website which offers proof of this, but I would say, yes.
Example -
A Jewish guy in Russia falls into the river, but he cannot swim. He screams "help, help!", but the local police ignore him, being he's "just a Jew". Than the Jew screams "Down with the CZAR!" whereupon both cops jump into the Volga to save him so they can arrest him.
I don't know if you caught the too-short-lived sitcom "Action" which was on Fox for about five minutes tens years ago or so. Jay Mohr starred as a Hollywood producer who was a bit ethically-challenged and insensitive. (I know, hard to picture someone like that working in Hollywood, right?)
Anyway, the producer is out raising money for a movie to be entitled "Billionaire Boys' Gun Club." (Or maybe the title was slighly different, my memory is not perfect, but you get the idea.) And he's got baseball caps and T-shirts with the movie's name on them to hand out to investors so that they can be the first one on their block with an article of clothing with the movie's name on it. (A major lure for investors in movies from the mid-90's until somewhat later in the mid-90's.) And one of the potentials investors he visits is an old orthodox Jew. After the producer winds up his spiel about the movie, he's got one arrow in his quiver: he whips out a prayer shawl with "Billionaire Boys' Gun Club" embroidered on it.
The old orthodox guy's face does not change expression, he doesn't blink, he just looks at the thing and mumbles quietly, "That is so wrong on so many levels." Such a perfect moment.