Is there a definition of Jewish humor? When did it start, and where is it heading? Jeremy Dauber will answer these and many other questions in a wide-ranging talk on Jewish comedy’s long and wide reach over two millennia—and will tell the greatest Jewish joke in history.

Jeremy Dauber is the Atran Professor of Yiddish, Language, Literature, and Culture and, for the last decade, directed Columbia’s Institute of Israel and Jewish Studies. His first book, Antonio’s Devils: Writers of the Jewish Enlightenment and the Birth of Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literature, focused on the usage of biblical and rabbinic texts by Yiddish and Hebrew writers of the early Jewish Enlightenment. Dauber’s book, The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem: The Remarkable Life and Afterlife of the Man Who Created Tevye, received the Sophie Brody Honor Medal from the American Library Association and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. His new book, Jewish Comedy: A Serious History will be published by Norton in October 2017. Professor Dauber is the grandson of Melvin and Judith Solomon, z”l, longtime pillars of the local Jewish community.