In 1978, Time magazine claimed that 80 percent of all stand-up comedians in the United States were Jewish. And this at a time when Jews made up only 3% of the U.S. By way of explanation, psychologist Samuel Janus told a meeting of the American Psychological Association that, “Jewish humor is born of depression and alienation from the general culture. For Jewish comedians, comedy is a defense mechanism to ward off the aggression and hostility of others." Or as Mel Brooks put it: “If they’re laughing, how can they bludgeon you to death?”
In 1978, 80 percent of American standup comics were Jewish.
Freud’s “Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious,” which was published in 1905, drew almost exclusively on Jewish stories, because, he maintained, they were the funniest and the most interesting. Salcia Landmann, a scholar of Yiddish, argued that Jewish humor is “more acute, more profound and richer in expression than that of any other people.”
A 2013 survey from the Pew Research Center, "Portrait of Jewish Americans," found that humor is one of the main qualities that four in 10 of the nation's 5.3 million religious and cultural Jews say is essential to their Jewish identity.
All this comedic examination brings to mind E.B. White’s wonderful quote, “Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.” Therefore, let us instead celebrate the rich variety of Jewish humor from 25 of the funniest Jewish comedians in history. And for the love of God, let the poor frog live!
Jon Stewart
“We've come from the same history – 2000 years of persecution – we've just expressed our sufferings differently. Blacks developed the blues. Jews complained; we just never thought of putting it to music.”
Groucho Marx
“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.”
Billy Crystal
“At 60, I could do the same things I could do at 30, if I could only remember what those things are.”
Jerry Seinfeld
“My parents didn't want to move to Florida, but they turned sixty and that's the law.”
Jackie Mason
“My grandfather always said, ‘Don't watch your money, watch your health.’ So one day while I was watching my health, someone stole my money. It was my grandfather.”
Rodney Dangerfield
“My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met..”
Mel Brooks
“Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”
Lenny Bruce
“If you live in New York, even if you're Catholic, you're Jewish.”
George Burns
“Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”
Gilda Radner
“Well it just goes to show you, it’s always something, you either got a toenail in your hamburger or toilet paper clinging to your shoe.” (as Roseanne Roseannadanna on SNL)
Joan Rivers
“I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again.”
Don Rickles
“Room service is great. If you want to pay $500 for a club sandwich.”
Sid Caesar
“The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot. The guy who invented the other three, he was a genius.”
Milton Berle
“My wife and I have a perfect understanding. I don't try to run her life, and I don't try to run mine.”
Jerry Lewis
“When I was a kid, I said to my father one afternoon, 'Daddy, will you take me to the zoo?' He answered, 'If the zoo wants you, let them come and get you'.”
Jack Benny
“I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that either.”
Albert Brooks
“I was in Kashmir last weekend. Went to visit one of my sweaters.”
Roseanne Barr
“I’m not going to vacuum ’til Sears makes one you can ride on.
Garry Shandling
“I'm very loyal in a relationship. Any relationship. When I go out with my mom, I don't look at other moms and go, "I wonder what her macaroni and cheese tastes like."
Robert Klein
“I was in the De Witt Clinton High School marching band. One of the worst bands ever formed. When we played the national anthem, people from every country stood – except Americans.”
Nichols & May
“No doubt you are as alarmed as I by the tragic decline in America's language skills. If 10 people read the following sentence: ‘Two tanker trucks have just overturned in Alaska, spilling a total of 10,000 gallons of beer onto a highway,’ two would find an error in subject-verb agreement, two would find an error in spelling, and six would find a sponge and drive north.”
Andy Kaufman
“Okay, now be quiet, I will pay $1000 to any woman that will beat me in this ring. I will not only do that, I will shave my head completely bald if I am beaten here. And any woman that will beat me has an extra prize she will get to marry me. Right here. She will take my hand in marriage. I will offer my hand in marriage if she beats me right here.”
Shelly Berman
“If you've never met a student from the University of Chicago, I'll describe him to you. If you give him a glass of water, he says, ‘This is a glass of water. But is it a glass of water? And if it is a glass of water, why is it a glass of water?’ And eventually he dies of thirst.”
Mort Sahl
“Most people past college age are not atheists. It's too hard to be in society, for one thing. Because you don't get any days off. And if you're an agnostic you don't know whether you get them off or not.”
Seth Rogen
“I am lazy, but for some reason, I am so paranoid that I end up working hard.”
(18) James Gober, December 20, 2020 4:23 AM
Disappointed
I'm very disappointed that Buddy Hackett didn't make your list. In my opinion Buddy should of at least been 2nd on the list if not #1. ?
(17) Peter van der Walt, November 18, 2020 3:32 PM
Of a Jewish mother who is on the line to her mother because she needs a baby sitter as she is sick
I heard this on the radio in South Africa in the maybe in the 80's
(16) HOWIE SUBNICK, September 30, 2020 5:59 PM
VERY FUNNY
JEWISH WOMAN WAITING FOR HER HUSBAND TO COME HOME FROM THE GROCERY STORE. FINALLY THE DOOR OPENS AND IN COMES HER HUSBAND AND HE IS FOLLOWED BY TWO RABBIS. SHE SAYS, MORTY, IF I TOLD YOU ONCE I TOLD YOU A HUNDRED TIMES, "RIB EYES"!
