Encyclopedia of Jewish Humor: From Biblical Times to the Modern Age
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Jewish humor mirrors the minds and hearts of the Jewish people. It reflects their joys and sorrows, hopes and disappointments. Perhaps most significant, it demonstrates their willingness to poke fun at themselves, which has no doubt enabled Jews to endure centuries of hardship with head held high and a smile on their collective face.
In the Encyclopedia of Jewish Humor, hailed as a landmark work when first published, Henry D. Spalding presents delightful anecdotes, quips, jokes, and yarns featuring the colorful folk who have added spice and spirit to Jewish life from biblical to modern times. Some of the selections are pungent, many are scornful of deceit and pretense, others are alive with brotherhood. Most are just downright hilarious.
In thirty-nine chapters, Spalding allows forty centuries of Jewish life to speak through characters we have all grown to love. Here, you'll find the itinerant shnorrer who arrives in a small Lithuanian town late one Friday afternoon with no place to stay; the Yiddishe papa whose task it is to instruct little Mortie in the ways of the birds and bees; the congregant whose life's goal, it seems, is to make his rabbi miserable; the hypochondriac who complains of ailments as yet undiscovered. The author (re)introduces us to the shlemiels and shlimazls, rebbes and rebbetzins, mamas and papas, doctors and patients, marriage brokers and divorce lawyers, yeshiva students and sisterhood presidents whose peculiar antics never fail to entertain.
In the preface to this classic work, Henry Spalding writes that the surest way to destroy humor is to analyze it. So no more analyzing...Now it's time to read a little something!
About the Author
A native of New York City, Henry D. Spalding began his career in journalism as a reporter for the New York Mirror and the Journal. While a member of the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., he was an accredited White House correspondent.
In the 1950s Spalding moved to Los Angeles, where he was active as editor and publisher of Deejay, Disc, and Top Ten-all music magazines-as well as Talent News, a show-business trade journal.
When Encyclopedia of Jewish Humor was first published in 1969, it was received enthusiastically, and has since gone through many editions. That, together with the author's Treasure-Trove of American Jewish Humor, Encyclopedia of Black Folklore and Humor, Joys of Irish Humor, and Joys of Italian Humor, have established Henry Spalding as one of the world's leading experts on ethnic humor.
Encyclopedia of Jewish Humor: From Biblical Times to the Modern Age,Henry D. Spalding,Jonathan David Publishers,0824604377,General,Humor,Jewish wit and humor,Literature: Classics
English Books:
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