Jewish humour is the long tradition of humour in Judaism dating back to the Torah and the Midrash from the ancient mid-east, but generally refers to the more recent stream of verbal, self-deprecating, crude, and often anecdotal humour originating in Eastern Europe and which took root in the United States over the last hundred years. Beginning with vaudeville, and continuing through radio, stand-up comedy, film, and television, a disproportionately high percentage of American and Russian comedians have been Jewish.
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Famous quotes containing the words jewish and/or humour:
“It is most important that we should keep in this country a certain leisured class.... I am of the opinion of the ancient Jewish book which says “there is no wisdom without leisure.””
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The difference between farce and humour in literature is, I suppose, that farce strums louder and louder on one string, while humour varies its note, changes its key, grows and spreads and deepens until it may indeed reach tragic depths.”
—V.S. (Victor Sawdon)