go to eightieth set of Jewish jokes
This is the seventy-ninth set of Jewish jokes
(#1635) The insurance policies
Old Emanuel dies. All of his life he’d
been dealing in second-hand cuff links and never got rich as a result.
But one month after Emanuel’s death, his widow Leah gets a shock, and surprise,
when 3 cheques arrive in the morning’s post - one cheque for each of the
3 life assurance policies Emanuel had taken out without her knowing. She
adds up the 3 cheques and, Oy Veh, she’s rich – they total more
than £175,000. She immediately phones her daughter.
"Suzy," she says, "your dear father, God
bless his soul, worked long and hard all his life to provide for us. We
lived poor but contented. But now, just when we get some real money, Emanuel
is not around to enjoy any of it."
(#1636) The good wishes
Rabbi Gold is taken ill and is admitted
to Bushey Hospital for treatment. A few days after his admittance, Max,
the shul’s secretary, goes to visit him. "Rabbi," says Max, "I’m
here on behalf of our Board of Trustees. They have asked me to bring you
their good wishes for a speedy recovery and their hope that you should
live to be 110."
"Thank you," says Rabbi Gold, "I’m pleased
to hear of their good wishes for me."
"And so you should be, Rabbi," says Max,
"it was touch and go for a while but the final vote on whether we should
send you any good wishes ended up 11 to 9 in your favour."
(#1637) The method
Did you know that whenever a chazzan
hears some really bad new, he always takes his tuning fork from his pocket,
taps it on a nearby hard surface to get the right key, then shouts out
loud and clear, "Oy gevalt."
(#1638) A message from the pilot
"Ladies, gentlemen and children. Sholem
Aleichem to you all. This is your pilot, Captain Daniel Himmelfarb,
speaking. On behalf of El Al airways, my crew and I welcome you on board
this flight to Tel Aviv. We will do all we can, God willing, to make sure
you have a great flight with us this afternoon. But if, God forbid, by
some remote eventuality, we run into some trouble, please keep calm and
don’t panic. You’ll find your life jacket under your seat and if you need
to put it on, please wear it in the best of health. Thank you."
(#1639) The watch
[My thanks to Robert R for
the following]
Hymie is in Brent Cross shopping centre
when he sees someone he knows. It’s Estelle, a rather attractive widow,
and she’s sitting all alone on a bench. So, being both a widower and a
bit of a playboy, he walks over to the bench and quietly sits down next
to her. He gives her a quick glance then casually looks at his watch for
a moment. Then he looks up at her again and then glances down at his watch.
Estelle turns round and sees it’s Hymie.
"Oh hello Hymie," she says, "is anything the matter? Are you waiting for
someone, because you keep on looking at your watch, then at me?"
"Oh no," replies Hymie, "I’ve just bought
one of the world’s most advanced watches and I’m testing it out."
Estelle is intrigued. "An advanced watch?"
she says. "So what's so special about it, Hymie? Why is it any different
to mine?"
"OK, I’ll tell you why," replies Hymie.
"It’s special because it uses Bluetooth waves to talk to me telepathically."
"OK then," says Estelle, "so what's it
telling you right now?"
"It’s telling me loud and clear," replies
Hymie, looking very serious, "that you're not wearing any panties."
"Well it must be broken then," Estelle
says, giggling, "because I’m definitely wearing panties!"
At that, Hymie starts to tap on the face
of his watch and says, "Oy veh, the watch must be an hour fast."
(#1640) Miriam’s shoes
[My thanks to Stan C for
the following]
It’s late December and little Miriam is
getting ready to leave school. But she needs help in putting on her winter
boots. So Sharon, her teacher, comes over to help. The boots prove
to be quite a challenge and even with Miriam pulling and Sharon pushing,
the little boots didn't want to go on easily. It took Sharon some time
to get both the boots on Miriam’s feet.
But then Miriam shouts out, "Teacher,
they're on the wrong feet."
Sharon looks down and sure enough, they
were. It wasn't any easier pulling the boots off than it was putting them
on, but Sharon manages to keep her cool as, together, they work to get
the boots back on, this time on the right feet.
But then Miriam shouts out, "These aren't
my boots, teacher."
