"A Jewish woman had two chickens. One got sick, so the woman made chicken soup out of the other one to help the sick one get well"

The humor in Henny Youngman’s joke lies in both its absurdity and the window it offers into a certain way of thinking. The situation involves a Jewish woman faced with a sick chicken. Instead of trying to cure the chicken or resigning herself to the loss, she resorts to killing her healthy chicken to make chicken soup, the classic Jewish remedy. The hope is that the nourishing soup will heal the remaining sick chicken. The paradox springs from the fact that the sick chicken would, in reality, benefit far less from the soup than the woman or her family would; after all, we don’t give chicken soup to chickens.

The joke playfully alludes to the tradition in some Jewish families of considering chicken soup a panacea, colloquially known as “Jewish penicillin.” However, taking this belief to its logical extreme becomes comedic: the woman’s prioritization of her chicken’s health over common sense leads to the opposite of what might seem sensible. Instead of two living chickens, she is left with one sick chicken and soup, demonstrating how well-intentioned but misguided problem-solving can yield absurdly inefficient solutions.

Youngman’s humor is rooted in a larger tradition of Jewish self-deprecating wit. The joke highlights both resourcefulness and impracticality, even poking light fun at how customs and remedies can be enacted to the point of illogic. There’s also an affectionate caricature of an older generation’s earnestness, their faith in traditions, and the sometimes convoluted strategies they adopt in trying to shield their own from harm.

Underlying the laughter is a subtle commentary on how people, driven by love or the desire to help, sometimes act irrationally when dealing with problems. The woman’s action is a blend of hope, superstition, and devotion, demonstrating how efforts to rescue what we care about can lead to solutions that complicate rather than solve our dilemmas. Like much of Youngman’s work, this joke distills both heart and humor from everyday life.