TY - JOUR
T1 - The canonization and censorship of the modern Jewish joke
T2 - in Alter Druyanow’s Book of Jokes and Witticisms
AU - Sebba-Elran, Tsafi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2017/1/2
Y1 - 2017/1/2
N2 - The article discusses Alter Druyanow’s popular work: The Book of Jokes and Witticisms (Sefer habediha vehahiddud, Frankfurt, 1922) as a turning point in the development of modern Jewish humour. The acceptance of the book is ascribed mainly to its Zionist agenda expressed not only in the formation of its repertoire, but also in the censorship of a large collection of sexual jokes. Following a discussion of Druyanow’s main motives and anthologizing principals, the article includes a first exposure of these jokes, aiming to analyse their social roles. The comparative reading of the jokes in their historical and cultural contexts points at what the Jewish society of that time considered as its “other”–from competing religious groups to other threatening reference groups within this society, such as women and assimilated Jews. In this way, the censored jokes shed light not only on the marginality of the East European Jews and their feelings of inferiority but also on their creative response to them and their ideological horizons.
AB - The article discusses Alter Druyanow’s popular work: The Book of Jokes and Witticisms (Sefer habediha vehahiddud, Frankfurt, 1922) as a turning point in the development of modern Jewish humour. The acceptance of the book is ascribed mainly to its Zionist agenda expressed not only in the formation of its repertoire, but also in the censorship of a large collection of sexual jokes. Following a discussion of Druyanow’s main motives and anthologizing principals, the article includes a first exposure of these jokes, aiming to analyse their social roles. The comparative reading of the jokes in their historical and cultural contexts points at what the Jewish society of that time considered as its “other”–from competing religious groups to other threatening reference groups within this society, such as women and assimilated Jews. In this way, the censored jokes shed light not only on the marginality of the East European Jews and their feelings of inferiority but also on their creative response to them and their ideological horizons.
KW - Early Zionism
KW - Jewish joke
KW - canonization
KW - compilation and anthologizing
KW - ethnography
KW - humour
KW - modern Hebrew literature
KW - sexual folklore
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85008457518&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/14725886.2016.1211345
DO - 10.1080/14725886.2016.1211345
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85008457518
SN - 1472-5886
VL - 16
SP - 118
EP - 137
JO - Journal of Modern Jewish Studies
JF - Journal of Modern Jewish Studies
IS - 1
ER -