Jean Carroll, America’s first Jewish female standup comedian, constitutes a key figure in the history of Jewish performance because she was able to transform the emerging genre of ‘standup comedy’ from one that reinscribed and circulated negative stereotypes of Jewish women to one that revised and humanized these stereotypes. Carroll eschewed overt demonstrations of Jewishness such as dialect humor. Her performances on mainstream stages were coded, drawing on stereotypes of Jewish women circulated by her Jewish male colleagues, but adding a critical lens. Her most pronounced form of public Jewish identification was her engagement with Zionist and Jewish causes like the United Jewish Appeal. By presenting Jewishness through involvement with Jewish organizations rather than dialect humor, Carroll made a strong statement: more superficial manifestations of Jewishness may (and perhaps should) assimilate away—her Jewishness was a cause, not a character.