When Did Antisemitism Stop Being Funny?

What can humor tell us about the changing public life of antisemitism? Drawing on their research into Holocaust denial in the United States and Soviet anti-Zionism, historians David Slucki and Anna Shternshis explore how jokes, satire, and popular culture have exposed, challenged, and sometimes reinforced antisemitic ideas. By connecting these histories to contemporary debates about Jews and Israel, they ask why humor seems increasingly difficult in discussions of antisemitism today, and what the presence—or disappearance—of jokes reveals about the boundaries of public speech.

Anna Shternshis is the J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair in Jewish Studies and director of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto. She received her doctoral degree (DPhil) from Oxford University in 2001. Shternshis is the author of three critically acclaimed monographs, including  Soviet and Kosher: Jewish Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1923 - 1939 (Indiana UP, 2006), When Sonia Met Boris: An Oral History of Jewish Life under Stalin (Oxford UP, 2017), and Jews in the Soviet Union: Post-War Life, Hopes, and Fears, 1945-1953 (NYU Press, 2026).  She is also a co-author of Jews in the Soviet Union: War, Conquest, and Catastrophe, 1939 -1945 (NYU Press).  She wrote over 30 articles on the Soviet Jews during World War II, Russian Jewish culture, post-Soviet Jewish diaspora and Yiddish culture of the Holocaust. Together with artist Psoy Korolenko, Shternshis created and directed the Grammy-nominatedYiddish Glory project, an initiative that brought back to life forgotten Yiddish music written during the Holocaust in the Soviet Union. A recipient of 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship and President’s Impact Award at the University of Toronto, she is currently finishing her book about Yiddish music created in Nazi-occupied Ukraine.