The Art of the Kvetch: Jewish Humor as Secularism | The New School

Jewish Studies at Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts | http://www.newschool.edu/lang/jewish-studies

The modern tradition of Jewish humor emerged from the same ideological ferment that produced Zionism, Liberal Judaism, Modern Orthodoxy, and a wide variety of secular forms of Jewish identity. To this day, Jewish humor reinforces the bond between Jews even as globalization has brought it to millions of non-Jews. Is this lively tradition the result of a seed of humor planted deep in Jewish textual traditions, or is Jewish humor an exercise in self- loathing by an insecure minority? Having transcended its Yiddish forms in American comedy (from Lenny Bruce to Larry David), is Jewish humor a way for Jews to be Jews in a genre at once particular and universally accessible?

Jewish Cultural Studies | http://www.newschool.edu/jewishculture
THE NEW SCHOOL FOR GENERAL STUDIES | http://www.newschool.edu/generalstudies

Participants include:

Michael Wex, author of Just Say Nu: Yiddish for Every Occasion (When English Just Won't Do) and Born to Kvetch; Noah Isenberg, author of Between Redemption and Doom: The Strains of German-Jewish Modernism and editor and translator of The Face of East European Jewry by Arnold Zweig; Jeffrey Israel, author of a dissertation on Jewish humor and politics; and Val Vinokur, author of The Trace of Judaism: Dostoevsky, Mandelstam, Babel, Levinas.

Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts | http://www.newschool.edu/lang

Presented by Jewish Studies at Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts and the Jewish Cultural Studies Program.

THE NEW SCHOOL | http://www.newschool.edu

Location: Wollman Hall, Eugene Lang Building
04/27/2011 6:30 p.m.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• The New School
• New School University
• New School
• Humor
• Comedy
• Jewish Humor
• Kvetch
• Secularism
• Zionism
• Liberal Judaism
• Modern Orthodoxy
• Jewish identity
• Jew Jews
• Yiddish
• Jewish Cultural Studies
• Michael Wex
• Noah Isenberg
• Jeffrey Israel
• Val Vinokur
• Carolyn Vellenga Berman
• Author
• Writer
• philosophy
• analysis
• commentary
• educational
• politics
• college

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