ABSTRACT
A common theme in Jewish humor after the war was the broken relationship between the Jewish middle and upper middle classes and the nobility and peasants. The level of aggression inherent in Jewish humor varied on the basis of the social status of the opponent and their historical relationship with Jews. In the late nineteenth century, the Jewish opinion of Hungary was that of a second Jerusalem: a land of plenty and a place of unlimited opportunity and tolerance. The main function of Jewish humor in 1919 was to understand the world, decipher the meaning of recent events, and provide solace and direction in the postwar chaos. The rise of a new peasant middle class that competed with Jewish commercial farmers, ongoing democratization, and the interwar political mobilization of the lower middle classes only reinforced these trends.
