Case in point: the video that comes in at number four on my list of the top ten videos of 2009. It was made as in interlude for Real Time with Bill Maher, and features Sarah Silverman with a solution for global hunger.

I imagine there are probably a lot of catholics who would find this video offensive. It may even rub some of Silverman’s fellow jews the wrong way as well. To be clear, I would never try to convince someone who doesn’t laugh at this piece that they were mistaken or wrong not to do so. The late film critic Gene Siskel said that you can’t hold someone to account for what they find funny, and I think the reverse is also true.

I find this video, and Sarah Silverman in general, to be hysterically funny in part because her humor begins with poking fun at herself. Her comic persona—an overprivileged, underinformed, hopelessly shallow Jewish Californian Princess—gives her the necessary setup to be quite pointed from her fundamentally inappropriate worldview. Like, say, solving world hunger not because it’s the right thing to do, but because she doesn’t want to look at the images of starving children on relief-agency ads. It’s not as if the Pope and the Catholic clergy are the only ones getting skewered here.

Am I wrong? Is there a justification for the Pope living in old-world royal opulence while preaching humility and storing your treasures not here on Earth? Do you find Sarah Silverman as funny as I do, or do you (like some others) think she’s irritating and lowbrow? Let’s hear about it in the comments!

Old Jews Telling Jokes is by now a long-standing member of my blogroll too, in the left-hand sidebar of the C&B home page, down in the “Laugh It Out” category. Spend a little time over at Old Jews Telling Jokes, and laugh it out you will.

Kicking it off at number 10 is this little clip I’m calling “Shofar Demonstration.” I can’t remember how I came across this clip, and after a brief glance at the ShmaisVideos YouTube channel I’m doubtful that it contains any other similar hijinks.

That was Rabbi Benny Zippel on the shofar; unfortunately the other musician was not identified.