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It should be noted that this collection of jokes were written by Jews to share with their fellows. They are not by 'racist' Gentiles poking fun at the Jews. It is good for any man to be able to laugh at himself. Let us learn from this excellent Jewish example. My desire is always to honour the Jews and seek their forgiveness for years of so called 'Christian' persecution. They remain God's chosen people. They were entrusted with bringing the Saviour into the world and sharing the Scriptures. They pioneered the early church and will soon be restored to faith and leadership.
Ist Century Rabbi Hillel ask by a convert to define the essence of Judaism
said, "What is hateful unto you, don't do unto your neighbour. The rest is
commentary. Now go and study."
American economist Milton Friedman was asked if he could summarise economics
in one sentence. "Yes, There is no such thing as a free lunch."
A Jew was shipwrecked on a small uninhabited island. When a passing vessel
picked him up 5 years later they were amazed to find many fine buildings.
A house, workshop, electricity generator and two synagogues. "What's the
2nd synagogue for?" asked the Captain of the ship. "That's the one I don't
go to!" the Jew replied.
Gold is telling his friend a story: "One day Cohen and Levine were going
..." "Cohen and Levine, Cohen and Levine," his friend stops him angrily.
"Why are your jokes always about Jews? Why don't you tell them about Irishmen
or Chinese for once?" Gold is taken aback. "You're right," he says, "One
day Soo Lung Mu and Mao Tsu Nu were going to Soo Lung Mu's nephew's Bar Mitzvah
..."
In the 1920's a Jew travels from his small Polish Shtetl to Warsaw. When
he returns, he tells his friend of the wonders he has seen: "I met a Jew
who had grown up in a yeshiva and knew large sections of the Talmud by heart.
I met a Jew who was an atheist. I met a Jew who owned a large clothing store
with many employees, and I met a Jew who was an ardent Communist." "So what's
so strange?" the friend asks, "Warsaw is a big city. There must be over a
million Jews there." "You don't understand," he replies, "It was the same
Jew."
A group of elderly, retired men gather each morning at a café in Tel
Aviv. They drink their coffee and sit for hours discussing the world situation.
Given the state of the world, their talks are usually depressing. One day,
one of the men startles the others by announcing, "You know what? I am an
optimist." The others are shocked, but then one of them notices something
fishy. "Wait a minute! If you're an optimist, why do you look so worried?"
"You think it's easy being an optimist?!"
A mother is having a very tense relationship with her fourteen-year-old son.
Screaming and fighting are constantly going on in the house. Finally she
takes him to a psychoanalyst. After two sessions, the doctor calls the mother
into his office. "Your son has an Oedipus complex." "Oedipus Shmedipus,"
the woman answers, "As long as he loves his mother."
"Mr and Mrs Marvin Rosenbloom are pleased to announce the birth of their
son, Dr Jonathan Rosenbloom."
A mother goes into her son's room. "You've got to get up for school Bernie."
Bernie pulls the blankets over his head. "I don't want to go to school."
"But you have to," his mother said. "I don't want to. The teachers don't
like me and all the kids make fun of me." Mother pulls the blanket back a
little, "Bernie, you don't have any choice. You've got to get up for school."
"Yeah," say Bernie, "Give me one good reason!" "You're 52 years old and you're
the principal."
A Yiddish proverb. "Kleine kinder, kleine tzoros; grosse kinder, grosse tzoros."
(Small children, small problems: big children, big problems.)
A medieval Jew once prophesied to the king that his favourite mistress would
soon die. Sure enough, the woman died a short time later. The king was outraged
with the Jew, certain that his prophesy had brought about the woman's death.
Summoning the Jew he demanded, "When will you die?" The wise Jew realised
that the king was planning to kill him whatever answer he gave, so he replied,
"I only know that whenever I die, the king will die 3 days later."
A young Jew comes to New York and applies for a job as caretaker a the Rivington
Street Synagogue. The leaders are ready to take him on when they discover
that he is illiterate and decide it would be inappropriate to have an illiterate
caretaker. The young man leaves and starts peddling merchandise door to door.
He does well and soon is able to buy a horse and wagon. Then he opens a store,
and then another. Finally he is ready to open 5 more and applies to the bank
for a loan. It is granted, but when the manager asked him to sign the contract
it was obvious that he could not write. Shocked he said, "Just think what
you could have been if you had learned to read and write." "Yes," the Jew
replies, "I would be the caretaker at the synagogue."
A young man knocks on the door of the renowned scholar, Rabbi Shwartz.
"My name is Sean Goldstein and I wish to study the Talmud." "Do you know
Aramaic?" "No." "Hebrew?" "No." "Have you read the Talmud?" "No, Rabbi. But
don't worry. I've an honours degree in philosophy and have just finished
a doctorate at Harvard in Socratic Logic." "I seriously doubt," replies the
Rabbi, "that you are yet ready to study the Talmud. But if you wish I will
test your logic, and if you pass I will teach you the Talmud." The young
man agrees. Rabbi Shwartz holds up two fingers. "Two men come down a chimney.
One with a dirty face and the other with a clean face. Which one washes his
face.?" "The one with the dirty face," he answers wearily. "Wrong. The one
with the clean face washes his face. Simple logic. The one with the dirty
face looks at the one with the clean face and thinks his face is clean. The
one with the clean face sees his friend's face is dirty so presumes his must
be dirty too. So the one with the clean face washes." "Very clever. Give
me another test." "The Rabbi again holds up two fingers. Two men come down
a chimney. One with a clean face and one with a dirty face. Which one washes
his face?" "We've already established that. It is the one with the clean
face." "Wrong. Each one washes his face. Examine the logic. The one with
the clean face washes his face because he sees his friend's face is dirty.
