He's back, he's Jewish, and he's the only comedian with a sausage-hating Jewish dog, who used to bark whenever Yasser Arafat came on the TV. "His barkmitzvah still brings a tear to the eye," quips Zaltzman, in a six-minute off-stage warm-up before he appears in a lurid scarlet and black shirt and non-matching cords, with an arrow through his head.

In his previous two highly successful Edinburgh shows, Josh Howie focused on his time training to be a rabbi in Jerusalem (he was ejected from the programme after being caught with a naked non-Jewish girl), and his four-year sojourn with his grandma in Arnos Grove. This year, he fancied trying something less constrained by a fixed narrative, a bit more freeform.

A Jewish comedian has called for an investigation and threatened legal action after a protester disrupted his set at the London Jewish Cultural Centre, urging him to reveal his anti-Israel views.

Ivor Dembina, founder of the Hampstead Comedy Club, was performing in Ivy House in Golders Green on Monday, as part of an Edinburgh Festival preview, when protester Harvey Garfield interrupted his set.

Comedian Marcus Brigstocke has apologised for joking about Orthodox Jews having sex through a sheet.

In an interview with Metro to promote his book "The God Collar", the Have I Got News For You star was asked about any religious trivia he had encountered researching the book – which is about atheism.

Hollywood legend Mel Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky to a Russian Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York.

One of the biggest Jewish stars to date, Brooks is a member of the short list of entertainers who have the distinction of having Academy Awards and Emmys to their names.

Jewish comedian Sarah Silverman is to bring her unique humour to Israeli audiences.

The controversial US star, who last year released her memoir The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee, will perform a night of stand-up comedy in Tel Aviv later this month.

Regularly topping those "best shows of all time" polls, Seinfeld, which ran from 1990 to 1998, was very much a Jewish comedy.

Audiences spent nine seasons watching actor Jerry Seinfeld play a geeky and neurotic Manhattan singleton contemplating life, love and pretty much anything with his friends Elaine, George and Kramer.

"I'm a Jew in that it pours out, that it oozes out of my pores uncontrollably.

"Personally I have no religion, but I'm Jew-y. It's beyond my control."