Witz

Witz Synopsis

From Joshua Cohen-winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize-comes one of the great comic epics of our time, newly restored in this definitive edition.

On Christmas Eve, 1999, all the Jews in the world die in a strange, millennial plague, with the exception of the firstborn males, who are soon adopted by a cabal of powerful people in the American government. By the following Passover, however, only one is still alive: Benjamin Israelien; a kindly, innocent, ignorant man-child.

As he rapidly ascends to international fame, Jewishness becomes all the rage: matzo-ball soup is in every bowl, sidelocks are hip; while Israelien, the only truly Jewish Jew left, is increasingly stigmatized for refusing to perform his religion. Since his very existence exposes the illegitimacy of the newly converted, Israelien becomes a wanted man just as quickly as he had become a famous one.

Elsewhere, in the not-too-distant future of our own, "real" world, another last Jew-the last living Holocaust survivor-sits snowbound in his Manhattan apartment, telling jokes that he only half-remembers. A final, melancholy witness, attempting to find the punch line for a century.