Director Emeritus Jeremy Dauber Featured in Columbia Magazine

On June 12, 2023, Columbia Magazine published an interview with Jeremy Dauber, the Director Emeritus of the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and the Atran Professor of Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture. Dr. Dauber discusses the inspiration behind, and content of, his latest book, a biography of Mel Brooks titled Mel Brooks: Disobedient Jew (Yale University Press Jewish Lives, 2023).

The interview touches on Mel Brooks’ lasting relevance, the power of humor as a weapon against hate, and Brooks’ life in the context of the American Jewish story. An excerpt from the interview is quoted below; you can view this interview in full on Columbia Magazine’s website.

Your book is part of the Jewish Lives biography series, which spotlights a pantheon of greats — Einstein, Anne Frank, Wittgenstein. Why include the man who gave us Blazing Saddles?

The short answer is “because they asked.” But really because Brooks did so much to shape not just Jewish comedy and American comedy, but also how American Jews thought about themselves in the second part of the twentieth century. With all the documentaries and books we’ve seen, that story is still under told.