The American Jewish Intelligentsia, the Claims of Humor—and the Case of Lenny Bruce
Several major American Jewish scholars and intellectuals have addressed the vitality and the pertinence of Jewish humor, seeing in it an entrée not only into key characteristics of communal life but also into the texture of reality itself. These academicians and critics have exposed the encounter between stand-up comedy and the social and political peculiarities of Jewish life in the United States. No comedian attracted more sustained attention than Lenny Bruce, whose career enlarged the contours of what could explored in night clubs and on long-playing records. Perhaps no satirist took greater risks, or exposed himself to greater legal danger, in both subject matter and in language. No predecessor was more willing to flaunt his own Jewish sensibility, or to present with such cynicism the hypocrisies inherent in the codes of conduct by which respectable America professed to live—which is what made Bruce the object of serious interest.