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French might put it, particularism and universality. Long-present Jewish ac- tors and references were finally given licence to be open about their Jewish- ness. The arrival of “out” Jewish char- acters represented the end of a certain hybrid idiom. The new order was, in a sense, a better time to be Jewish, be- cause you didn’t have to be evasive. The lack of evasiveness about Jew- ishness was itself born of a moment of intense literalism in criticism. It wasn’t merely that shows could depict people from historically marginalized groups triumphing. The cultural mood was one that demand- ed sitcoms contribute in overt ways to social justice. That, and even apart from political polarization, there was a new expectation that fictional char- acters be nice people, leading to the gentle comedy moment exemplified by shows like Parks and Recreation (2009–2015). This was meant to be a corrective for the nihilism of Seinfeld , which I suppose it would have been, if you’d seen that as a flaw. One was forever hearing that come- dy must punch up, as though this were a descriptive rather than prescrip- tive fact about all that elicits laugh- ter, or indeed as if there were always a consensus on which targets count as “up.” As part of a general cultural ob- session with privilege hierarchies, as- certaining Jews’ whiteness and privi- lege became a major preoccupation in parts of media, social media, and aca- demia, in ways that would presage the campus-encampments discourse of 2024. Jews’ ambiguity in these hierar- chies made us a tricky fit for a moment in comedy — and in the culture gener- ally— that favoured absolutes. Am I panning Wieviorka for not adding to the one or two trillion ex- isting works on Jewishness in Amer- ican sitcoms? Am I mad at him for not grabbing the low-hanging fruit of
began, its one-time residents leaving not just due to antisemitism, but also in search of opportunity, or anonymi- ty, elsewhere. And he offers a readable, thought- provoking synthesis and analysis of French-Jewish history, from French Jews’ 1791 emancipation up to the post– October 7 moment, with an emphasis on the postwar period to the present. He covers notorious antisemitic attacks as well as cultural achievements (the Asterix comics were created by René Goscinny, a Jew!) and intracommunal strife over how much to support Isra- el. Much of this material will be new to anglophone North American Jewish readers who grew up, as I did, thinking of Europe as the old world from which the fortunate Jews escaped. The French part of the story is where Wieviorka’s true expertise lies, and where his own family history comes into play. He writes entertain- ingly and movingly about friends and relatives in the garment industry, and about his own initiations as an Ash- kenazi Jew into Sephardic culture. He explores how Jewish identity politics came to thrive within French repub- licanism — something the original ar- chitects of that republicanism would have neither foreseen nor desired. In- deed, unlike the Anglosphere generally and the US specifically, France didn’t do hyphenated identity. Much has changed in not all that many years. We now have a situation where multiculturalism and diversi- ty and such can be more accepted in France than in the United States. COMMENT DIT-ON YO MAMA? THE LAST JEWISH JOKE opens with Jewish mother jokes, recounted and admired. Wieviorka retells a joke told to him about Jewish mothers, about how they don’t want their sons to be gay, but if they must be gay, better that
THE LAST JEWISH JOKE By Michel Wieviorka Polity Press, September 2, 2025
Elaine Benes introducing gentile au- diences to the concept of the “shik- sa” yet being played by Julia Louis- Dreyfus of the Dreyfus Affair Drey- fuses? Hardly— I am, if anything, borrowing his analytic framework for looking at these micro-eras. The sub- tle distinctions between the moments when (say) Seinfeld versus Broad City were possible are, if you focus on the right elements, a tremendously rich source of information about where Jews were in American society at the times these shows were made. Com- edy is not high culture, but it’s a cate- gory of primary source that academics aren’t always as plugged into as they could be, and it’s to Wieviorka’s cred- it that he is. MEANWHILE IN FRANCE… WHAT WIEVIORKA lacks in deep engagement with the late twentieth century American Jewish sitcom rep- ertoire, he makes up for in how attuned he is to nuances across time, place, and attitudes of European Jews. He points out that the shtetl was already on its way out when the Second World War
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