Old Jews Telling Jokes

by Sam Hoffman

  DENNIS SPIEGELMAN

  Dennis Spiegelman grew up in Buffalo, New York, and has fond memories of spending summers at Crystal Beach on Lake Erie. Whenever he goes back to visit, he picks up dozens of bottles of loganberry juice, which was invented at the Crystal Beach Amusement Park in the late nineteenth century and is mostly unavailable outside the area.

  Bra Shopping

  Sam goes into Macy’s, to the lingerie department, and he says to the salesgirl, “My wife has sent me in for a Jewish bra, size 34B, and she said that you’d know what I meant.”

  The saleslady says, “Boy, it’s been a long time since anybody’s asked me for a Jewish bra. They usually ask me for a Catholic bra or a Salvation Army bra or a Presbyterian bra.”

  He says, “Well, what’s the difference?”

  She says, “The Catholic bra supports the masses, the Salvation Army bra uplifts the downfallen, and the Presbyterian bra keeps them staunch and upright.”

  He goes, “Well, then what’s a Jewish bra?”

  “Oh, a Jewish bra makes mountains out of molehills.”

  FRED RUBIN

  Fred Rubin’s career accomplishments include a stint as a rock-and-roll columnist, time spent as a social worker, and a job as a singing waiter.

  Air-Conditioning

  Around the 1920s, three Jewish brothers invent this miraculous machine that can instantly cool a room. It’s not like a fan, which blows hot air around. It literally sucks in hot air and blows out cold air. They want to market it; they want to do something with it, but they don’t know what to do. They decide to take it to Henry Ford, the great industrialist, never knowing that he’s a radical anti-Semite.

  They take the machine to Ford. He says, “Well, plug it in. Let’s see it work.” They plug it in and instantly the room gets cool. Henry Ford’s eyes light up, and he says, “I want this. I want this machine. I’ll give you a million dollars for it right now!”

  The Schwartzman brothers say, “All right! We’re happy with that, but we want the name Schwartzman on it, in big letters!”

  Henry Ford goes, “Oh no, that’s impossible. I can’t do that, but I’ll make you a deal: I’ll give you two million dollars, but no way’s ‘Schwartzman’ on the machine, no way.”

  They go, “No, you know, we’re proud. Proud of the work we did. Proud of our heritage. We’re proud of our name. It’s got to have our name on it.”

  Henry Ford says, “No, no, I can’t. Tell you what: I’ll give you three million dollars, but no name on it.”

  Well, this kind of intrigues them. It’s a lot of money. They talk it over, and they propose a compromise to Henry Ford, and he agrees.

  That is why, to this day, on every air conditioner it says, “Norm Hi Max.”

  Dr. Josh Backon

  Christmas

  It’s a second-grade class in an American public school. The teacher asks each child to tell the others how he will celebrate Christmas.

  Johnnie says, “I help my daddy cut down a tree.”

  Susie says, “I help decorate the tree.”

  Christopher says, “I like to open the presents.”

  Then it’s Moishe’s turn.

  He says, “We all climb into my father’s Rolls-Royce. We drive over to his toy factory. My father looks at the empty shelves and says, ‘Thank you, Jesus!’ and then we all fly to the Bahamas for a week’s vacation!”

  3

  Coming to America

  Fighting for Elbow Room on the Lower East Side

  THE JEWS ARRIVED IN AMERICA ESSENTIALLY IN THREE BATCHES. The first batch were the Sephardim. The second batch, also known as the fancy-shmancy, German Jewish batch, came to New York during the 1840s and ’50s. The third batch, the shtetl (village) Jews of Russia, Poland, and other parts of Eastern Europe, emigrated in large numbers between 1880 and 1920.

  The Sephardim were Jews of Iberian descent who arrived in New Amsterdam in the middle of the seventeenth century. They founded the first American synagogue, the Touro, in Newport, Rhode Island. It was completed in 1763. The Sephardim will not be mentioned again in this book because they are not funny.

