Allegedly, an old borscht belt gag was for the straight man to describe some terrible calamity and then the comic would ask, “Yes, but is it good for the Jews?” It is a question that Jews claim was common in the early 20th century. Whether or not that is true is impossible to pin down, but the sentence does return a lot of good search results, including a few books and long form articles. It fits into the self-deprecating humor popular with American Jews. It’s a form of “owning the insult” common with ethnics 100 years ago.
Like all stereotypes, this one has some truth to it. Jews in the first half of the 20th century invested heavily in policing their ranks and inculcating this sort of attitude, with regards to politics and society. To a lesser degree, Italians, Irish, Poles and other immigrant groups did the same thing. They formed ethnic societies, had their own newspapers, encouraged the better qualities among their people and so forth. Improvement societies were not passive, either. Ethnic leaders were not afraid to shame those who did not toe the line.
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