Line #94 Main/IrishmanAndAJew


1	->''"I once heard Dave Belasco Say\
2	You couldn't stage a play today\
3	If it wasn't for the Irish and the Jews!"''
4	-->-- From the song "If it Wasn't For the Irish and the Jews"
5
6	No, this isn't [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant a place to list stale old jokes]], though it does have a very important connection to them. An Irishman and a Jew is much subtler (and older) variation on the WhiteBreadAndBlackBrotha (by comparison, [[WhiteDudeBlackDude think of the Irishman as the "black dude" and the Jew as the "white dude"]] -- [[{{Dissimile}} although the Jew will usually have slightly darker skin]]); it is a fairly common but typically low-key form of OddCouple pairing that largely originated in OlderThanRadio {{Vaudeville}}.
7
8	Simply put, it refers to any situation in which there is extensive collaboration or pairing between an [[UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}} Irishman]] or [[UsefulNotes/TheIrishDiaspora Irish-American]] (the latter is ''much'' more common) and a [[UsefulNotes/{{Judaism}} Jewish]] person. This can apply either to an onscreen pairing of two fictional characters or to a [[ShowBusiness behind-the-scenes]] collaboration in RealLife. Interestingly, the latter seems to be ''far'' more common, and the full OddCouple potential of this trope is rarely exploited, probably ''because'' the ethnicities are those of the performers themselves, and not so important to the characters they play.
9
10	You'll see this trope occur most often in {{Vaudeville}} and in works which originated there; both Irish-American and Jewish entertainers became quite successful on the Vaudeville circuit, and would have had contact with each other and collaborated together. Their real-life collaborations sometimes spilled over into the fictional characters they played and created. Another reason that these collaborations happen so often may be simpler - before World War II, anti-Semitism was virtually unknown in Ireland despite the fact that Dublin has been the home of a sizeable Jewish community since at least the 13th century. Also, here's a Fun Fact - the Irish Constitution is one of only a handful in the world to mention the Jewish religion (it was also the first to mention it).[[note]]Another is the Egyptian Constitution of 2012, which specifically mentions that Egyptian Jews--of whom there are frankly not that many--have a right to have personal status adjudicated according to the ''Halakha''. Israel's constitution does not mention the Jewish religion, in fact Israel has no written constitution at all, for the very Jewish reason that [[JewsLoveToArgue they couldn't agree on one]].[[/note]]
11
12	The trope is most common in the USA, but can be found in Britain as well and in any other place where both ethnic groups live.
13
14	When the trope is exploited for OddCouple purposes, it usually hinges on the ways in which the two characters' respective upbringings and outlooks on the world affect their personalities. Newsday critic Frank Lovece [[http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/futurama-finds-a-new-future-on-comedy-central-1.1402526 outlined the two different traditions]] of Irish-American and Jewish humour; the former is said to be concerned with the sentimental bonds of blood family, while the latter [[SadClown uses laughter as a defensive technique to deal with a cruel and hostile world]]. Along similar lines, self-described "Bad Catholic" writer John Zmirak [[http://www.catholicity.com/commentary/zmirak/06750.html humourously contrasted]] Irish Catholic guilt over [[SexIsEvil lust and concupiscence]] with Jewish guilt about [[RaceTropes race]] and [[UrbanSegregation inequality]] -- note how Vienna-born Jewish attorney Felix Frankfurter helped found the American Civil Liberties Union, while Irish-born Archbishop John T. [=McNicholas=] founded the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Legion_of_Decency National Legion of Decency]]. (To put it more bluntly, although the Irish and Jews are both famous for stereotypical guilt, Irish guilt is thought of as conservative and Jewish guilt as liberal, although this is by no means always so cut-and-dried: there have been socialist and even communist Irish, and Orthodox Jews tend to have very puritanical social mores.)
15
16	It is hard to generalize, but the Irish character will probably be [[LargeHam bolder]] and more [[TheAce self-assured]], but also more [[TooDumbToLive naive]] and possibly [[KnowNothingKnowItAll ignorant]]; the Jewish character is more likely to be a bit nervous and [[LovableCoward unresisting]], but probably [[TheSmartGuy smarter]] and more aware of how [[CrapsackWorld the world actually works]], as well as willing to [[DeadpanSnarker say exactly what he thinks of it]]. In a way, this could be an oblique allusion to BrainsAndBrawn, or BullyAndWimpPairing, but it's usually much more subtle (if it is noticeable at all).
17
18	And of course, [[AllJewsAreAshkenazi the Jew will most likely be a German or some kind of Slav (typically Russian or Polish) as far as nationhood goes]], while the Irishman will almost ''always'' be a Roman Catholic, though an Irish believing in Judaism (converted or not) is also not uncommon.
