What would be the humor in European countries like if there were no Jews living in them?

What would be the humor in European countries like if there were no Jews living in them? A careful answer needs one premise stated clearly: this is not about “better” or “worse” humor, but about absence and loss. European humor, as it actually exists, is a braided tradition. Remove one strand, and the pattern changes. 1. The missing irony: humor without the outsider’s double vision Much of European humor learned how to look at itself through Jewish experience: being inside society yet never fully secure in it, speaking the dominant language while hearing its cracks, loving a civilization while distrusting its promises. Without Jews, European humor would likely be: more self-confident, more literal, less reflexively ironic. Irony thrives where belonging is conditional. Remove that condition, and irony thins out. 2. Less self-mockery, more mockery of others Jewish humor introduced a radical move: “I am the joke before you are.” Without that tradition, European humor might lean more heavily toward: satire aimed downward or outward, ridicule of classes, regions, foreigners, enemies, laughter as social enforcement rather than self-exposure. In short: more laughter at others, less laughter at oneself. 3. A weaker comedy of survival Jewish humor is not entertainment-first; it is existence-first. It answers the question: How do you laugh when the joke is history itself? Without that influence, European humor might lack: jokes that coexist with catastrophe, comedy that does not deny suffering but lives alongside it, the ability to say: “Yes, this is absurd — and yes, we go on.” European humor would remain clever, but be less metabolically resilient. 4. Fewer neuroses, fewer insights Jewish humor legitimized: anxiety as intelligence, doubt as perception, overthinking as moral vigilance. Without it, humor might be: calmer, cleaner, but also less psychologically deep. Neurosis, in comedy, is often just philosophy without footnotes. 5. A quieter ethical undertone Even when Jewish jokes are profane, they often whisper an ethical question: Who is responsible? Who is pretending not to know? Who benefits from silence? Without that tone, European humor might become: more aesthetic, more stylistic, but less morally alert. A concluding aphorism (in your preferred style) European humor without Jews would still laugh — but it would laugh with fewer mirrors, fewer nerves, and fewer reasons to distrust its own laughter. If you’d like, I can: rewrite this as a short manifesto, turn it into aphoristic fragments, or adapt it to a specific country (France, Germany, Britain, Eastern Europe).