(15) jim, August 21, 2020 11:32 PM
mr
dont understand why woody allen is not on the list ,i am a scot ow 61 and as a young man loved annie ,hall hanna and her sisters brilliant movies and very funny , i am going to check again in case i missed his name .
(14) H.E.Brown, July 27, 2020 4:38 PM
Comedians.
They are all good ones, My favorite was Sid Caesir. Don't know about the new ones today, doesn't seem like there are many coming on line. Whatever we can still enjoy the one's from the past.
(13) Howard bernstein, July 21, 2020 2:22 AM
Ridiculous list
This list is why I hate lists. This is just clickbait. Where are Alan King, Myron Cohen and Shecky Green to name just a few; Buddy Hackett who may be one of the funniest humans to ever live. You seem to have never heard of Charlie Chaplin. Humor and comedy are subjective enough but you add recency bias to your sins. The list is bad. The idea is worse. I expect more from your posts.
(12) j, January 18, 2020 3:39 PM
Buddy
Add Buddy Hacket....he should be in column A (;
(11) Katie, June 26, 2019 9:20 PM
Some of those are definitely America's least funny Jewish People
Wow.. Seth Rogen, Jerry Seinfeld, and Jon Stewart are painfully unfunny. I mean if you were going to add Jerry Seinfeld, why not just have put Larry David? That was the famous writer behind the show and who his character was based on. No one actually laughed at those awful standup moments at the beginning/end of shows. Seth Rogen is appealing if you hate comedy, but hate women even more. And Jon Stewart... why is he always looking at the camera? Because he's waiting for people to laugh. We heard what you said Jon, our brains work at a normal pace, stop trying to squeeze uncomfortable forced laughter out of your audience.
(10) Shimon bar Yaacov, June 11, 2019 11:40 PM
How ridiculous!
How absurd!
Do your writers really believe that there are no Jewish comedians outside the USA?
Ra'anan, July 7, 2020 5:15 PM
She's talking about FUNNY Jewish comedians!
Israeli comedians make me laugh in a DIFFERENT way than American Jewish comedians.
(9) Arthur Werner, March 8, 2019 10:51 PM
Belle Barth
Belle Barth was a Jewish-American comedian who worked primarily during the 1950s and 1960s. She was known for her foul mouthed, bawdy, irreverent humor. My favorite Belle Barth quote: "If I embarrass you, tell your friends!"
(8) Morning Sunday, August 27, 2018 7:05 PM
wheres Sammy Davis Jr on this list
(7) Telbisz van Dierendonck, March 10, 2018 2:07 AM
What about Ephraim Kishon?
He may not have been a stand up (I've only seen one of his works, but I still remember it 40 years later) If you have seen Der Blaue Milch Kanal you should :)
(6) Moishe Perl, March 9, 2018 6:09 PM
Also
Allan Sherman. What's he? Chopped liver?
(5) Moishe Perl, March 9, 2018 6:01 PM
Lists are meant to be incomplete
Any list that doesn't have a few Jews complaining about omissions, is hardly a worthy list at all.
This is a worthy list, very worthy, vey vey wordy.
Wait, you forgot Sammy Davis!!!
(4) Sheldon Padawer, March 9, 2018 1:17 AM
A list without Myron Cohen at the top is incomplete
This is the Yiddish Comedian who could turn a room full of adults into chaos. You'd hear a punchline and the impact would make whatever you just drank blow out of your nose. His timing was like the atomic clock.
I do not know if Victor Borge was Jewish, but if not he should have been.
Marny CA, March 11, 2018 9:01 PM
Victor Borge
He practiced - but my mom hated the violin and didn't want me to practice.
Alas, I'm alive and can't play and dear Mr. Borge played and is dead.
I do, however, make great potato latkes.
(3) David Shaffer, March 8, 2018 5:42 PM
Woody Allen
Perhaps the writer forgot that Woody Allen wrote jokes for others before he started performing as a comedian in his own right and then became world-famous for his comedy movies...
It can't be Allen's avowed atheism that disqualifies him from this list, or Mel Brooks (who converted to Catholicism) would also be disqualified.
I suspect that Allen is absent because it's not fashionable right now to praise people about whom there is the smell of sexual scandal. (Maybe Danny Kaye was omitted because of his homosexual affair with Sir Lawrence Olivier...)
Still, I suppose the bottom line must state that no list of 25 comedians is going to satisfy everyone...
Anonymous, March 10, 2018 7:45 PM
I believe that Mel Brooks’ wife converted to Judaism rather than the other way around
(2) Helen Schwab (Chaiah), March 7, 2018 5:03 AM
Thank you!!
I love the one with: "if you're an agnostic you don't know whether you get days off or not." from Mort Sahl.
(1) Mark Miller, March 5, 2018 7:10 PM
More favorites, please!
Thanks, Glenn. Please feel free to add any favorites not on my list here, for a future sequel. Someone else suggested Danny Kaye.