19
20	Sometimes an Italian or Italian-American will be thrown into the mix, possibly because, other than Irish and Jews, the Italians were the most visible immigrant group in America between about 1870 and 1920[[note]] Although German immigration was so large as to result in an ethnic-German population that outnumbered even the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic population by the '20s, they tended to integrate better. Anglos and Saxons were from Denmark and Saxony, respectively, at the time of their emigration to England after all.[[/note]]. When this happens, the Italian will often be a kind of double agent: siding with the Irishman on matters of personal morality and community life, and with the Jew when it comes to issues regarding the wider world, especially politics. The Italian might even be mistaken for a Jew due to similar coloring and facial features, although he (or she) will be more likely to intermarry with the Irish because of religious compatibility.[[note]]For this, you need look no further than the demographics of the State of UsefulNotes/NewJersey, which is the only state of the Union where a plurality of people claim Italian ancestry--but where half these Italians either have obviously Irish surnames or are very obviously of mixed Irish-Italian blood.[[/note]]
21
22	This trope was fairly common in the golden age of Vaudeville and still [[http://www.jewish-theatre.com/visitor/article_display.aspx?articleID=2601 persists in the theater today]]; nonetheless, it has become much less prominent in recent years, as younger generations of each ethnic group assimilate to local norms and lose their distinctiveness. (This is particularly true of Jews, who mix with other ethnic groups through marriage more than any other American group, although paradoxically U.S. Jewish identity politics have grown stronger in the past decade.) More modern variations can be found among other American ethnic groups who are also quite similar or have a history of extensive contact, and who are associated with the same respective stereotypes (such as Chinese-Americans for Irish and Japanese-Americans for Jewish, or Mexican-Americans for Irish and Anglo-Americans for Jewish).
23
24	[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Nothing to do with the Republic of Ireland's Jewish population]] ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Ireland although the historically model relations between Irish Jews and Irish Christians may form yet another example of the trope]]), so [[Literature/{{Ulysses}} Leo Bloom]] isn't what we're talking about. Incidentally, Israel's former president Chaim Herzog was born and brought up in Ireland [[note]]Belfast - and had a fairly strong Norn Iron accent too![[/note]] and could well class as both rolled into one. If you are looking for characters that are both Irish ''and'' Jewish at the same time, see TwoferTokenMinority.
25
26	[[noreallife]]
27	----
28	!!Examples:
29
30	[[foldercontrol]]
31
32	[[folder:Comic Books]]
33	* Writer Michael Gallagher and artist Dave Manak have been collaborating on comic books since the 1980s. Regardless of what franchise they're writing for, they're identifiable by their over-the-top humorous bent.
34	[[/folder]]
35
36	[[folder:Fan Works]]
37	* ''Radio/TrollCops'' portrays the two leads, Sollux and Terezi, in this way. The Captors are portrayed as [[OfficerOHara a traditional Irish-American cop family]], while Terezi is Troll Jewgish.
38	[[/folder]]
39
40	[[folder:Film]]
41	* The great Creator/JamesCagney [[http://www.mahnishmah.com/system/scripts/modules/admin/pages/show_page.cgi?p=13241 got a lot of laughs]] in the 1932 film ''Taxi'' by launching into [[YiddishAsASecondLanguage fluent Yiddish]] in the presence of an [[OfficerOHara Irish cop]]; Cagney (an Irish-American) had learned the language in school and on the streets of New York.
42	* ''Film/TakeMeOutToTheBallGame'', starring Music/FrankSinatra and Creator/GeneKelly, features a musical number entitled "O'Brien to Ryan to Goldberg" on the subject of a double play; snippets of vaguely "ethnic" music are included.
43	* Jim and Michelle in the ''Film/AmericanPie'' movies. Jim is a nerdy, repressed Jew, while the stereotypically red-haired Michelle is equally nerdy but outspoken and bawdy. Ironically, this is reversed with their actors. Creator/JasonBiggs is of mostly Italian descent and was raised in a Catholic household, while Creator/AlysonHannigan is half-Jewish on her mother's side (though also half-Irish on her father's).
44	* Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara in ''Film/BestInShow'' and ''Film/AMightyWind''.
45	* Creator/BenStiller and Creator/EdwardNorton in ''Film/KeepingTheFaith''. For bonus points, one is a rabbi, the other is a priest, and there is a bar involved.
46	* The ''Film/MeetTheParents'' saga features an interesting example with the Jewish Fockers and the Irish-American ([[SubvertedTrope although "Ulster Scot"/Protestant]]) Byrnes; the former clan leading a freewheeling lifestyle while the latter is very straitlaced (Greg and Pam however tend to play this trope straight, if quite downplayed). The end of ''Little Fockers'' then subverts it by [[spoiler:having Jack, the Byrnes' patriarch, discovering he's part Jewish]].
47	* In ''Literature/TheLastHurrah'', Mayor Frank Skeffington's Jewish assistant Sam asks the mayor to do the drawing at a raffle for the Jewish War Veterans' Committee. Skeffington agrees to show up for the drawing and even buy a book of tickets, but wisely refuses to do the drawing himself.
