Informant Data:

The informant is an American who was born in Riverside, California in 1956. He owns a construction company and currently resides in Los Angeles, California.

Contextual Data:

My informant heard four jokes from a friend of his and he wanted to share the jokes with me. The following is one of these jokes. He prefaced this joke by stating that his friend is Jewish. It’s worthy of noting that my informant chuckled after telling the joke. When asked why he found the joke funny, my informant said that he didn’t know why the joke appealed to him, but said it was just “stupid humor.”

Item:

“What do you get when you put a penny between two Jews? Copper wire.”

Analysis:

This seems to speak to a stigma against Jewish people prevalent in present-day American society, a notion that it is assumed that Jewish people are greedy. This is a good example of Blason populaire, or folklore items that play off of stereotypes.