Poles, Jews, and Jokes in America's Upper Midwest

Folk cultural aspects of Polish-Jewish relations in the United States, despite more than a century of co-settlement, have been largely ignored. Indeed the many publications on Jewish jokes and Polish jokes do not include a single study focused on Polish-Jewish jokes in America. This essay examines jokes told about Jews by Poles in America's Upper Midwest, discerns their mostly positive meanings, and offers explanations grounded in historical and ethnographic research.