Tunkel, Joseph
TUNKEL, JOSEPH
TUNKEL, JOSEPH (Yoysef Tunkl ; pseudonym Der Tunkeler ; 1881–1949), Yiddish humorist, satirist, and cartoonist. Born in Bobruisk, Belorussia, he immigrated to New York in 1906, where he founded and edited the satirical weeklies Der Kibitser (1909–10) and Der Groyser Kundes (1910), but in 1910 returned to Warsaw, where he edited Der Krumer Shpigl ("The Crooked Mirror"), the weekly humor supplement of the Yiddish daily Der*Moment. In 1939 he succeeded in escaping to France and, in 1941, to the U.S., where he wrote for the Yiddish daily *Forverts. Der Tunkeler was popular in the Yiddish press. His humorous pamphlets and books were widely read, his one-act plays often performed, and his comic sketches recited by many artists. His humor was good-natured and his satire was mild. A sharp social and cultural critic, he was a master of the spoken idiom of his day and can be read with profit for his literary parodies in particular.
bibliography:
Rejzen, Leksikon (1926), 1168–70; lnyl, 4 (1961), 48–52; M. Ravitch, Mayn Leksikon, 1 (1945), 101–3. add. bibliography: Y. Szeintuch, Sefer ha-Humoreskot ve-ha-Parodiyot ha-Sifrutiot be-Yiddish (1990).