  The German Jews were already urbanized, educated, enlightened, and sophisticated before they came to the United States. In New York, they moved quickly uptown and founded grand palaces of worship such as Temple Emanu-el and Central Synagogue. They did business and assimilated into American society. They founded “Reform Judaism” and intellectual institutions such as the Society for Ethical Culture as a way of distancing themselves from some of the more annoying elements of Judaism, such as keeping kosher, keeping the Sabbath, and believing in God.

  Of course, the German Jews were appalled when the shtetl Jews fled the Russian pogroms and started showing up on Orchard Street. Not only were they Russian or (even worse) Polish, they were dirty and poor. They wore big bushy beards and peasant costumes and they reminded other Americans about the nasty historical stereotype of the Jew—one that the German Jews had been diligently working for decades to eradicate. The uptown Jews called these more recent arrivals “greenhorns.” The new arrivals called the uptown Jews “goyim.”

  The wave of emigration from Eastern Europe brought Jews to many American cities, including Philadelphia, Newark, Baltimore, Boston, and Chicago. But many more came to New York. There many of the greenhorns were clustered in the Lower East Side, shoulder to shoulder with (gasp) gentiles—recent arrivals from Ireland, Italy, Poland, Ukraine, and Germany, as well as Chinese. The Lower East Side epitomized the “melting pot” of pre–World War I America. Where else in the world could you get the three P’s—pickles, pierogi, and prosciutto—in a three-block radius?

  For the recent arrivals this was a time both of great anxiety and awe-inspiring opportunity. America, unlike Europe, placed no constraints upon the Jews’ entrepreneurial spirit and many started professional, manufacturing, and retailing businesses that became stalwarts of the American economy. But new, terrifying experiences lurked around every American corner. Many of these folks had never seen anything but their village, a train, a boat, and Ellis Island. Who were these Italians on Mulberry Street with their giant cured hams? Who were these Chinese on Grand Street with their ducks hanging in the window? Who were these Protestants uptown and why did they buy retail?

  From the time of their arrival and through the Great Depression and the World War II years, the American Jewish experience was urban. The city cradled and suckled the first generations of American-born Jews and transitioned the culture from greenhorn to apple-pie-noshing American. The jokes that follow capture the excitement and fear of that experience.

  ARCHIE BARKAN

  Archie Barkan is a professor of Yiddish at Emeritus College in Santa Monica, California, and was once a tummler at the Stevensville Hotel in the Catskills and at Tamiment in the Poconos.

  Mrs. Nafkawitz

  So, at the shtetl in the old country, the Jews lived with a certain kind of decorum, and they wouldn’t go, for instance, to a saloon to drink, but it didn’t mean they didn’t have a few drinks at home.

  The shtetl had a “lady of the evening”—the Yiddish word is nafka—and she walked the streets with her nice purse. She had this nice, light dress on.

  And everybody, in Yiddish, they say, “Macht zikh nit visndik”—they pay her no mind. She did her thing, and they didn’t call her nafka, but they called her “Mrs. Nafkawitz,” with that kind of decorum they had.

  Nineteen twenty came, and everybody moved out of the city. They migrated to New York, and everything was wonderful.

  Ten years later, one guy made a fortune. He’s got a good heart, he wants to share his good fortunes with somebody from the shtetl, and … they’ve all disappeared! He can’t find anybody.

  Suddenly, one day, he’s walking on Forty-second Street—big, wide street that it is—and he sees her on the other side of the street. Even her, he’s so happy to see somebody from the shtetl! He yells out, “Mrs. Nafkawitz!”

  She says, “Shh! Here in America,
they call me ‘Horowitz’!”

  JERRY FISHER

  Rabbi Jerry Fisher was born in Chicago and came to Los Angeles as a teenager. He graduated from Hamilton High School, and UCLA with a degree in psychology. While completing his bachelor of Hebrew letters degree at the Los Angeles School of the Hebrew Union College, he served as student-rabbi of Temple Solael in Canoga Park.

  Chaim Ginsburg Chinese Laundry

  A guy’s walking around New York’s Lower East Side and he passes by a Chinese laundry. It says CHAIM GINSBURG CHINESE LAUNDRY and he looks inside and sees this Chinese guy.

