When Jews Were Funny (Alan Zweig, 2013): USA

Reviewed by Angela Yago. Viewed at the Metropolitan 4 theatre , Santa Barbara.

I’m surprised by how much “When Jews Were Funny” made me laugh, I laughed so much at times that I almost cried. I didn’t expect it to be that hilarious, I guess I just thought it would be another informational documentary. Oh was I wrong.

When Jews Were Funny is a documentary by Alan Zweig, he’s a jew who interviews a bunch of known and famous Jewish comedians to find out the history of Jewish comedy. Some famous comedians that are being interviewed are Gilbert Gottfried, Howie Mandel, Judy Gold and Rodney Dangerfield. The genre comedy can also be included in this documentary, because most of the interviews and footage are hilarious.

When director Alan Zweig asks the question: “Are Jews the same today?” he gets the answer “No.” This is because todays famous Jewish comedians believe that Jew’s were different before, that their culture isn’t the same today as it was back in the days. They say the humor of the older Jews were better, and there are not many left of the older Jews. They also say all the Jews are separated nowadays, it’s not what it used to be, where you could see them sit and complain about everything, even if that specific thing was good, even if everything was good. Back in the days everyone were all together – all packed in one place. Many of the comedians that were interviewed said it was the end of an era, that they’ve lost the best ones. This was really serious to them, and for Alan Zweig it was important to find out everything. He did this documentary to find out how he’s supposed to raise his daughter who is half Jewish, he asks all the comedians that are parents how to, because he doesn’t really know how. All Zweig wants to do is to introduce his culture to his daughter when she starts to get older, it’s important for him that she’s a part of that.

I loved how they mixed interviews with history, scenes, and a bunch of Jewish jokes, it was so much fun. I love how Alan Zweig used something so simple and turned it into this great and important documentary. Even if it was a serious topic, they made it funny and made people smile, and I can say that I wasn’t the only one laughing throughout the documentary, everyone in the salon laughed so hard. This was definitely the best documentary I saw at the film festival. It was really worth seeing.