48	-->--"It'd be just my luck to pull a name like ''Paddy Murphy'' and then I'll have lost the Jewish vote- they'll say I palmed it".
49	* Even though he doesn't always play Jewish characters in his movies (and certainly isn't in this one), Creator/AdamSandler as the title character in ''Film/BillyMadison'' is tormented by a family of Irish-American bullies (and by Irish-American we mean ''very'' Irish-American: red hair, freckles, boorish and obnoxious, etc.) named O'Doyle. This eventually resulted in a MythologyGag in another Sandler film, ''Film/{{Click}}''.
50	** Sandler and his late friend, the brash Irishman Creator/ChrisFarley had this dynamic onscreen. Arguably a subversion in real life.
51	* Similarly, ''Film/MaxKeeblesBigMove'' has Max, who is AmbiguouslyJewish and even has a (somewhat) stereotypical JewishMother, get picked on by red-haired, freckled tough guy Troy [=McGinty=].
52	* There may be some {{subtext}} along these lines in ''Film/WeekendAtBernies''. While there is no indication from their Anglo-Saxon surnames "Wilson" and "Parker", the characters played by Andrew [=McCarthy=] and Jonathan Silverman conform to some extent to these stereotypes- [=McCarthy=]'s character is a confident, outgoing, booze-swilling and not-too-bright merrymaker (who takes to praying the "Hail Mary" under duress), whilst Silverman's character is neurotic and constantly aghast at the horrible things happening around him. [=McCarthy=]'s character's aggressive pursuit of the fairer sex seems like it is in contradiction to the usual stereotype of the prudish Irishman, but the sequel reveals that his private life may be more in keeping with expectations.
53	* Kellaway and Doyle, [[ThoseTwoGuys the two bickering plainclothes cops]] in ''Film/TheMask'', are an interesting example. While both have Irish last names, Kellaway is portrayed by Jewish actor Peter Riegert, and he is short and the streetsmart and cynical one while Doyle is the big lovable dummy. They meet the criteria for BigGuyLittleGuy.
54	* Creator/JohnHughes. Just compare ''Film/HomeAlone'' (which he wrote) and ''Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff'' (which he wrote ''and'' directed). ''Home Alone'' is rather broad but ultimately sentimental comedy in an Irish-American family from Chicago, while ''Ferris Bueller's Day Off'' has the partially-Jewish Creator/MatthewBroderick portraying a cynical, [[JewishComplaining complaining]] [[DeadpanSnarker wiseass]].
55	* In ''Film/TheLostWeekend'', Don's attempt to pawn his typewriter is stymied because ''all'' the city's pawnshops -- even the Catholic-owned ones -- are closed for Yom Kippur. A character explains that the Jewish pawnbrokers return the favor by staying closed on St. Patrick's Day.
56	* An amusing subversion of this trope takes place in Film/TheThreeStooges short ''A Pain in the Pullman''. The boys receive a call from a booking agency named Goldstein, Goldberg, Goldblatt, & O'Brien. They get the call from O'Brien - who speaks with a thick Yiddish accent.
57	* Creator/TheMarxBrothers - aside from Zeppo, who was usually TheStraightMan when we was around at all - represented the entire triumvirate of Irish, Italian, and Jewish. Chico was the Italian, a disreputable fast-talking fresh-of-the-boat swindler on the make. Harpo was the Irishman, with his dilapidated top hat, curly red wig, and occasional outbursts of [[{{slapstick}} comic violence]]. Groucho was originally supposed to be a stereotypical WASP, (and early on, even a stereotypical German), but as their careers went on he moved away from this ethnic schtick and developed a more personal and distinct style of [[DeadpanSnarker snarky deadpan]]. Since he wasn't really shooting for another ethnicity anymore the way Chico and Harpo (though to a lesser extent, since he had by now abandoned the Irish accent in favour of [[HeWhoMustNotBeHeard going completely silent]]) were, what they all actually ''were'' - Jewish - was the most clear in Groucho's case, and his occasional use of YiddishAsASecondLanguage ([[Theatre/AnimalCrackers "Did someone call me schnorrer?"]]) clearly make him "the Jewish one" of the trio.
58	[[/folder]]
59
60	[[folder:Literature]]
61	* Creator/KinkyFriedman and his pal [=McGovern=].
62	* In Creator/JDSalinger's "Franny and Zooey" the characters' parents were once vaudeville performers. Their mother is Irish and their father is Jewish, the same as Salinger's own parents.
63	* Creator/RobertFulghum has a story about this kind of wedding in ''It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It'', though it focuses more on their large extended families than the OddCouple.
64	* Leopold Bloom and the gentile Dubliners in James Joyce's ''Ulysses''.
