The Heirs of Itzhak.

The article discusses the question of Jewish humor. The author considers this question as a special variation upon the persisting question of Jewish singularity. It is often maintained that only a member of a given people can really understand its life, including its humor. He asserts that it is hardly a coincidence that some of the best jokes are Jewish jokes. Jewish humor is here accounted for on the ground, not of something peculiarly Jewish, but of a particular socio-historical condition called marginality.