  He says, “I don’t understand. Who’s Chaim Ginsburg?”

  The guy says, “I’m Chaim Ginsburg.”

  He says, “Well, where did you get a name like Chaim Ginsburg?”

  The guy says, “I was standing in line at Ellis Island, and there was a Jewish guy in front of me.

  “The Jewish guy was asked, ‘What’s your name?’ and he says, ‘My name is Chaim Ginsburg,’ and they wrote it down.

  “Then they asked me, ‘Next in line, okay, what’s your name?’

  “I said, ‘Sam Ting.’ ”

  EILEEN LOTTMAN

  Eileen Lottman spent her adolescence in Sioux City, Iowa, during World War II, cheering up Army Air Forces personnel who were stationed at a base in town.

  Insufficient Passage

  Abie and Becky had been married for several years, and there was no sign of a baby. So they were very upset, and Abie told Becky to go to the doctor and ask him what’s the matter.

  So she went to the doctor, and the doctor examined her. And he said, “Well, you have an insufficient passage, and if you have a baby, it’ll be a miracle.”

  So she went home and Abie says, “Nu, nu? What did the doctor say?”

  “The doctor said I got a fish in the passage and if I have a baby it’ll be a mackerel.”

  A Note from Eileen Lottman Regarding the “Greenhorn” Joke

  My mother was born in 1902 in Minneapolis, which made her a born Yankee, thanks to my grandfather’s early decision to get the hell out of Lithuania. A major perk of being a Yankee was that you got to laugh at the hilarious mistakes made by the newer arrivals—greenhorns—as they poured off the boats and began trying to learn American ways and a whole new language. The humor was benign and once the greenhorns became Yankees (albeit mit a Yiddish haccent), they too began to tell “Abie and Becky stories.” Now the stories have been passed down to us and our kids and their kids and the greenhorn jokes have a very special nostalgic place in Jewish American culture.

  PAUL EISENMAN

  Paul Eisenman was born in the Bronx but moved as a young adult to New Jersey, where he did news reporting and editing of newspapers. More than fifty years ago he established an advertising and PR agency, Eisenman-Todd, where he found an outlet for his political passions by becoming a specialist in campaigns. After the 2004 election, he cofounded Bergen Grassroots, which he currently chairs.

  A Tourist in New York City

  A tourist in New York City walks up to a New Yorker.

  He says to the guy, “Excuse me, sir, could you direct me to the Statue of Liberty or should I just go fuck myself?”

  Sharon Eisbrenner

  Syphilis

  There was a little old Jewish man who was having trouble with his private parts.

  His wife nudged him to go to the doctor to find out what was wrong. After a lot of nudging, he finally went, and was surprised when the doctor told him he had syphilis. All the way home on the bus he kept thinking, Syphilis? What is this syphilis?

  When he got home his wife said, “Nu, Hymie, what did the doctor say?”

  Hymie shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t know, he told me something, syphilis, I don’t know what it is.”

  His wife said, “Wait—I’ll look it up in the medical dictionary.”

  When she came back she said, “Hymie, we got nothing to worry about. It’s a disease of the gentiles.”

  Morty Ballin

  Chinese Waiter

  Sam and his wife, Sadie, were visiting New York City from Cleveland.

  Around lunchtime one day, they found themselves in the Garment District and went into a kosher restaurant, called Ben Siegel’s.

  They sat down in a booth and were approached by a Chinese waiter.

  They thought this was odd, but were astonished when the waiter took their order, speaking perfect Yiddish.

  During the meal, when Ben Siegel came around to their table to ask if everything was all right, Sam mentioned to him how surprised they were that the Chinese waiter spoke such good Yiddish.

  “Shh,” said Ben. “He thinks I’m teaching him English.”

  4

  Moving to the Suburbs

  Success!

  IN THE YEARS AFTER WORLD WAR II, THE CITY BEGAN TO LOSE some of its luster. The economy was booming and the Jews had a few shekels in their pockets. Families were growing, and three or four kids, plus Grandma Sophie, was a tight squeeze in a railroad apartment. With Levittown and other suburbs beckoning only a short train ride from the city, Jews grabbed their own lot-sized parcels of American terra firma.

