Writing in The Weekly Standard, Joseph Epstein reviews Jeremy Dauber’s book Jewish Comedy (“Jews and Their Jokes”). From Epstein’s piece:
I used to fancy a definition of the Jews as “just like everyone else, only more so.” But more needs to be said if one is to understand Jewish humor—not the jokes but the impetus driving the humor. I should say this derives from the split social personality of Jews, their simultaneous feeling of resentment at not being entirely in the mainstream of ordinary life joined to their disdain for the vapidity of that life, thus linking a sense of inferiority to one of superiority.
Make this same observation as a Gentile and you’d be labeled an anti-Semite.
