Let There Be Laughter, Michael Krasny
Let There Be Laughter, Michael Krasny
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Let There Be Laughter
A Treasury of Great Jewish Humor and What It All Means

Author: Michael Krasny

Narrator: Michael Krasny

Unabridged: 5 hr 39 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/27/2016

Synopsis

Michael Krasny has been telling Jewish jokes since his bar mitzvah, and it's been said that he knows more of them than anyone on the planet. He certainly states his case in this wise, enlightening, and hilarious book that not only collects the best of Jewish humor passed down from generation to generation, but explains the cultural expressions and anxieties behind the laughs.

With his background as a scholar and public-radio host, Krasny delves deeply into the themes, topics, and form of Jewish humor: chauvinism undercut by irony and self-mockery, the fear of losing cultural identity through assimilation, the importance of vocal inflection in joke-telling, and calls to communal memory, including the use of Yiddish.

Borrowing from traditional humor and such Jewish comedy legends as Jackie Mason, Mel Brooks, and Joan Rivers, Larry David, Sarah Silverman, Jerry Seinfeld, and Amy Schumer, Let There Be Laughter is an absolute pleasure for the chosen and goyim alike.

About Michael Krasny

Michael Krasny is the host and senior editor of Northern California's NPR affiliate KQED's award-winning Forum program, a news and public affairs radio program that also concentrates on current events, culture, health, business and technology, the arts and entertainment. He is a professor of English at San Francisco State University.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Lisa on September 22, 2016

Full disclosure: Not only did I win this book through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers program in exchange for an honest review but in fall 1972 I took a college class, Modern American Novel, and the author was the professor. (I rarely feel old but between this book and my next book, about the Altamon......more

Goodreads review by Susan on August 04, 2016

Why has Judaism and humour been so intimately linked? What is it about the Jewish experience that seems to encourage humour even while lapooning some very horrible situations, that is at once universal but celebrates the differences. This book goes a long way to try and explain the genesis of the hu......more

Goodreads review by Judie on September 27, 2016

LET THERE BE LAUGHTER is more than a book of Jewish jokes. While Michael Krasney does include a lot of jokes in eight different categories, he explains what function the jokes serve and why they can be both funny and insulting, often stereotypical. He also compares the different styles of jokes by......more

Goodreads review by FyzaReads on October 18, 2016

'Let There be Laughter' written by Michael Krasny, who is a Professor of English Literature and host of the noted NPR show 'The Forum'. He previously authored 'The Spiritual Envy-An Agnostic's Quest', in which he tried to answer the principal question about whether we can live this life according to......more

Goodreads review by Marty on January 28, 2024

Received in exchange for an honest review. It is hard to rate a book that you can put down and then pick up with out feeling you have lost the story line, but this is a collection of great stories and jokes. May times I did laugh out loud and I enjoyed the book very much. The book is divided into seve......more

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