Two Jews Walk Into a Comedy Club... Stop Me if You've Heard This

Jeff Cohen

In last week's issue of New York Magazine, the cover story consisted of photographs of a cranky-looking Woody Allen and a bemused (what else?) Larry David. So taking a casual glance, I was optimistic: Finally, a story about humor with people who aren't Judd Apatow or his repertoire company! 

Turns out the story was about the death of Jewish humor. Swell. The one thing I do well, and it's dying out.

To be honest, I'm not sure what "Jewish humor" is. I was asked about it recently for an interview at Poe's Deadly Daughters, and I sort of fudged it, because to me, something's either funny or it's not, and what the ethnic makeup of the comedian might be is secondary at best. I did make a comment that the role of the jester is not just to mock power, but to keep them laughing so maybe the pogroms would stop for a couple of weeks, but that got cut from the interview, with my consent.

But then I noticed that most of the comedians I have studied (for pleasure) and followed during my life have been Jewish. Not all, by any stretch of the imagination. The first stand-up comic who made an impression on me was Bill Cosby, whom I'm pretty sure is not Jewish. And I'd seen Alan King, Myron Cohen and Shecky Greene, none of whom made the same impact on my mind. Cosby was different--a storyteller who had (in those days) a child's view of life, despite his advanced age (at the time, he was probably in his early 30s).

Still, there's no mistaking the ethnic bias that came later on: The Marx Brothers, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks (ESPECIALLY Mel Brooks), Robert Klein and Jerry Seinfeld were/are all landsmen. They were also all men, now that I think of it, but nobody's talking about the death of male humor.

As a mystery writer, I'm a good comedian. As a comedian, I'm a pretty good mystery writer. But to hear that (at least in the opinion of New York Magazine, which has a little more credibility on the matter than, say, Des Moines Magazine, if such a thing exists) the type of comedy to which I've most closely attached myself is dying out is not what you'd call encouraging. I'm not really ready to quit yet. First, I'd like to be successful, for one thing.

Luckily, I think the magazine is dead wrong.

The premise, as I understand it, is that "Jewish humor" as practiced by Allen, David and Brooks is on its way out because those who practice it are not exactly in their 20s anymore. But there's more than one problem with that premise. The first is acknowledged by the article itself:

Neither Allen nor David sees anything particularly Jewish about their comedy. Perhaps that’s not entirely unexpected given that Allen has always cited Bob Hope as a seminal influence, but, to steal a phrase from Saturday Night Live’s Seth Meyers: Really?!

“Right,” Allen says politely. “You know, it’s funny. I have a blind spot there. Because I wouldn’t see what I do as Jewish humor. I would see it as funny if you think it’s funny, or not if you don’t. But I never think of it as Jewish in any way. Now, as I say, this is a blind spot. Because you and other people might feel differently.”

“I get the same thing,” says David, laughing. “People, you know, Jews, they come up to me, they go, ‘Hey, I’m a Jew—I get it.’ ‘I’m a landsman—love your show!’ Jews want to be the only ones who like it! They think it’s for them. It’s not just for them. And I don’t think that way either.”

I'd have to agree with that. Mel Brooks, certainly, makes it a practice to draw attention to his ethnic background. But the rest I've cited really don't make a point of it. And the "classic" Jewish comics, the Marx Brothers, were not so much outsiders from the mainstream of religious society--they were beings from another realm. 

Comedy is about as subjective an art form as can possibly exist. What I consider hilarious you might find banal. What you think is side-splitting I might consider pretentious or juvenile. I'm not a big fan of the current "gross-out" school of comedy, but that doesn't make the people who love it wrong. It's just that I'm not quite as eighteen years old as I used to be.

Will Jewish humor die out? Nah. Not as long as there are people who happen to be Jewish and are funny. Will the Borscht Belt comic, the one that Allen and people like Billy Crystal have had such affection for, stop existing? They really haven't been around for years, since the venues for them have died out. 

But go to a comedy club if there's one near you some night and listen. There are now Indian Jewish comedians and African-American Jewish comedians and Iranian Jewish comedians and Mexican Jewish comedians and... well, you get the idea. The idea of "Jewish comedy" was always a little bit self-deprecating, a little self-aware and not necessarily all about religion, sex or any other one topic. They're still out there. They come in every color and stripe right now. And that's a good thing.

To paraphrase the old ad for the rye bread: You don't have to be Jewish to be a Jewish comedian. I'm not even sure if it helps.

But it's not going anywhere. Get used to it.