When Jews Were Funny is a documentary film by Canadian director Alan Zweig, released in 2013, which explores the role of Jewish comedians in the history of North American comedy and humour from the Borscht belt to the present day.
The film features interviews with and/or performance clips of a wide variety of Jewish comedy performers and writers of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Howie Mandel, Gilbert Gottfried, Rodney Dangerfield, Eugene Mirman, Marc Maron, Bob Einstein, Andy Kindler, Shelley Berman, Alan King, Judy Gold, Elon Gold, David Steinberg, Jackie Mason, Jack Carter, Norm Crosby, Henny Youngman, David Brenner, Shecky Greene, Mark Breslin, Cory Kahaney, Harrison Greenbaum, Simon Rakoff, Lisa Lambert, Larry Josephson and Michael Wex.
The film premiered on September 10, 2013 at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. It subsequently won the festival award for the year's best Canadian feature film.
^ "TIFF ’13: Zweig remembers the “Funny”". Real Screen, September 16, 2013.
^ "TIFF 2013: 12 Years a Slave wins film fest’s top prize". Toronto Star, September 15, 2013.
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, 1h33 GenresDocumentary ThemesFilms about racism, Films about religion, Documentary films about racism, Documentary films about law, Documentary films about war, Documentary films about historical events, Documentaire sur une personnalité, Documentary films about religion, Political films, Films about Jews and Judaism, Documentary films about World War II Rating66% Joseph Fischer's memoir was discovered only after his death. His children refused to confront it, except for David, the filmmaker, for whom it became a compass for a long journey. When David found it unbearable to be alone in the wake of his father's survival story and in his struggle not to lose his sanity, he convinced his brothers and sister to join him in the hope that this would also contribute to releasing tensions and bring them as close as they used to be. His siblings, for their part, couldn’t understand why anyone should want to dig into the past instead of enjoying life in the present. The journey eventually leads the Fishers into the dark depths of the B8 Bergkristall tunnels, part of the Austrian KZ Gusen II concentration camp, where their father endured forced labor during the Holocaust. Illuminated only by flashlights, they seek meaning in their personal and family histories and undergo surgical and revealing discussions about family, survival and individualism only to come to the realization that they are unable to fully understand their father's past and the events that haunted him. Joseph Fischer's last couple of weeks at Gunskirchen concentration camp, were an inhuman experience that blocked his writing. In order to find out what his father failed to describe about Gunskirchen's liberation David located veterans of the 71st Infantry Division who liberated the camp. The elderly soldiers are still haunted and traumatized by the horrific sights they came across when entering the camp. Through their journey, the Fishers become emblematic of the entire second generation who are still grappling with the experience of their survivor parents.