Lots of laughs …

… Jews and Their Jokes | The Weekly Standard. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The liveliest pages in Jewish Comedy are those on which Dauber takes up Jewish jokes within his categories. These include rabbi jokes, schnorrer (or beggar) jokes, schlemiel and schlimazel jokes, shadkhn (or matchmaker) jokes, Jewish American Princess jokes, Nazi jokes, even Holocaust jokes. A nice selection of Jewish curses—“May your bones be broken as often as the Ten Commandments”—is also provided. The most politically incorrect of such jokes are Jewish women jokes, which play on the stereotypes of the nagging, over-caring, overbearing disapproving Jewish mother (portrayed brilliantly years ago by Elaine May in one of the Nichols and May skits); the Jewish American Princess (“What does a JAP make for dinner?” “Reservations, of course.”); Jews and cosmetic surgery (Dorothy Parker said that Fanny Brice’s rhinoplasty was a case of “cutting off her nose to spite her race”); the domineering wife (when a boy returns home from school to announce that he is to play a Jewish husband in the school play, his mother sends him back to tell the teacher he wants a speaking part); and the extravagant wife (“A thief stole my wife’s purse with all her credit cards. I’m not going after him. He’s spending less than she does.”)

I was recently pleased to learn that an analysis of my DNA indicates that I am  2 percent Jewish. Not a lot, but better than nothing.