Sharon bites her tongue rather than shout
at Miriam. "Why didn't you say so?" Once again Sharon struggles to
help Miriam pull the ill-fitting boots off her little feet. No sooner had
they got the boots off when Miriam says, "They're my brother's boots, teacher.
My mum made me wear them."
Now Sharon doesn’t know if she should
laugh or cry. But she musters up what patience she has left to wrestle
the boots on Miriam’s feet again. Then, helping Miriam into her coat, Sharon
asks, "Now Miriam, where are your gloves?"
Miriam replies, "I stuffed them in the
toes of my boots, teacher."
PS Sharon will soon be coming
out of psychiatric care.
(#1641) Captain Judith
Moshe is on a trip to London. As the El
Al Jumbo airliner pushes back from the gate, the flight attendant gives
the passengers the usual information regarding seat belts, etc. Finally,
she announces, "Now sit back and enjoy your trip while your captain, Judith
Levy, and her crew take you safely to your destination."
When the flight attendant arrives with
the drinks trolley, Moshe asks her, "Did I understand you correctly? Is
this big plane really being flown by a woman?"
"Yes sir" replies the attendant, "in fact
the plane’s entire crew is female."
"Oy veh," says Moshe, "I'd better
have two gin and tonics. I don't know what to think of being on a plane
with only women controlling it. Do you think you can arrange for me to
go up to the cockpit to see for myself?"
"Yes of course sir," says the attendant,
"but that's another thing you might like to know - we no longer call it
the cockpit."
(#1642) Riddle
Q: Why are pensioners so loathe to clean
out their loft?
A: Because whenever they do, one of their
adult children stores stuff there.
(#1643) The false teeth
[My thanks to Richard K
for the following]
Moshe has been living in Poland all his
life, but just before the 2nd World War, he sees big trouble coming. So
he sells all his assets, converts them into gold and then melts down the
gold to have five sets of false teeth made for him. He flees Poland and
after much travelling, arrives at Ellis Island, New York, where he is interrogated
by an immigration official who also goes through the contents of his battered
suitcase.
When the official sees the 5 sets of false
teeth, he asks Moshe why he has so many. Moshe replies, "As you might know,
we orthodox Jews have two separate sets of dishes, one for meat and one
for dairy products. However, I’m so kosher and religious that I also need
to have separate sets of teeth."
The official is confused. "Well that accounts
for two sets of teeth. What are the other three for?"
"Well," Moshe replies, "we ultra-Orthodox
Jews also use separate dishes for Passover and I’m so observant that I
need two sets of Passover teeth to go with the dishes, one for meat and
one for dairy food."
The official is still confused. "You've
convinced me that you're a highly religious man and I accept that you therefore
need four sets of teeth. But what about the fifth set?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, mister official,"
replies Moshe, "every once in a while I like to eat a ham and cheese sandwich."
(#1644) Do you know the bible?
The following come from a Catholic elementary
school test. Pupils were asked questions about the Old Testament and the
following replies, incorrect spelling and all, were the result.
shtick dreck: A piece of shit, someone cheap, shoddy, useless
(#1646) The doctors’ convention
[My thanks to Shlomo for
the following]
It’s 10pm when the phone rings in Dr.
Minkofsky’s house. "It’s Dr. Gold," says his wife, passing him the phone,
"I do hope it’s not another emergency."
Dr. Minkofsky takes the phone and says,
"Hi, what’s up?"
"Don’t worry, everything’s OK," replies
Dr. Gold. "It’s just that I’m at home with Dr. Lewis and Dr. Kosiner. We’re
having a little game of poker and we’re short of one hand so we thought
you might like to come over and join us?"
"Sure .... yes, of course," replies Dr.
Minkofsky, putting on a serious voice, "I’m leaving right now." And he
puts down the phone.
"What’s happened?" his wife asks, with
a worried look.
"It’s very serious," Dr. Minkofsky replies.
"They’ve already called three doctors."
(#1647) Riddle
Q: In what country is the speed of sound
faster than the speed of light?
A: Israel. (Only in Israel can you hear
cars hooting half a second before the light changes.)
(#1648) Logic wins the day
Rachel and Lionel are in the final phase
of getting divorced, but, like many other divorces, it’s not plain sailing.
They are now in court one last time - the issue being, who is going to
keep their one and only child?
