“Aren’t You Jewish by Any Chance?”

Since the 1960s, the repertoire of "Jewish stories" has received a rather benevolent welcoming in the public. This specific and teeming humor never hesitate to feature its own religious representatives or, better still, to summon God himself. No other religious community would venture so far on this path. Scholar or not, Jewish or non-Jewish, the reader never gets bored when reading this book, which should feature on every shelves of bookstores and libraries: culture and religion, history of Judaism, anthropology, epistemology of social sciences, and above all, humor. Richard Papp is an anthropologist who study a living community and reveals its inner functioning; yet, his research reaches far beyond pure science. During many years at the Bethlen Square synagogue in Budapest, he carried out "participant observation", a fieldwork where the researcher is at the same time an actor who participates in the environment he is studying. Papp managed to deliver his analysis with sensitivity and humor, but no self-indulgence.