Jewface, Secret Handshakes, and Everything in Between: Performing Jews Performing Jewish

Jews in America have routinely, even reflexively, turned to humor in navigating their identity. This talk explores how Jewish comedians have done so on stage, screen, and in print, publicly enacting but also modeling—for Jewish and non-Jewish audiences—the varying strategies Jews have turned to in figuring out how to be both Jewish and American. Those strategies have varied considerably from the earliest decades of the twentieth century until today, ranging from openly performing “Jewish” and all the complicated relationships to stereotypes that implies, to trying to hide Jewish identity from everyone except other Jews. This lecture will survey that history, with plenty of comic examples, and with particular attention to gendered differences in strategy as Jews in America tried to negotiate the complicated identity we call “Jewish.”

Natan Paradise directs the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Minnesota. He teaches courses in Jewish history and cultures, Jewish American literature, and Jewish humor, in addition to his research and writing on the American Jewish experience, antisemitism, and strategies for advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion that are both effective and truly inclusive. He regularly serves as an invited speaker to local, national, and international audiences on antisemitism and DEI.

Cosponsors: Department of Classical Near Eastern Religions & Cultures,  Department of English, Department of History