Rachel tells the judge, ”Your Honour,
As I’m the one who carried my daughter, and as I’m the one who painfully
gave birth to my daughter, it’s therefore only logical that I should be
the one to keep her.”
The judge then asks Lionel, “Have you
anything to say about your wife’s logic?”
Lionel thinks for a moment, then rises
slowly to his feet and replies, “Yes your Honour, I do. If we’re into logic,
then my question is this - if I insert a coin in a Pepsi vending machine
and I get my can, whose can is it - the machines or mine?”
(#1649) Sadie knows she works for a Jewish company because:
SPECIAL FEATURE:
Boris Thomashefsky
I’ve come across two famous jokes about
Boris Tomashefsky, including four versions of one of them.
Joke#1, Version
1
The famous Yiddish actor Boris Tomashefsky
was celebrated for his bedroom exploits as well as his stage virtuosity.
After a sexual bout with a local whore, he presented her with a pair of
tickets to the evening performance of his play.
The lady looked with scepticism at the
tickets and said, "With these you can buy bread?"
"If you're looking for bread," the actor
said, "screw a baker."
Joke#1, Version
2
The great Thomashevsky was taking a walk
after one of his famous performances in the Yiddish Theater on the Lower
East Side of Manhattan (there were lots of Yiddish theaters then, around
1900 I guess.) Anyway, a young woman approaches him and asks him for his
autograph. They get into a conversation and things proceed.
He takes her back to his hotel room. He screws her a few times during
the night, and as she's leaving the next morning, he gives her 2 free tickets
to his next performance.
She looks at the tickets and says, "But
I need bread!"
He replies, "If you need bread, why don't
you go bang a baker?"
Joke#1, Version
3
The famous Yiddish actor Boris Tomashefsky
was celebrated for his bedroom exploits as well as his stage virtuosity.
After a sexual bout with a local whore, he presented her with a pair of
tickets to the evening performance of his play.
The lady looked with scepticism at the
tickets. "With these you can buy bread?" she asked.
"If you're looking for bread," the actor
said, "screw a baker."
Joke#1, Version
4
Boris Thomashefsky, a star of the Yiddish
theater, was as famous for his romantic pursuits as for his acting, and
there was always an attractive woman waiting for him at the stage door.
One night, the story goes, Thomashsefky went home with an alluring young
lady. In the morning, he handed her a gift - two front-row tickets to that
evening's performance. The young lady was evidently disappointed and she
began to cry.
"What's wrong?" asked the actor in astonishment.
"Oh, Mr. Thomashefsky," she said. "I'm
very poor. I don't need tickets. I need bread!"
"Bread?" cried Thomashefky. "Thomashefsky
gives tickets. You want bread? Sleep with a baker!"
Joke#2
In a small Yiddish theatre the great Boris
Thomashefsky had a heart attack and died while acting in the middle of
a scene. The stage manager came over and felt Thomashefsky’s pulse and
told the packed theatre that unfortunately the great man was dead. An old
lady in the front row yelled up to the Manager, "Give him some chicken
soup." When she was ignored, she yelled even louder, "Give him some chicken
soup." To this the manager replied, "Madame I don’t think you understand
- the Great Thomashefsky is dead. What good will chicken soup do?" The
old lady replied, "What good? What harm?"
About Boris Thomashefsky:
From what I can gather, Yiddish stage
star Boris Thomashefsky was a champ at shmoozing (socializing),
shpieling
(playing) and shtupping (sleeping together, an activity that has
nothing to do with sleeping!). He was as famous for his romantic pursuits
as for his acting, and there was always an attractive woman waiting for
him at the stage door.
1. Following is what Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia, says
Boris Thomashefsky (1868–1939, sometimes
written Thomashevsky, Thomaschevsky, etc.) was a Ukrainian-born (later
American) Jewish singer and actor who became one of the biggest stars in
Yiddish theater; born in Tarashcha (Yiddish:Tarasche), a shtetl near Kiev,
Ukraine, he emigrated to the U.S. at the age of 12 in 1881. A year later,
barely a teenager, he was largely responsible for the first performance
of Yiddish theater in New York City and has been credited as the pioneer
of Borscht Belt entertainment.