65	* ''Literature/TheBonfireOfTheVanities'': Detective Martin and his partner, Detective Goldberg. Like most of the homicide bureau, Goldberg has assimilated to the prevailing Irish-American cultural ethos (as has Jewish assistant DA Kramer).
66	* The book "Close Relations" by Susan Isaacs features the Jewish heroine in a long-term relationship with an Irish fellow, which everyone tells her can't last because of their different cultures. [[spoiler: They're right--he suddenly dumps her to elope with her Irish friend, and she ends up with another Jew.]]
67	* Literature/{{Spenser}} has the main character[=/=]narrator, Spenser, and the love of his life, Susan Silverman. Spenser becomes the one to use humor, though, with Susan focused on analyzing relationships, in turn.[[note]]She can't help it, she's a psychologist. [[/note]]
68	* ''Literature/TheSpyWhoLovedMe'' has a non comic example with the villains Sol 'Horror' Horowtiz and Sluggsy Morant.
69	* Abbie Hoffman wrote in his memoirs ''Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture'' that as a Jewish salesman he started out as an activist working on civil rights with an Irish priest and a Black law student: "We were the perfect American Trinity."
70	* The Rabbi Small novel series by Harry Kemelman has Rabbi David Small solving mysteries using Talmudic reasoning with the help of his Irish Catholic police chief friend Hugh Lannigan.
71	[[/folder]]
72
73	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
74	* A late 1960s/early 1970s British sitcom, ''Never Mind The Quality, Feel the Width'', used a fictional variant of this trope, with two tailors; one Irish and one Jewish, going into business together. A Rabbi and a Catholic priest were among the supporting cast. Website/TheOtherWiki mentions the series was not shown on all parts of the Creator/{{ITV}} network, but it was transmitted in UsefulNotes/NorthernIreland.
75	* The CBS sitcom ''Bridget Loves Bernie'' depicted an interfaith marriage between Jewish Bernie Steinberg (David Birney) and Irish Catholic Bridget Fitzgerald Steinberg (Meredith Baxter). The series only lasted one season, despite good ratings. The lead actors' marriage was not an example of the trope, as David Birney is Irish-American.
76	* ''Series/TheNanny'': [[HeterosexualLifePartners Best friends]] Fran Fine and Val Toriello fit this pattern, although Val is Italian-American, not Irish. Additionally, the series itself is built around a variation in this trope, with Fran working for the Sheffields, a British-American BlueBlood family.
77	* Used on one episode of ''Series/GoodEats'', of all things. A scene explaining how corned beef came (erroneously) to be associated with Irish cuisine employed a Jewish rabbi and an Irish priest sitting in a bar. After some dialogue and an explanation[[note]]Before the Great Famine, a fairly typical Irish dish was boiled ''bacon'' with potatoes and cabbage; when destitute immigrants arrived in New York City, they found that bacon was too scarce and expensive, so they replaced it with corned beef, which they purchased from stores owned by their new Jewish neighbors.[[/note]] from [[DropInCharacter Alton's nutritional anthropologist]], we get the set-up to a corny old-fashioned joke: "A priest, a rabbi, and a nutritional anthropologist walk into a bar..." Then Alton, the priest, and the rabbi all roll their eyes and get up to leave.
78	* One (relatively rare) modern example involved Comedy Central's two current events shows, ''Series/TheDailyShow'' (under Creator/JonStewart) and ''Series/TheColbertReport'', from 2006 (when Colbert got his show) through 2015 (when Colbert left for ''Series/TheLateShow'' and Stewart more or less retired). Stewart ([[StageNames born]] Jonathan Liebowitz) took news stories heavily laden with corruption, stupidity, and disaster, and handled them with [[DeadpanSnarker sarcasm and exasperated]] [[strike:ranting]] [[YiddishAsASecondLanguage kvetching]]. [[Creator/StephenColbert Stephen Colber]]'''[[Creator/StephenColbert T]]''', despite the French-sounding pronunciation of his character's name, is predominantly Irish-American and unapologetically Catholic, and watching his [[PatrioticFervor onscreen persona]] on the ''Report'' was like watching every single patriotic GeorgeMCohan[[note]] Despite what it sounds like, the name "Cohan" is Irish: the Jewish name is usually "Coh'''e'''n".[[/note]] musical all at the same time. He also shared Creator/GracieAllen's [[TheDitz obliviousness to reality]].
79	** Interestingly, in the 1999 comedy ''Film/BigDaddy'' Stewart played [[StereotypeFlip Irish-American corporate lawyer Kevin Garrity]], while Creator/AdamSandler was [[StereotypeFlip his "tough," blustering Jewish roommate, Sonny Koufax]]. Both actors are Jewish.
80	* Creator/ConanOBrien and his former bandleader Max Weinberg would do a lot of comedy bits together on both ''Series/LateNight'' and ''Series/TheTonightShow''. InvertedTrope because Conan was neurotic and self-deprecating while Max was a morally-loose [[TheCasanova womanizer]].
