favorite Jewish joke cover 2

What Is Your Favorite Jewish Joke—And Why?

What Is Your Favorite Jewish Joke—And Why? Jokes, including the Jewish variety, are a staple of Western civilization. Some Jewish jokes have been around for centuries and are passed from generation to generation; others might have made their first appearance this week. It turns out that even the Talmud is teeming with surprising zingers. Twitter too. A first-rate Jewish joke—whether told by a Talmudic sage, Sigmund Freud, Joan Rivers, Jerry Seinfeld, Sarah Silverman or your grandmother—does more than make you laugh; it illuminates complex corners of the Jewish psyche, culture and history. That’s why we’ve asked joke tellers, writers and scholars to share their favorite Jewish joke and explain why it’s funny or meaningful. Fair warning: Some jokes in this collection will make you laugh, others will make you groan and grimace, and many are for mature...

Continue reading

community

What Is Community Today?

Your browser does not support the video tag. What does community mean in the 21st century? Human beings are gregarious. Since the dawn of time, we have created groups, societies and communities. But if our need to congregate and be social is timeless, the form that our communities take is deeply influenced by historical circumstances. The concept of community is central to Judaism and to the ethos of the Jewish people. But community—our way of being together, our way of organizing our collective lives—has changed and evolved as the world has transformed. In the 21st century, in societies rocked by philosophical, technological, social and economic upheavals, in a world where many of the old patterns of behavior, affiliation and identity have changed, the traditional model of community is in crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic adds a layer of...

Continue reading