Although Thomashefsky left Imperial Russia at a time when Yiddish theater was still thriving there (it was banned shortly after, in September 1883), he had never actually seen it performed prior to the 1882 performance he brought together in New York. Thomashefsky, who was earning some money by singing on Saturdays at the Henry Street Synagogue on the Lower East Side, was also working as a cigarette maker in a sweatshop, where he first heard songs from the Yiddish theater, sung by some of his fellow workers.
He managed to convince a local tavern owner
to invest in bringing over some performers. The first performance was Abraham
Goldfaden's operetta The Witch. The performance was a bit of a disaster:
pious and prosperous "uptown" German Jews opposed to Yiddish theater did
a great deal to sabotage it. Thomashefsky's performing career was launched
partly because part of the sabotage consisted of bribing the soubrette
to fake a sore throat: Thomashefsky went on in her place.
Shortly after, the teenaged Thomashefsky
was the pioneer of taking Yiddish theater "on the road" in the United States,
performing Goldfaden's plays in cities such as Philadelphia, Washington,
D.C., Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Boston and Chicago, all in the 1880s; for
much of the 1880s, Chicago was his base. After Yiddish theater was banned
in Russia, his tours came to include such prominent actors as Siegmund
Mogulesko, David Kessler, and Jacob Adler, with new plays by playwrights
such as Moses Ha-Levi Horowitz.
In 1887, playing in Baltimore, he met 14-year-old Bessie Baumfeld-Kaufman, who went backstage to meet the beautiful young "actress" she had seen on stage, only to discover that "she" was a boy. Bessie soon ran away from home to join the company, and eventually took over the ingenue roles, as Boris moved on to romantic male leads; they were married in 1891.
In 1891, with Mogulesko, Kessler, and Adler all engaged in starting the Union Theater, Moishe Finkel brought the still relatively unknown Thomashefsky back to New York to star at his National Theater, where Thomashefsky became such an enormous popular success in Moses Halevy Horowitz's operetta David ben Jesse as to force the Union Theater temporarily to abandon its highbrow programming and compete head on.
After Adler recruited Jacob Gordin as a playwright and found a way to draw the masses to serious theater with Gordin's The Yiddish King Lear, and then turned to Shakespeare's Othello, Thomashefsky decided to show that he could compete on that ground as well, and responded with the first Yiddish-language production of Shakespeare's Hamlet, in which, by all reports, he acquitted himself excellently. These productions ushered in what is generally seen as the first great age of Yiddish theater, centered in New York and lasting approximately until a new wave of Jewish immigration, in 1905—1908 once again resulted in a vogue for broad comedy, vaudeville and light operettas, which the Thomashefskys embraced wholeheartedly, especially in performing Leon Korbin's plays about immigrant life.
Other notable Thomashefsky productions included Yiddish versions of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Goethe's Faust and, unlikely as it may seem, Wagner's Parsifal. According to the Jewish Virtual Library [1], in an adaptation of Hamlet called Der Yeshiva Bokher (The Yeshiva Student), "a wicked uncle smears [a] rabbinic candidate’s reputation by calling him a nihilist and the young man dies of a broken heart." (They don't say whether this was the production that went head to head with the Adler/Kessler Othello.)
By 1910, Thomashefsky owned a 12-room home
on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, plus a bungalow by the sea, and 20 acres
(81,000 m²) in Hunter, New York which included an open-air theater,
Thomashefsky's Paradise Gardens. Each of his three sons had an Arabian
horse.
With his wife, actress Bessie Thomashefsky,
he had a son Ted, who changed his name to Ted Thomas and became a stage
manager; one of Ted Thomas's sons was the noted conductor Michael Tilson-Thomas.
2. The following 2006 story is taken
from the Sibelius software website
Michael Tilson Thomas hosts "The Tomashefskys:
Music & Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater" and brings his grandparents'
legacy to New York and San Francisco
Americans are heirs to many cultural legacies, and one of these is the story of the massive Jewish immigration to New York City. Although Manhattan's Lower East Side at the turn of the 20th century conjures up visions of crowded streets, pushcarts and sweatshops, few are aware of the intensity of creative activity of those years and of its most public and unifying expression - the Yiddish Theater.
Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, two young
Jewish émigrés, were founding members and pioneers of America's
Yiddish Theatre. They were not only superstar performers, but also entrepreneurs
who drew countless authors, composers, actors, musicians, producers and
designers into their creative circle. Through comedy and drama, they tackled
new themes reflecting the challenges of American immigrants.
Their plays and operettas were pioneering
and reflected new artistic forms in scriptwriting, musical composition,
choreography, acting, direction and scene design. And, although this early
phase of Yiddish theatre was short-lived, its influence continued as succeeding
generations went on to Broadway, Hollywood and elsewhere, giving a distinctive
edge to American popular culture.
Joseph Rumshinsky, composer of many of
Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky's most popular musicals, wrote:
"The situation of the composer in the
Yiddish theater in general is a sad one. The world can never get to know
his better musical creations, because the whole score in which the ensembles,
serious duets, romances, and the better songs are found seldom, indeed
hardly ever, gets to print."
Rumshinsky was right in that a large number of the scores have vanished. But not all.
The Thomashefsky Project was founded in July 1998 in order to rescue the story of both the Thomashefskys' work and the early American Yiddish theatre's contribution to American cultural life. Through the work of The Project, many disintegrating scores have been located and preserved. Extant fragments of musical manuscripts, discovered at various archives, have been pieced together and transcribed into a digitized music program. Many scripts have also been rescued, copied and, in many cases, translated for the first time.
The culmination of the first period of research will be performances on evenings in April and June of 2005 in New York City and San Francisco. Sibelius user Michael Tilson Thomas, Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Artistic Director of the New World Symphony and President of The Thomashefsky Project, serves as a guide through the lives and repertoire of his grandparents, Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky. Although his grandfather died before he was born, his grandmother lived until he was seventeen, and his close relationship with her and many of her colleagues is a source of much of the material.
"My grandparents became great stars," says Tilson Thomas. "They found themselves smack in the public eye, and were subject to adulation and relentless scrutiny. Legions of crazed fans were obsessed with every detail of their work and their lives. It was a far cry from the simple Jewish family life in the Ukrainian villages of their origins. In the old country, there was already an answer to every question. Now, in a new land of total freedom, new unimagined questions were waiting around every glittering corner.
"They wanted to use their theater to explore these new questions and serve as a forum to search for possible answers. I marvel at what they attempted and how well they succeeded, from the classics to avant garde dramas to original productions based on current events and Jewish life. They did Shakespeare, Ansky, Chekhov, their own versions of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Faust, and even a production of Wagner's Parsifal."
Bessie's most famous roles included Salome, Khantshe in America, an independent-minded immigrant who wanted to be a chauffeur, and Minke Di Dinstmoyd (Minke the Maid). Minke was a modern-day Pygmalion, for which Bessie created the character of the wise-cracking Jewish lady that we all know so well from later performances by Fanny Brice and Barbara Streisand.
Boris was well-known for his portrayal of Hamlet in Der Yisheve Bokher, a version of the classic, "translated and improved upon by Boris Thomashefsky," as the poster read. He played King Lear, Romeo, Judah Maccabee and the "Jewish Yankee Doodle."
At the height of their influence, the Thomashefskys owned theatres in and out of New York, published their own magazine The Yiddish Stage , wrote columns in popular Yiddish newspapers, sponsored and encouraged new generations of young artists, brought many Yiddish artists to the U.S., tirelessly raised funds for social causes and, through it all, were adventurous trend-setters.
From the early Yiddish Theatre comes a musical sound that few have heard integrating aspects of Eastern European klezmer and cantorial modes with elements of opera and operetta. With time the music incorporated more American scales and rhythms as Eastern European Jewish composers became more aware of their new surroundings. In the history of American stage this music comprises an important model for the growth of both Tin Pan |Alley and Broadway and influenced the works of composers who grew up in its shadow, like Irving Berlin and George Gershwin.
Performances at Carnegie/Zankel Hall in New York (April 16-17 2006) and Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco (June 29 2006) will include material selected from the Thomashefskys' individual autobiographies, excerpts from their plays, and other original materials from their repertoire. All will be woven together with archival visuals to bring an important expression in American culture to life.
3. There is also a nice description on Jewishvirtuallibrary.org
4. This website has pictures of Boris
and Bessie as well as Boris singing
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4601242
THE END
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