History Main / IrishmanAndAJew

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* 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.
[[/folder]]

** 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.

* Geddy Lee of Music/{{Rush}} has Jewish roots while Neil Peart has Irish. (Alex Lifeson has Serbian roots, making him a Slav.)

* 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 ''DraculaDeadAndLovingIt''.

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 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.)

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}}.

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 white guy/black guy OddCouple (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}}.

* ''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 MixedAncestry or a ShoutOut to Jewish comedy acts like Creator/TheMarxBrothers and Film/TheThreeStooges.

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 SaltAndPepper (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}}.

* 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. Jason Biggs 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).

[[folder:Stand-up Comedy]]

* 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 O'Brien was neurotic and self-deprecating while Weinberg was a morally-loose [[TheCasanova womanizer]].
* 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 Bunker'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]].

** ''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 they are partly Jewish as well).

* 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, Jerry Orbach]].[[/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.

* 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 Hanson's are more socially conservative as would be expected, but they are also more cutting in their humor than the Bergstein's--who come off as [[TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth painfully sweet]].

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 ''always'' be a Roman Catholic.

* 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 [[IdiotPlot 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).

* 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 WAS, (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.

** Interestingly, in the 1999 comedy ''Film/BigDaddy'' [[StereotypeFlip Stewart played Irish-American corporate lawyer Kevin Garrity, while]] Creator/AdamSandler [[StereotypeFlip was his "tough," blustering Jewish roommate, Sonny Koufax]]. Both actors are Jewish.
* 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 O'Brien was neurotic and self-deprecating while Weinberg was a morally-loose TheCasanova.
* The two male leads of ''Series/AllInTheFamily'' were Caroll O'Connor and Rob Reiner. 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 Bunker'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]].

* Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, the parents of Creator/BenStiller, wrung a lot of comedy out of this (Meara, raised Catholic, converted to Judaism after marrying her husband).

* ''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 the family tree for RuleOfFunny. His wife Lois was recently 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.
** Early on, Brian could be considered the "Jew" character, despite being an {{Atheist}} (not to mention that he is a dog) -- he's witty, cynical, reads ''Magazine/TheNewYorker'', and often acted as the eye-rolling StraightMan to Peter's {{Zany Scheme}}s.

** Not that ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' doesn't have more than a few AmbiguouslyJewish and InformedJudaism 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!"

** 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. Matt Groening's pre-''Simpsons'' comic strip, ''ComicStrip/LifeInHell'', was bleaker still.

* 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. Wiki/TheOtherWiki mentions the series was not shown on all parts of the Creator/{{ITV}} network, but it was transmitted in UsefulNotes/NorthernIreland.

* One of the more common comparisons between ''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).

* Creator/JohnHughes. Just compare ''Film/HomeAlone'' (which Hughes wrote) and ''Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff'' (which he directed). ''Home Alone'' is rather broad but ultimately sentimental comedy in an Irish-American family from Chicago, while ''Ferris Bueller's Day Off'' has a Jewish actor portraying a cynical, [[JewishComplaining complaining]] [[DeadpanSnarker wiseass]].

* 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 [[UpToEleven all at the same time]]. He also shared Creator/GracieAllen's [[TheDitz obliviousness to reality]].