(#1860) The honest salesperson
[My thanks to Laurence F for the following]
Jeremy owns a struggling wholesale company in London selling low priced pharmaceutical products. He employs just one salesman, but this person has not been very successful. So Jeremy pays him off and places the following advert in the Jewish Chronicle: -

PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY
Baleboss requires a balbatisher salesperson, a sales maven with a yiddisher kop.
Contact Jeremy on ………….

baleboss: the owner of a store, shop, establishment
balbatisher: responsible, of some consequence, having admirable traditional virtues
maven: an expert, an authority on the subject
Yiddisher kop: someone who understands things quickly
dreck: excrement, rubbish, trash

(#1861) No problem
Freda meets her friend Betty at Brent Cross Shopping Centre. "I’m really annoyed with myself, Betty," says Freda. "I spent nearly 4 hours last weekend helping out my shul, as I always do. And then I made a monumental mistake."
"Nu, so what did you do?" asks Betty.
"Well," replies Freda, "just before I left the shul to go home and have a shluff, the rabbi came over to me to thank me for my help. And like a fool, I replied, ‘it was no problem, rabbi.’"
"So what was wrong with that?" asks Betty. "I would have said the same thing to him."
"It was wrong," replies Freda, "because the phrase, ‘no problem’ should never be uttered by Jewish women. Firstly, there no such thing to us as a situation that isn’t a problem. And secondly, we should never suggest that we’re not doing someone a favour when we definitely are."

shluff: sleep

(#1862) Riddle
Q: Which character in the bible had no mother and no father?
A: Joshua, because he was son of Nun.

(#1863) Names we could give to various ethnic kosher restaurants
[My thanks to Joe Sinclair for the following original idea of his. This is what he wrote, “Some time ago, I whiled away an airplane journey dreaming up the following ethnic kosher restaurants which could have opened in Golders Green.”]
RESTAURANT NAME         ETHNIC TYPE
The Chuts Pah:                    a kosher Thai restaurant
The Villa Lobbos:                a kosher Brazilian restaurant
Oy Vay Izmir:                        a kosher Turkish restaurant
The Kashmir in Toches:     a kosher Indian restaurant
So Su Mi:                             a kosher Japanese restaurant

(#1864) What an expert!
[My thanks to Laurence F for the following]
It’s a warm erev shabbes afternoon and Rabbi Landau and Rebbetsin Naomi are relaxing in their kitchen. Rabbi Landau is an expert on astronomy (he’s even got a kind of laboratory set up in his study) and he’s quietly reading some of the latest scientific papers on the subject. Suddenly, from nowhere, a large rock flies at speed through their open kitchen window and lands right in the cholent saucepan which is bubbling away on their gas cooker. They are naturally both very shocked.
When Rebbetsin Naomi has calmed down a bit, she turns to Rabbi Landau and with a worried look asks, "I need a psak. Is our cholent now milchedik or is it still flayshedik? What do you think?"
"Don't worry, darling," replies Rabbi Landau, "I'll take the offending rock out of the cholent and I'll examine it straight away in my laboratory. Then I’ll tell you what I think."
Rabbi Landau returns 30 minutes later and says, "Good news, darling. I am pleased to be able to confirm that our cholent is still flayshedik because the rock is definitely "meteorite."

rebbetsin: the wife of a rabbi
cholent: a stew simmered overnight (for more than 12 hours) over a very low flame, and served by mainstream observant Jews for lunch on shabbes
milchedik: pertaining to kosher dairy foods
flayshedik: pertaining to kosher meat dishes
psak:  rabbinic ruling
meteorite: meaty-all-right."

