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TWO JEWS go on a website . . . <\/p>\n
That's not a setup for a joke, it's the backstory for \"Old Jews Telling Jokes,\" which on Wednesday tummels its way into the Penn's Landing Playhouse for a seven-week run. <\/p>\n
\"Old Jews\" is the off-Broadway smash inspired by the similarly titled, six-year-old website that, as its name (oldjewstellingjokes.com) suggests, is all about humor, much of it with a Yiddishkeit slant. <\/p>\n
One of the funniest things about the revue is that it was co-created by a man famous for his knowledge and delineation of serious and important topics. <\/p>\n
Many know Daniel Okrent as a talking head in a variety of PBS documentaries, including Ken Burns' \"Prohibition,\" which was primarily inspired by Okrent's 2010 tome, \"Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.\" Others might recall his days as the New York Times' first public editor (Times-speak for \"ombudsman\"). <\/p>\n
So, it's just a little surprising that such a seemingly sober-sided man is a driving force behind the theatrical version of \"Old Jews.\" However, as he protested during a recent phone call, it shouldn't be. <\/p>\n
\"It has surprised some people who don't know me, but people who know me aren't surprised at all,\" he insisted. \"I'm not the most serious guy in the world. I can have fun.\" <\/p>\n
He can't help it. It's in his genes. \"Both of my parents and my paternal grandfather were joke-tellers,\" he offered. \"My paternal grandfather told Eastern European-Yiddish types of irony jokes. My parents were more eclectic than that. My father was a wonderful joke-teller; my mother was an absolutely awful joke-teller, but it didn't stop her.\" <\/p>\n
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Did you hear the one about the historian and his comedy revue?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" TWO JEWS go on a website . . Continue reading