- Jewish
Jesters
Woody Allen - Milton Berle
- Shelley Berman
- Elayne Boosler
- Victor Borge
- Fanny Brice
- Marshall Brickman
- Albert Brooks
- Mel Brooks
- Lenny Bruce
- George Burns
- Red Buttons
- Sid Caesar
- Eddie Cantor
- Jack Carter
- Professor Irwin Corey
- Billy Crystal
- Rodney Dangerfield
- Larry David
- Larry Gelbart
- Buddy Hackett
- Danny Kaye
- George Jessel
- Alan King
- Robert Klein
- Jerry Lewis
- Richard Lewis
- Marx Brothers
- Groucho Marx
- Jackie Mason
- Walter Matthau
- Elaine May
- Bette Midler
- Zero Mostel
- Jan Murray
- Mike Nichols
- Molly Picon
- Gilda Radner
- Carl Reiner
- Joan Rivers
- Paul Reiser
- Roseanne
- Rita Rudner
- Mort Sahl
- Adam Sandler
- Jerry Seinfeld
- Garry Shandling
- Phil Silvers
- Neil Simon
- David Steinberg
- Ben Stiller
- Jerry Stiller
- Three Stooges
- Gene Wilder
- Henny Youngman
Throughout the 20th century, from Vaudeville to Seinfeld, many Jewish Americans have chosen comedy as a career. While accounting for just 2% of the U. S. population, Jews have comprised a highly disproportionate number of America's successful comedians and comedy writers. Time magazine once put the figure as high as 80%
"I do not know whether there are many other instances of a people making fun to such a degree of its own character."
– Sigmund Freud, Wit and Its Relation
to the Unconscious
A
GIFT FOR LAUGHTER: Comedy and the Jews
celebrates this phenomenon while exploring the roots of Jewish
humor in the Jewish experience. Using a rich mixture of archival footage,
film and television clips, performance footage and spirited commentary
from a diverse group of comedians, comedy writers, historians and experts
on comedy, the film tells the story of Jews in comedy in a style similar
to Ken Burns' Jazz.
"Surely no other people in history has made greater use of humor to assuage its pain, assert its pride, exhibit its wit, consolidate its sense of identity, buoy up its spirits, intensify its sexual attractiveness – even blaspheme against its God – without taking any more responsibility than a man who makes an innocent joke."
– Albert Goldman, Next Year in Jerusalem
Larry Gelbart, Award winning writer of M*A*S*H, Tootsie, The Bob Hope Show, and Caesar's Hour."A GIFT FOR LAUGHTER: Comedy and the Jews. . . promises to create a film that will surpass any previous work on the subject of exploring humor over 5,000 years of the Jewish peoples' experience."
–
This film is being produced for theatrical release, home video market and future network television broadcast.
For more information, contact Ben Thum at (510) 593-5093 or auroraben@aol.com.