BARE NECESSITIES: FOOD, CLOTHING AND SHELTER IN AMERICAN JEWISH HUMOR (REMOTE)

Instructor(s)
Ted Merwin, PhD
Senior Writer for the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA)
Location
Online
Date
Thursdays, June 8–22
Time
7-8:30 p.m. ET
Bare Necessities

In this 3-part class, Dr. Ted Merwin will use clips from vaudeville, popular music, film, TV, and stand-up comedy routines to show how the basic needs of human existence became the central themes for Jewish American humor. Having struggled mightily throughout history, Jews arrived in America with both a boundless faith in the benefits of freedom and an underlying set of insecurities about what it meant to make it in a capitalist society. As they became more affluent as a group but still strove to retain their religious and ethnic distinctiveness, these tensions enabled Jews to rise to the top as pre-eminent creators of popular culture.

Member of Lifelong Learning Cost
$54
Nonmember Cost
$65