New Yorker’s cartoon editor picks 7 Jewish favorites
Stepping down from his prestigious perch after 20 years, Bob Mankoff chooses some of his best-loved caricatures

JTA — Bob Mankoff has been the cartoon editor at The New Yorker for 20 years. But he’s been a Jew for 72.
The celebrated cartoonist, who is stepping down from his prestigious perch in May, has therefore had a long time to formulate his thoughts on Judaism and Jewish humor.
For example, he once wrote an essay about how Jews have become the “People of the Joke,” as opposed to the “People of the Book.”
“The Jews of the Bible aren’t funny,” he told JTA. “[Judaism] is a decent first draft of how to behave. It’s a really good try for 4,000 years ago.”
Mankoff mined his Jewish experience for many of the 900-plus cartoons he has published in the magazine, such as one with this caption: “I’m not arguing, I’m Jewish.” (His most famous cartoon might be one with a man on the phone saying, “How about never — is never good for you?”)
Born to parents who understood Yiddish (his mom spoke it fluently; his dad, not quite) on New York’s Lower East Side in 1944, Mankoff grew up in Queens in an age of Jewish assimilation into white American culture.
“Assimilation has a tension to it, to maintain who you are, but to change,” he said. “That’s a great mix for comedy because humor always has a double perspective — on what appearances are and what reality actually is.”
Mankoff, who has written a memoir and been the subject of an HBO documentary, doesn’t plan on slowing down after leaving The New Yorker next month.
He will teach a class at Fordham, continue to lead the Cartoon Bank, which licenses New Yorker cartoons, and work on a new project called Botnik Studios — it aims to inspire better jokes through computer algorithms.
We asked Mankoff to pick his favorite Jewish-themed cartoons from over the years, and he was happy to oblige. (The first one below is a Mankoff original).
For more New Yorker cartoons, follow @newyorkercartoons on Facebook and Instagram and visit www.newyorker.com/cartoons.
Supporting The Times of Israel isn’t a transaction for an online service, like subscribing to Netflix. The ToI Community is for people like you who care about a common good: ensuring that balanced, responsible coverage of Israel continues to be available to millions across the world, for free.
Sure, we'll remove all ads from your page and you'll gain access to some amazing Community-only content. But your support gives you something more profound than that: the pride of joining something that really matters.

We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel ten years ago - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
We have a new, improved comments system. To comment, simply register or sign in.
comments