Everyone’s talking about Pew. Since the Pew Center released the results of its survey of U.S. Jews in September, Jewish community leaders on the local and national level have plunged into parsing the data, absorbing and debating their significance, and beginning to shape priorities for the future. On the whole, no one would claim surprises came out of the study.

But one of the funniest figures resulted when participants were asked what elements are essential to being Jewish: 42 percent agreed that having a good sense of humor is essential to being Jewish. This stands in relation to 28 percent who said being part of a Jewish community is essential.

Sometimes there’s nothing funny about being funny; it’s our way of coping with adversity, to survive for another day. Other times humor has everything to do with joy for joy’s sake. Either way, here’s hoping your Purim is one of good cheer this year.

Marshall Weiss, Editor + Publisher, The Dayton Jewish Observer

To read the complete March 2014 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.