ABSTRACT
As a literary genre, black humor has a long history. Jewish black humor during the civil war worked on three different levels. On the first and most immediate level, the jokes, anecdotes, and cartoons provided practical advice to victims or potential victims of violence concerning how to fend off attacks or deal with the consequences of violence: how to preserve or restore their dignity and self-respect as citizens, private individuals, and Jews. At the second level, jokes poked fun at their own advice and ridiculed the character and values they had just proposed as an alternative. At the third level, Jewish humor takes its readers and listeners out of the real world, liberates them from the constraints of life, and transports those seeking help, solace, and answers to deeper questions that swirl around the world of the imagination and the surreal.