81	* The two male leads of ''Series/AllInTheFamily'' were Creator/CarollOConnor and Creator/RobReiner. Although neither of their ''characters'' were written to match their real-life ethnicities (Archie Bunker was a [[WhiteAngloSaxonProtestant WASP]] and Mike Stivic was Chicago Polish), there was a considerable amount of {{subtext}} going on, which many viewers noticed; O'Connor modeled the Bunker character's mannerisms and speech patterns on many of the blue-collar Irish-Americans he had known growing up, while Reiner [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent made no attempt whatsoever to sound like a Polish-American from Chicago]].
82	* This was the dynamic between Creator/WilliamShatner and Creator/JamesSpader on ''Series/BostonLegal'', at least to a degree.
83	* ''Series/{{SCTV}}'' had a sketch with Rabbi Karlov and an Irishman cracking stereotypical remarks at each other until they start talking about furniture.
84	* MTV's early 90's sketch show ''Series/TheState'' featured a musical sketch entitled "The Jew, The Italian, and the Redheaded Gay," which exploded into a loud, Vaudeville-type production.
85	* In a strange meta-example, ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' (frequently called "''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs on crack]]") can also be seen as the Irishman to ''Seinfeld'''s Jew. Both the same general sort of setup: 3-4 men and one woman, supposedly "friends" but usually at each others' throats, getting up to hijinks that are ultimately meaningless (i.e. both are "shows about nothing."). However, the characters in ''It's Always Sunny'' have unmistakably Celtic names (Reynolds, Kelly, [[spoiler:[=McDonald=]]]) and run an Irish-themed pub, and their brand of ComedicSociopathy generally comes from overconfident, un-self-aware abject stupidity. The gang on ''Seinfeld'' were nit-picky about themselves, constantly whining and complaining, intellectuals/professionals, and consisted of three Jews (OK, one Jew,[[note]]Jerry[[/note]] one Jewish-Italian half-breed,[[note]]George[[/note]] and one guy who isn't supposed to be Jewish but totally comes off as Jewish[[note]]Kramer[[/note]]) and one Eastern European Catholic played by a Jew.[[note]]Elaine[[/note]] Also, The Gang in ''Always Sunny'' is heavily family-based (Dennis and Dee being brother and sister, Frank being their father [[spoiler:except not really, but he ''is'' (probably) Charlie's father]]), while the equivalent in ''Seinfeld'' isn't (the parents do show up from time to time, but the family stuff isn't as prominent).
86	** ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' itself contains a variant: Jerry Seinfeld (a Jew) is best friend of George Costanza (a Catholic Italian-American, although there are hints that he is partly Jewish as well).
87	* One of the more common comparisons between the 90s sitcoms ''Series/{{Friends}}'' and ''Seinfeld'' has to do with the former's bawdy humor and the latter's more cynical worldview being based in this trope (and how their approaches eventually created a clear division among later comedy works).
88	* Similarly, two of Nickelodeon's more popular comedies of the mid-2000s, ''Series/DrakeAndJosh'' and ''Series/NedsDeclassifiedSchoolSurvivalGuide'' were very different in tone -- The former had the bold, laid-back flavor of Irish comedy, while the latter became known for attempting to introduce younger audiences to quite a few classic comedy tropes rooted in Jewish humor.
89	* One of the all-time most popular detective pairings on ''Series/LawAndOrder'' was Mike Logan and Lennie Briscoe (although Briscoe is only ethnically Jewish; he was raised Catholic).[[note]][[ActorSharedBackground Just like his actor]], Creator/JerryOrbach.[[/note]] This trope also holds true for the tag team of the show's most popular detective (Briscoe) and attorney (Jack [=McCoy=]), who shared star billing for ten years. For that matter, both [=McCoy=] and predecessor Ben Stone were earnest and forthright Irish-American prosecutors who consulted with the snarky Jewish District Attorney Adam Schiff. This trope also applies to [=McCoy=]'s interactions with his WorthyOpponent Randall Dworkin.
90	* Mixed into one character to great effect in one ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' sketch -- a commercial parody of an album of ''Irish Drinking Songs''.
91	-->'''They picked me face up off the floor and said "Now who be you?"'''
92	-->'''I"m Paddy O'Mally O'Schoenberg, the drunken Irish Jew!'''
93	* AvertedTrope / InvertedTrope on ''Series/{{Glee}}''. Despite being TheDitz and BigManOnCampus, Finn is a lot more sensitive and soft-spoken than either his teammate [[JerkJock Puck]] or his LoveInterest [[ThePrimaDonna Rachel]], both of whom fall squarely under InformedJudaism.
94	* In ''Series/{{Being Human\|UK}}'', John Mitchell the bold overconfident Irish [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampire]] and George Sands the shy smart Jewish [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent werewolf]] are best friends.
