In this book, Elliot Oring proposes that the idea of ‘Jewish humor’ was a construct of the 19th century and was created in an attempt to prove the humanity of the Jewish people. Oring states that “Towards the end of the 19th century the faculty of humor was felt to be one of the signs of a civilized humanity, and Jews felt the necessity to demonstrate that they had participated in this humanity since their emergence as a people.”

Oring cites Abram S. Isaac’s  ‘Stories from the Rabbis and Rabbinical Humor’. Isaac was an American rabbi, author and professor who tried to show that Jewish scholars were not always just buried in their books and ignorant of the real goings on of the greater society. Isaac believes that these Jewish scholars promoted “moral cheerfullness” through intellectual motives. Oring also cites Joseph Chotzner who was the first rabbi of the Jewish community in Belfast Ireland. Chotzner included the identification of Hebrew humorists during the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries in his book ‘Hebrew Humor and Other Essays’ to prove that humor had permeated Jewish culture centuries before.

In opposition,  Otto Weininger (who was ironically a Jew himself) wrote in his book ‘Sex and Character’ that Jews were not ‘readily disposed to humor’. He stated that humor was inherently tolerant and because so called Jewish humor was based in wit and satire, it was not tolerant and therefore not really humor. This undermined the idea of the Jewish humanity.