diff --git a/IPython/core/interactiveshell.py b/IPython/core/interactiveshell.py
index b421d84..e1de793 100644
--- a/IPython/core/interactiveshell.py
+++ b/IPython/core/interactiveshell.py
@@ -1695,7 +1695,7 @@ class InteractiveShell(SingletonConfigurable):
                 self.write_err('No traceback available to show.\n')
                 return
             
-            if etype is SyntaxError:
+            if issubclass(etype, SyntaxError):
                 # Though this won't be called by syntax errors in the input
                 # line, there may be SyntaxError cases with imported code.
                 self.showsyntaxerror(filename)
@@ -1748,7 +1748,7 @@ class InteractiveShell(SingletonConfigurable):
         """
         etype, value, last_traceback = self._get_exc_info()
 
-        if filename and etype is SyntaxError:
+        if filename and issubclass(etype, SyntaxError):
             try:
                 value.filename = filename
             except:
diff --git a/IPython/core/ultratb.py b/IPython/core/ultratb.py
index a35d766..09c91bd 100644
--- a/IPython/core/ultratb.py
+++ b/IPython/core/ultratb.py
@@ -563,7 +563,7 @@ class ListTB(TBTools):
             # Not sure if this can still happen in Python 2.6 and above
             list.append( str(stype) + '\n')
         else:
-            if etype is SyntaxError:
+            if issubclass(etype, SyntaxError):
                 have_filedata = True
                 #print 'filename is',filename  # dbg
                 if not value.filename: value.filename = "<string>"