95	* ''Series/BrooklynNineNine'' has Jake Peralta (Jewish) and Charles Boyle (Irish sounding name, but never explicitly confirmed to be Irish). It’s somewhat downplayed as both are {{Cloud Cuckoo Lander}}s who frequently fall into StrangeMindsThinkAlike. However, Jake is the BrilliantButLazy BunnyEarsLawyer, while Charles is TheDeterminator who solves cases by working his ass off. On a personal level, Charles is freakishly close with his entire extended family, while Jake’s is DysfunctionJunction, and Charles is likely to respond to bad things happening to him by going into a deep depression, whereas Jake just “represses the hell out of it”.
96	* In ''Series/{{Grace and Frankie}}'', Grace's family (Irish Catholic) and Frankie's family (Jewish) both exploit and invert this trope in their {{Odd Couple}} interactions. The Hansons are more socially conservative as would be expected, but they are also more cutting in their humor than the Bergsteins--who come off as [[TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth painfully sweet]].
97	* ''Lanigan's Rabbi'': One's a cop called Lanigan. The other's a rabbi. They fight crime!
98	* ''Series/SchittsCreek'' has Jewish Johnny Rose married to the Irish-Catholic Moira Rose, and he is also in an OddCouple friendship with Roland Schitt, the fourth generation Irish Mayor of the town.
99	* ''Series/AllSaints'' has this between nurses Connor Costello and Jared Levine, who share a house for the better part of three seasons.
100	[[/folder]]
101
102	[[folder:Music]]
103	* Irish-born American Musicologist Mick Moloney recorded an entire album of songs showcasing this rather strange kind of collaboration. The title song on the album, ''If It Wasn't for the Irish and the Jews'', is the most frank and matter-of-fact about the whole business.
104	* Geddy Lee of Music/{{Rush\|Band}} has Jewish roots while Neil Peart has Irish. (Alex Lifeson has Serbian roots, making him a Slav.)
105	* British rock group Music/ThePogues cultivated a very Irish image, and were all of Irish heritage - except for guitarist Jem Finer, whose family were Jewish (meaning that their song 'Fairytale of New York' is yet another Christmas song that was (co)-written by a Jewish person.
106	* Finnish rock musician Juice Leskinen's song ''En oo käyny Irlannissa'' ("I Haven't Been in Ireland") has a verse ''On kavereiden kokoelma vähän kiemurainen - on toinen kunnon Irishman, ja toinen juutalainen'' (Our ensemble of mates is a bit weird - one is a genuine Irishman and another a Jew.)
107	* Alt rock quartet Music/SoulCoughing represented the whole Irish/Jewish/Italian triumvirate, with an Irish-American guitarist/frontman (Mike Doughty), Jewish bassist and drummer (Sebastian Steinberg and Yuval Gabay - the latter born in Israel), and an Italian keyboardist (Mark degli Antoni).
108	[[/folder]]
109
110	[[folder:Podcast]]
111	* Creator/TomCavanagh and Michael Ian Black have this dynamic, presumably unintentionally, on ''Podcast/MikeAndTomEatSnacks''. Tom is a Roman-Catholic Canadian of Irish descent, and usually expresses a more optimistic outlook on whatever topic they are discussing, while Mike, who is Jewish but identifies as an Atheist, is often cynical and critical of the topic. Best shown in their Cheez-It episode, which turned into an argument over Tom's faith.
112	[[/folder]]
113
114	[[folder:Radio]]
115	* The long-running (fake) feud between [[Radio/TheJackBennyProgram Jack Benny]] and Fred Allen ([[StageNames born]] Benjamin Kubelsky and John Florence Sullivan, respectively) was one of these. Like most such instances, outright ethnic jokes were rare, with the constant references to Benny's [[AllJewsAreCheapskates skinflint nature]] having to do with the fact he was Jack Benny instead of being Jewish. Fred Allen's radio show also provided some examples; characters in "Allen's Alley" included Russian-Jewish houswife Pansy Nussbaum and Irish immigrant Ajax Cassidy.
116	[[/folder]]
117
118	[[folder:Stand-Up Comedy]]
119	* One of the best-known examples was the comedy team (and real-life husband and wife) of Creator/GeorgeBurns and Creator/GracieAllen. While they seldom made explicit jokes about their ethnic backgrounds, Burns' [[DeadpanSnarker wry commentary]] contrasted nicely with Allen's [[TheDitz self-assured, confident stupidity]].
120	* Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, the parents of Creator/BenStiller, wrung a lot of comedy out of this (Meara, raised Catholic, [[ConvertingForLove converted to Judaism after marrying her husband]]).
