Grandma's army

Jews are one of the most ancient peoples in the world. There are more facts about Jewish history than   any other nation. The  Jewish people  originated in the  land of Israel , a nd have maintained physical, cultural, and religious ties to it ever since. Even though Israel is a tiny country it is always in the global news.  This news often reports on the unending conflicts between Israeli Jews and their neighbours, and the search for peace.  Even if there is no actual warfare there is continuous tension.  How did this start?  Many people look back only as far back as the birth of Israel in 1948 - but if we are to understand the situation we need to look back much further. As related in the Bible, it all began over 4,000 years ago with Abraham, who went on a camping trip in this part of the Middle East. The Bible is the oldest source of Jewish history, although religious Jews consider it   as far more than an historical documen...

   European Jewish humor in its early form developed in the Jewish community of the  Holy Roman Empire , with theological satire becoming a traditional way of clandestinely opposing  Christianization . Modern Jewish humor - emerging during the nineteenth century among German-speaking Jews of the  Haskalah  (Jewish Enlightenment) - matured in the  shtetls  of the Russian Empire. It then flourished in twentieth-century America, arriving with the millions of Jews who emigrated from Eastern Europe between the 1880s and the early 1920s. Beginning with  vaudeville , and continuing through  radio ,  stand-up comedy ,  film , and  television , a disproportionately high percentage of American, German, and Russian comedians have been Jewish. Time  estimated in 1978 that 80 percent of professional American comics were Jewish! There are plenty of theories to explain Jewish humor — most devised by Jews. Saul Bellow, chan...