Hold the line, please best rx promotions As Wisse’s book states, by 1975 an estimated three quarters of US comedy professionals were Jewish. The author ascribes this American enthusiasm for Jewish humour in part to the creation of Israel. “The perception of Jews as a people taking hold of their future appealed to Americans,” she writes, “who valued a similar capacity for pulling themselves up by their bootstraps”. As someone who is unsympathetic to many of the current actions of the state of Israel, Wisse’s assertion made me uneasy, though I had to admit on reflection that there is perhaps some truth in it.