(#1865) I want to be a plumber
[My thanks to Howard K for the following]
Issy arrives back home from work and to his horror finds his kitchen flooded, with water still pouring out of one of the pipes under his sink. He starts to panic because he doesn’t know any plumber and rushes over to Sam, his next door neighbour, for help.
"Calm down, Issy," says Sam. "I know of a great plumber by the name of Dennis who has done good work for me in the past. He’s very calm, polite and reliable. I’ll ring him right away."
Sam telephones Dennis and 10 minutes later, Dennis is underneath Issy’s sink working on the faulty joint. 30 minutes after he arrives, Dennis has everything under control.
Issy can’t thank him enough. "That was excellent work and you fixed it so quickly and with no fuss. I was expecting it to take much longer."
"It’s all part of my service, sir," replies Dennis.
"So how much do I owe you?" asks Issy.
"For an emergency callout, £90," replies Dennis, "plus 30 minutes of my time at £500 per hour, plus £10 for the parts I had to replace. That comes to £350 in total, sir."
"Oy Vay," says Issy. "£500 per hour? My Harley Street private doctor only charges me £300 per hour when I have to see him, and he’s expensive!"
"Don’t I know it," says Dennis. "That’s what I used to charge my patients when I used to be a Harley Street doctor."

(#1866) The wrong match
Benjy finally gives in. After weeks of nagging by his mother, he agrees to go on a blind date with Judith, the daughter of one of his mother’s friends. He’s going to take her to Minky’s Kosher Diner.
Although his mother tells him that she has a premonition that this will work out well for him, "It will be a shiddach made in heaven," she tells him, Benjy nevertheless asks his friend Tony to call him at the restaurant at 9pm to give him an excuse to leave early if need be.
Benjy meets Judith at the restaurant and very quickly realises that Judith is not the one for him. She shows no interest in anything he talks about – all she does is talk about boring women things like babies, jewellery and shoes. So after about an hour of this, Benjy is pleased to hear his mobile phone ring. He answers it, talks for a short time, then tells Judith, in a very sad voice, "I’ve got to leave right away, Judith. My zaydeh has just died."
Judith looks very pleased to hear this. "Thank goodness for that," she says. "If your zaydeh hadn’t died, mine would have had to have died instead. Goodbye Benjy."

shiddach:  arranged marriage

(#1867) Riddle
Q: What food, when eaten, causes a Jewish Princess to lose all sexual desire?
A: Wedding cake.

(#1868) The Jewish telephone conversion
(This is a true story, really!)
I have just found a report I wrote way back in January 1972 of my telephone conversation with the Financial Editor (mainly advertising) of the Jewish Chronicle and I thought I would share it with you as it still brings a smile to my face.
The JC was one of my prospects and I was trying to interest them in taking a share price service from my company. At that time, we provided this service to nearly all of the main national and provincial newspapers.
Could such a conversation have taken place other than between two Jewish businessmen?  I started by trying to sell him our service; he nicely switched it to trying to sell me his; and then, when he discovered I was Jewish, he became very warm towards me and talked about initiative, job satisfaction, and a future promise to subscribe and give me first choice.

Me: "My name is David of the Extel Group plc and I was wondering whether the JC would be interested in showing a weekly analysis of share price information on their financial pages?"
JC Editor (indignantly): "What do my readers want to see this information for? All of them read the Financial Times daily so they don’t need to see the same prices in my paper.  …….  When did you last read the JC?"
Me: "Last week, and every week. I’ve been buying it for many years, and my parents before me."
JC Editor (hesitantly): "You’re a ……. you’re a …… Jewish boy?"
Me: "Yes I am."
JC Editor (friendly): "Wonderful. I am always pleased to see initiative. How old are you?"
Me: "I’m [age] years old."
JC Editor (business-like): "Wonderful. Have you ever considered buying advertising space in my paper?"
Me: "No, I haven’t."
JC Editor (sadly): "Well, never mind. What do you do at Extel?"
Me: "I am Senior Systems Analyst working for our computer services subsidiary."
JC Editor (warmly): "Good for you. It sounds like an exciting job.   I would love to show share information in my paper, but I cannot get the space. One day, please God, we will, and I promise you will be the first to be asked, especially as I am a shareholder in your company. Please write to me so I have your name on my file."

shtook: in real trouble
 

go to ninetyninth set of Jewish jokes

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