Profound sadness, political outrage and haimishe humour were all on display among the Jewish winners of Emmy prime-time TV awards in Los Angeles on Sunday.

While receiving her award for Transparent, the comedy series about a Jewish family whose father comes out as transgender, director Jill Soloway compared US presidential hopeful Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. She said: "Jews were other-ised in Nazi Germany to gain political power for Hitler, and right now, Donald Trump is doing the same thing."

Jeffrey Tambor, the lead actor in Transparent, was also honoured, with the award for outstanding lead actor in a comedy series.

Seinfeld veteran Julia Louis-Dreyfus won her fifth consecutive Emmy for her role in Veep, and drew tears from the audience when she paid tribute to her father, William, who had passed away days earlier.

Meanwhile, Veep's executive producer David Mandel accepted the outstanding comedy series award with a touch of humour: "This is for chubby Jews from the Upper West Side, wherever you are."

Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn garnered the prize for supporting actor in a drama (Bloodlines).

He is the descendent of an old Prussian Jewish family on his father's side, although, to his regret, not related to composer Felix Mendelsohn or philosopher Moses Mendelsohn.

David Benioff and Daniel B Weiss were honoured for outstanding writing for the Game of Thrones episode "Battle of the Bastards."

Hank Azaria won the Emmy for guest actor in the comedy series Ray Donovan, and Susanne Bier took top spot as director of the limited series, movie or dramatic special category, for the BBC show The Night Manager.