121	* The 1960's comedy team of Jack Burns and Avery Schreiber, who started out in the Chicago-based The Second City comedy troupe with a notable routine of Burns as a talkative taxicab passenger and Schreiber as the driver, and they co-hosted the Burns and Schreiber Comedy Hour of 1973, with Burns working in animated sequences and writing for the first seasons of ''Series/HeeHaw'' and ''Series/TheMuppetShow'', while Schreiber would be a recurring guest star on ''Series/ChicoAndTheMan'' and a semi-regular panelist on ''Series/MatchGame'', a series of commercials for Doritos corn chips during the 1970's, and bit parts in ''Creator/MelBrooks'''s 1990's comedy films ''Film/RobinHoodMenInTights'' and ''Film/DraculaDeadAndLovingIt''.
122	* Creator/BobOdenkirk and Creator/DavidCross are of Irish Catholic and Ashkenazi Jewish descent respectively. ''[[Series/MrShow Mr. Show With Bob And David]]'' frequently made jokes at the expense of both religions.
123	[[/folder]]
124
125	[[folder:Theatre]]
126	* ''Abie's Irish Rose'' was a stage play that was adapted for {{Film}} and {{Radio}}, concerning a romance between a Jewish boy and an Irish-Catholic girl. It was a huge commercial success, and spawned many imitators, despite the fact that [[CriticProof the critics universally agreed]] that it was ''absolutely terrible'', not to mention ''deeply'' offensive to all ethnicities involved.
127	** Among the many imitators was the 1926 film (and subsequent film series) ''The Cohens and Kellys'', which inverted the sexes of the romantic pair (Irish-American boy, Jewish girl) and played up the "feuding families" aspects. The series was most famous for a lawsuit which resulted from it, in which the playwright who penned ''Abie's Irish Rose'' sued Universal Pictures for copyright infringement. Famously, Judge Learned Hand[[note]] This was an opinion written for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. However, since the was written by Hand and was a copyright case originating out of New York (hence the appeal up to the Second Circuit), it is given deference by most Courts as if it were a Supreme Court case.[[/note]] ruled that copyright protection could not apply to StockCharacters.
128	** A short-lived Creator/{{CBS}} sitcom called ''Bridget Loves Bernie'' ran from 1972 to 1973, riffing off of the themes in ''Abie's Irish Rose''. Like ''Abie's Irish Rose'', it was popular with the viewing public, but unlike ''Rose'', offended members of the ethnic groups in question managed to get ''Bridget Loves Bernie'' canceled (being the only case to date of a top-10 show ending after a single season).
129	* The Broadway musical version of ''Theatre/YoungFrankenstein'' was penned by Creator/MelBrooks and Thomas Meehan, in a fairly recent behind-the-scenes example. As in many of these cases, the fact of their ethnicity has little to do with the finished product, but it is remarkable that the trope persists long after the death of Vaudeville and the disintegration of the old New York City ethnic enclaves.
130	* Writer/lyricist Lynn Ahrens and composer Stephen Flaherty have collaborated on a number of musicals -- ''The Glorious Ones'' is the most recent, while ''Once On This Island'', ''Ragtime'', and ''Seussical'' are probably the most well-known.
131	* George M. Cohan worked with Sam H. Harris on many of his greatest hits. (For clarity, even though "Cohen" is a common Jewish name, George M. '''Cohan''' was Catholic and of Irish descent. Harris was Jewish.)
132	* ''Theatre/FiniansRainbow'' incorporated elements of Irish folklore (more or less) and featured an Irish protagonist named [=McLongergan=]; the show was penned by an all-Jewish writing team.
133	* In ''Theatre/OfTheeISing'', Wintergreen's campaign song claims he "loves the Irish and the Jews," and they are represented on his nomination committee by Francis X. Gilhooley and Louis Lippman.
134	* In the original script for ''Theatre/TheLastFiveYears'', Cathy was Irish. There was even a song ("I Could Be In Love With Someone Like You") about how Jewish Jamie has always loved Irish girls. Truth in Television as the Jewish writer changed it and made Cathy Italian so she didn't too obviously resemble his Irish ex-wife.
135	* The two antagonists in Harold Pinter's ''Theatre/TheBirthdayParty'' are a stereotypical pair of sinister gentlemen named [=McCann=] and Goldberg, who make a point of invoking their ethnic origins in their dialogue. Pinter himself was Jewish.
136	* In ''Louisiana Purchase'', the lawyer in the prologue warning the producers to disclaim everything in the show as fictional is "Sam Liebowitz of Rafferty, Driscoll, and O'Brien."
137	* In ''Theatre/MarginForError'', the two cops are Officer Moe Finklestein and Captain Mulrooney of the Homicide Squad, though the latter only appears at the play's very end. Refusing to cooperate with Moe's investigation of the murder, Horst says, "I'll take my chances with the Irish."
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139
140	[[folder:Vaudeville]]
141	* In the 1940s, musician, Vaudevillian, and comedic recording artist Billy Murray (American son of Irish immigrants) made several comedic records along with Monroe Silver, a comedian who specialized in Jewish dialect humour. Murray used a mock-Irish accent, to emphasize the contrast.
