For centuries, comedy has provided the Jewish community with an outlet for joy, expression of opinion, and entertainment. On October 4th, 2025, Saturday Night Live (SNL) returned for its 51st season, making it America’s longest running Sketch Variety Show. SNL’s longevity is a testament to its major cultural imprints on North American humour.
Created by Lorne Michaels, a Jewish Canadian-American Comedian and producer, the late-night comedy show has woven elements of Jewish humour into its sketches over half a century. SNL’s lasting success reflects the enduring influence of Jewish humour on pop culture—an influence that stretches from the witty jabs in the Tanakh, to resilience inside concentration camps, and even to the never-ending laughter of overnight summer camps.
It was at one such summer camp that the seeds for SNL were planted. During Michael’s summers at Camp Timberlane in Haliburton, Ontario, he and Howard Shore, SNL’s first musical director, ran a Saturday night variety show called The Fast Show. This informal camp production is considered to be a predecessor to Saturday Night Live.
SNL has featured countless Jewish themes and skits. Many Jews proudly listen to Adam Sandler’s “The Hanukkah Song”, a Jewish alternative to Christmas music. Other sketches emphasize cultural-self awareness and irony. SNL uses a recurring theme of neurotic and self-depricating characters. “Jewish Elvis” shows a Jewish cast member, dressed as Elvis Presley, parodies Jewish traits, using Yiddish words and incessantly complaining. Recurring “Protective Mom” skits with guest star Pedro Pascal and in “Coffee Talk” with Mike Myers portray overbearing Jewish mothers.
The show’s Jewish roots reflect the historic relationship between Jewish culture and comedy. When flocks of Eastern and Central European Jews reached America in the late 1800s and early 1900s, they became victims of racialized jokes. Gentile comedians would put on “Jew-face”, wearing fake noses and beards to mock Jewish greed and deceit, tropes echoed in centuries-old conspiracy theories.
In response, Jewish comics adopted self-deprecating jokes, sharing them in exclusively Jewish environments in New York City, then in the Catskills, referred to as the Borscht Belt, and eventually the rest of America. Themes of irony and satire also dominate the nature of Jewish comedy, as seen in popular media such as Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, which depicts the absurdity of the modern Jewish existence in many of its episodes.
Irony and humour are even embedded in Jewish biblical texts, including in the Torah and the Tanakh, influencing centuries of storytelling, cultural expression, and comedic traditions. For example, in Malachim Aleph 18:20-39, Elijah mocks the Priests of Baal when their God did not answer, suggesting that he must be talking, sleeping, or travelling – a moment of sharp sarcasm. Isaac’s birth, one of the most famous stories in the Bible, is also marked with humor. Sarah, who is later punished for laughing in disbelief after being told she will have a child at an old age, names her child Issac, meaning “he laughs.”
During the Holocaust, humour in concentration camps maintained hope amidst intense hardships. Plays featuring jokes about Nazis and mockeries of Hitler, such as “The Night of Blood on the Rock of Horrors or Knight Adolar’s Maiden Voyage and Its Gruesome End or That is Not the True Love” by Rudolf Kalmar were performed in concentration camps.
Jewish humour is more than just a style of comedy – it is a means of cultural expression and self-definition. For Jews throughout history, humour has been used as a coping mechanism and resistance to find strength in the face of adversity. The enduring influence of Jewish humour demonstrates resilience and the maintenance of connections across generations and the diaspora.
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