  To have a house was to partake fully in the American dream, but it meant so much more. For one thing, suburban non-Jews could now stare at jars of gefilte fish in the local Stop & Shop and wonder, Where the hell do you catch one of those?

  If the cities were a half-step from the homogeneous God-fearing life of the European shtetls, then the suburbs were another world entirely. The Jews, by choice and because of discrimination, tended to stick to proven “Jewish” suburbs, but their assimilation into American culture was deepening still. A new culture began to seep into the society: the worship of “success.”

  While their neighbors were keeping up with the Joneses, the Jews were defining their own rules of conspicuous consumption. Social status could be codified by any of numerous possessions: membership in synagogues and golf clubs, lavish bar mitzvahs, overachieving children, cosmetic surgery, winters in Florida, groovy 3-D prints by Agam, or even braided gold chains with really bulky chais.

  Success and its trappings brought mixed feelings to the Jews. Is it kosher to miss shul on Saturday if you shoot three under par? Can you eat bacon at your beach house if the renters are just going to do it anyway? Is it okay to drive a Mercedes even though it’s made by Germans? The jokes in this chapter give voice to those feelings.

  MAX WEISBERG

  Max Weisberg was born in Cleveland, lived in Los Angeles for forty-five years, and now resides in Scottsdale, Arizona. He once donated a collection of Jewish folklore and humor books to the library at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles.

  Moving to Beverly Hills

  There was this couple that was very successful. They used to be in the scrap metal business—junk business—in Boyle Heights, California. They became prosperous and moved to Beverly Hills.

  One night, the husband says to the wife, “Becky, listen, how’s about a bite to eat?”

  She says, “Morris, please, in Boyle Heights you’d say ‘How’s about a bite to eat?’ In Beverly Hills you’d say, ‘How’s about a snack?’ ”

  “Fine. How’s about a snack?” He makes her something, and they finish. “Becky, how’s about we go for a walk?”

  She says, “Morris, please, in Boyle Heights you’d say, ‘How’s about we go for a walk?’ In Beverly Hills you’d say, ‘How’s about we go for a stroll?’ ”

  “Fine, let’s go for a stroll.” So, they go for a stroll. They come back. He says, “Becky, how’s about we go for a schtup?”

  She says, “Morris, in Boyle Heights you’d say, ‘How’s about we go for a schtup?’ In Beverly Hills you’d say, ‘Let’s go to the party.’ ”

  He says, “Let’s go to the party.”

  They’re in bed, they’re doing their thing, they’re hocking away at each other. He turns to her and says, “Becky, are you coming yet?”

  She says, “Morris, in Boyle Heights you�
��d say, ‘Are you coming yet?’ In Beverly Hills, you’d say, ‘Are you sailing yet?’ ”

  He says, “Becky, are you sailing yet?”

  She says, “Morris, I’m not sailing yet.” They go on a bit longer.

  “Becky, are you sailing yet?”

  “No, Morris, I’m not sailing yet.”

  They go some more, some more.

  “Becky, are you sailing yet?”

  “No, Morris, I’m not sailing yet.”

  “Becky! I’m sailing, I’m leaving the party, bon voyage!”

  Sam Shannon

  The Bar Mitzvah

  Murray was planning a bar mitzvah for his son, like nothing anyone had ever seen. Invitees would be flown first-class to Africa and mounted on elephants to trudge through remote jungles to an extraordinary, beautiful savannah where the ceremony would be held.

  The procession ambled through dense brush for hours until suddenly it was held up. Nobody in the back could see the problem, so they called forward, elephant to elephant, to see what the holdup was.

  The answer came back, relayed rider to rider, all the way to the rear of the procession.

  “We had to stop! There’s another bar mitzvah up ahead.”

  Gershon Evan

  The Son-in-Law

  A young woman tells her mom that she thinks she’s pregnant. Very worried, the mother goes to the drugstore and buys a pregnancy kit. The test result shows that the girl is indeed going to have a baby. Shouting and crying, the mother says, “Who did this to you? I need to know!”