142	* The famed Vaudeville team of Gallagher and Shean are an example; Al Shean (real last name "Schoenburg") was the uncle of the Creator/MarxBrothers.
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144
145	[[folder:Webcomics]]
146	* In ''Webcomic/VenusEnvy'', Zoë’s father is Jewish, while her mother is Irish.
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148
149	[[folder:Web Video]]
150	* Ross O'Donovan (half-Irish, half-Australian) and [[Music/NinjaSexParty Dan Avidan]] of ''WebVideo/SteamTrain'' explicitly invoke this trope for RuleOfFunny. Interestingly, neither really display any stereotypes of their respective ethnicities and the trope only comes into play when they're giving each other a hard time about it.
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152
153	[[folder:Western Animation]]
154	* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'': The comedy-themed OutlawCouple of The Joker and Harley Quinn provide a twisted take on this trope. The Joker claimed in one episode to be Irish-American and, while undeniably intelligent, is a cheerfully insane CardCarryingVillain who sows chaos and destruction wherever he goes; meanwhile, Harley Quinn -- who was voiced by Jewish actress Creator/ArleenSorkin with a thick Brooklyn accent, but [[AmbiguouslyJewish was never explicitly stated to be Jewish]] until her comic appearances -- was far saner than the Joker (though that's not saying much) and was not above the occasional sarcastic response to the Joker's weirder antics. Interestingly enough, despite Harley being the Jewish member of the duo, it was the Irish Joker who was more prone to [[YiddishAsASecondLanguage peppering his speech with Yiddish loanwords]], suggesting either mixed ancestry or a ShoutOut to Jewish comedy acts like Creator/TheMarxBrothers and Film/TheThreeStooges.
155	* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' revealed that the Griffin family exemplify this trope. Peter Griffin is generally identified as an Irish-American semi-lapsed Catholic, with other things thrown into his family tree for RuleOfFunny. His wife Lois was eventually revealed to be Jewish on her mother's side (which by Jewish law makes her fully Jewish), [[HilarityEnsues which led to comedy]] as her husband struggled with this fact. True to the trope, Peter is ignorant and boorish but confident and self-assured, while Lois is snarky and (relatively speaking) more keenly aware of the world around her.
156	** Early on, Brian could be considered the "Jew" character, despite being an {{atheist}} (not to mention [[FunnyAnimal a dog]]) -- he's witty, cynical, reads ''Magazine/TheNewYorker'', and often acted as the eye-rolling StraightMan to Peter's {{Zany Scheme}}s.
157	* Critic Frank Lovece [[http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/futurama-finds-a-new-future-on-comedy-central-1.1402526 compared]] sister shows ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' to the distinct strains of Irish-American and Jewish Vaudeville comedy. According to Lovece, ''The Simpsons'', with its emphasis on family ties and its boorish-but-endearing protagonist, is rooted in the Irish-flavored comedy of Harrigan & Hart and George M. Cohan. ''Futurama'', he argued, was rooted in BorschtBelt-style exasperation at a WorldGoneMad.
158	** Not that ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' doesn't have more than a few AmbiguouslyJewish and [[InformedJudaism Informed Jewish]] characters, most famously Krusty the Clown (born "Herschel Krustofski"), whose basic personality is that of a burnt-out, exasperated, BorschtBelt-flavored middle-aged man who's constantly ''[[JewishComplaining kvetching]]'' and making sarcastic comments with Ashkenazi speech patterns such as "This, I don't need!"
159	** ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' also makes a [[DiscussedTrope reference]] to this in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E5TreehouseOfHorrorIII Treehouse of Horror III]]" in which Mr. Burns announces that King Homer's Broadway show will consist of him standing around for three hours, "followed by the ethnic comedy of Duggan and Dershowitz!"
160	** One could say that ''The Simpsons'' started out "Jewish" and became more "Irish" over time; it's very noticeable now [[ReverseCerebusSyndrome how bleak and angsty those earlier episodes were]], especially when it was Bart (a slightly darker character than Homer) who was the show's focal point. Creator/MattGroening's pre-''Simpsons'' comic strip, ''ComicStrip/LifeInHell'', was bleaker still.
161	** With regards to ''Futurama'': the main character Phillip J. Fry is a good-natured Irish-American [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensch mensch]] who immigrated to the show's setting (although with a ScienceFiction twist: he immigrated [[HumanPopsicle through time]] rather than space), and the story's generally about his experiences in the very strange world of the year 3000. [[TheChewToy Zoidberg]] and the other Decapodians, on the other hand, are out-and-out space versions of BorschtBelt gags, complete with strong Eastern European Jewish accents. Ironically, they're basically sapient crustaceans, which are not kosher.
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Context Main / IrishmanAndAJew