Al Gini* and Abraham Singer** Why’d You Have to Choose Us? On Jews and Their Jokes Abstract: Humor, laughter, joke telling can be frivolous fun or it could act as a sword and a shield to defend and protect us against life. Humor can, at times, illuminate if not completely explain, some of the irresoluble problems and mys- teries that individuals face. And, if all else fails, humor can hold off our fear of the unanswerable and the unacceptable. Historically it can be argued that during times of trial, tribulations, and suffering, Jewish communities and individuals have used humor as a way to cope with and deal with reality. Keywords: pain, suffering, humor, and laughter Whoever has cried enough, laughs! —Heinrich Mann In the 1960s, the Jewish population in America was less than 3 %, but according to Time Magazine nearly 80% of the top performing comedians were Jewish. As one pundit put it: “Comedy in America was a Jewish cottage industry!” (Menchin 1997, 12). Different from performers like Jackie Mason, Myron Cohen, Henny Youngman, Joan Rivers, and Lenny Bruce who openly identified with and poked fun at their Jewish heritage, most successful comedians Anglicized their names and crafted a comic persona and a repertoire of jokes that appealed to a general audience. For example: Jack Benny (Benjamin Kubelsky), George Burns (Nathan Bienhaum), Jerry Lewis (Jerome Levitch), Rodney Dangerfield (Jacob Cohen), and Red Buttons (Aaron Chwatt). Today’s comedy scene is no lon- ger as completely dominated by Jewish performers. But no-nonsense Jewish names are still major players in the world of show business: Jerry Seinfeld, Paul Reiser, David Steinburg, Larry David, Marc Maron, Sacha Baron Cohen, Amy Schumer, Sarah Silverman, Judd Apatow, Adam Sandler, Seth Rogan, Fran Drescher, and Vanessa Bayer. Given these names and numbers the trick question is: Are Jews predisposed to comedy? Answer: Genetically predisposed or programmed for comedy and shtick, no we don’t think so. To claim that Jews, or any ethnic or racial group pos- sesses a specific gene or cluster of comedic genes is, at best, dubious and cannot * Quinlan School of Business, Loyola University Chicago; agini@luc.edu ** Quinlan School of Business, Loyola University Chicago; asinger2@luc.edu https://doi.org/10.1515/phhumyb-2020-0005