Humor has been a fundamental aspect of Judaism and permeates its cultural tradition since the Old Testament. Jeremy Dauber masterfully explores the origins of Jewish humor and its evolution to the present day: through the analysis of traditional forms of Jewish humor—satire, wit, and eschatology, among others—he reveals that persecution, exile, cultural assimilation, religiosity, diaspora, and identity, essential to explaining the Jewish experience, are the pillars upon which its comedic tradition is built. He also traces the rise and fall of the main Jewish humor archetypes with the help of masters such as Sholem Aleichem, Isaac Babel, Franz Kafka, the Marx Brothers, Woody Allen, Joan Rivers, Philip Roth, Mel Brooks, Sarah Silverman, and Larry David, among many others. A rigorous and entertaining essay that humorously addresses a subject as serious as the history of the Jewish people and reminds us that, sometimes, laughter can restore the balance of sanity.