One lunchtime when I was in high school, the table had been making food puns, when my friend Jason told a joke about the Holocaust. When a few of us hesitated in saying it was funny, he accused us of having no sense of humor. We didn’t get it, he said.

Later that day, as Jason’s joke spread, Joey, a tall red-headed dude who played on the football team, pulled Jason aside and threatened to beat him up. In my journal, I wrote “Joey might kill Jason. And for good reason.”

Joey was Jewish, the grandchild of Holocaust survivors. That joke wasn’t funny at all to him.

I hadn’t yet discovered the Jewish side of my family, but I understood Joey’s offense. I also knew, despite choosing not to laugh, why Jason’s punchline was funny to him. The shock of the joke was the point.

Just the man in the

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