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Enjoy Dauber’s insights into one of the great comic voices of the 20th century. Born Melvin Kaminsky in Brooklyn in 1926, he began by channeling the Jewish sensibilities of his old neighborhood into characters like the 2000-Year-Old Man and became an acclaimed director, actor, producer and songwriter, creating movies like “Blazing Saddles,” Young Frankenstein,” and “High Anxiety.

Jeremy Dauber is the Atran Professor of Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture and, for a decade, directed the Institute of Israel and Jewish Studies at Columbia University. He is the author of six books: Antonio’s Devils: Writers of the Jewish Enlightenment and the Birth of Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literature (Stanford University Press, 2004); In the Demon’s Bedroom: Yiddish Literature and the Early Modern (Yale University Press; 2010); The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem (Schocken Books, 2013); Jewish Comedy: A Serious History ( W.W. Norton, 2017); American Comics: A History (W.W. Norton: 2021), and, now, Mel Brooks: Disobedient Jew (Yale University Press: 2023). He frequently lectures on topics related to Jewish literature, history, humor, and popular culture at the 92nd St Y and other venues throughout the United States.