Fascinated by the Yiddish language, Franz Kafka gave a speech in 1912 – Jakob Hessing dedicated an entire book to the humor of Yiddish in 2020. For both writers, Yiddish harbors great ironic potential due to its contradictions. Just like the story of Hessing’s Jewish parents, who survived the war and then made the former capital of the so-called Third Reich their home.
Hessing explores the “fun story” of the Yiddish joke on Wednesday evening, October 11th, at the Jewish Community Center. The author explains why the jokes cannot be translated into German without loss and how they differ from defamatory Jewish jokes. The reading provides insights into the bygone world of the shtetl, which already used the great classics of Yiddish literature – Mendele Moícher Sfórim, Sholem Aleichem and Yitzchok Leib Perez – with humor in their art.
The Yiddish joke. Book presentation with Jakob Hessing, Wednesday, October 11th, 7 p.m., Jewish Community Center, St.-Jakobs-Platz 18, registration requested, telephone 089/202400491 or [email protected]