Then the one with the dirty face also washes his face because he sees even
the clean faced man needs to wash his face." "I never thought of that, please
test me again." So the Rabbi once more holds up two fingers. "Two men come
down a chimney. One with a clean face and one with a dirty face. Which one
washes his face?" "Both." "Wrong. The man with the dirty face looks at the
man with the clean face and thinks his face is clean so he doesn't wash.
When the man with the clean face sees that the man with the dirty face doesn't
wash, he doesn't wash either." The young man is now desperate. "Give me one
more try," he pleads. "No, not yet." said the Rabbi. "Perhaps you now see
why logic and philosophy are an insufficient basis for studying the Talmud.
Tell me how can two men come down the same chimney and one to have a dirty
face and the other to have a clean face. The whole question is foolish. If
you spend your life trying to answer foolish questions, all your answers
will be foolish too."
Mr Goldstein is returning by train from New York City to Glen Falls, a small
town in upstate New York. Seated next to him is a handsome young man he does
not know. As they journey Goldstein starts a conversation with his companion.
His name is Alan Levine, and he is also heading for Glen Falls. "Are you
going on business?" "No, It's a social visit." "Do you have any relatives
there?" "No." "Are you married?" "No, I'm not." Goldstein thinks to himself.
"He's not on business,, and has no relatives there, so why is he going? To
meet a girl, or more likely her family. Perhaps to confirm their engagement?
But to whom? There are only three other Jewish families in Glen Falls. It
can't be the Resnicks; they only have sons. The Feldstein's have two girls,
but one is married and the other is studying in Europe. It must be the Cohens.
Their eldest Marsha is married. Sheila is too plump and unattractive for
this man. It must be Rachel. Yes, that's right." "Congratulations,"
said Mr Goldstein after the short pause, "on your engagement to Rachel Cohen."
"B .. but how did you know? We haven't told anyone yet." "Why, it's obvious."
The time is at hand when the wearing of a prayer shawl and a skullcap will
not bar a man from the White House - unless, of course, the man is Jewish.
Jules Farber
When Martin Luther translated the Hebrew Bible into German as part of his
revolt against the Roman Catholic Church, he noted, "I endeavoured to make
Moses so German that no one would suspect he was a Jew."
Two men walked into a restaurant, the first one asks for tea. The second
also asks for tea. "And make sure the glass is clean," he tells the waiter.
When the waiter returns with the two glasses of tea he asks, "Which one of
asked for the clean glass?"
Goldstein had been going to the same restaurant for ten years. Every day
he starts with the same thing, barley soup. One day, as soon as he comes
in the waiter brings the soup over to his table. "I want you to taste the
soup," Goldstein says as the waiter starts to walk away. "What's the matter?"
the waiter asks, "Every day you take the same barley soup." "I want you to
taste the soup," Goldstein repeats. "You don't want the barley soup?" the
waiter says, "I'll bring you something else." "I want you to taste the soup,"
Goldstein says once more. "Okay, okay, I'll taste the barley soup," says
the waiter, wearily, "Where's the spoon?" "Aha!"
Hockman, the Hebrew teacher was having tea with Luchinsky, the Rabbi of Chelm,
and discussing the town's economy. "There is a great injustice heaped on
the poor," sighed Hockman. "The rich, who have more money than they need,
can buy on credit. But the poor, who haven't two coins to rub together, have
to pay cash for everything. Is that fair?" "Of course," answered the Rabbi.
"But it should be the other way around," insisted Hockman. "The rich, who
have money should pay cash, and the poor should be able to buy on credit."
"I admire your ideals," said the Rabbi, "But a merchant who extends credit
to the poor instead of the rich will soon become a poor man himself." "So,"
retorted the Hebrew teacher. "Then he'd be able to buy on credit too!"
A Hebrew teacher in Chelm declared one day: "If I was Rothschild I would
be richer than Rothschild." "Why?" "Because I would give Hebrew lessons on
the side."
A poor woman was repeatedly irritated by her husband's preoccupation with
politics and his enthusiasm for President Nasser. "Look at you. What have
you gained from all this talk. Why don't you go and ask him?" Her husband
took up the challenge and went to see Nasser. He told him to go and look
out of the window and tell him what he saw. There were the beautiful presidential
flower gardens, green lawns, wide clean streets, fine shops and air-conditioned
houses. "Now go and tell your wife," said Nasser, "that in ten more years
under Socialist Union, the whole of Egypt will be like that." The man was
very impressed and hurried home to tell his wife all about Nasser's wise
words. His wife said, "Go to the window of this hovel and tell me what you
see." There was an open cess-pit stinking in the heat, several rusty, burnt-out
cars, some children in rags fighting over a single biscuit they had found.
"Ten more years under the Socialist Union and the whole of Egypt will be
like this," she said.
A Jew asks his friend: "How does the telegraph system work? I don't understand
how they can make a message go down a wire." His friend says, "Simple, imagine
a giant dog, with his head in Moscow and his tail in Leningrad. Pull the
tail in Leningrad and the head barks in Moscow." "Yes, but what about wireless
telegraphy? How does that work?" "The same way, but without the dog!"
An Italian barber was giving a man a haircut and during their conversation
he learns that he is a Protestant minister. When it came time to pay the
barber says, "No Reverend, though I am not a Protestant, I respect any man
of God. I will not accept any money from you." The minister is very touched
by this unusual gesture and a short while later returns and gives the barber
a beautiful edition of the New Testament. A few days later a Catholic priest
went to have his hair cut. When it came time to pay, the barber says, "Of
course, I'm not a Catholic, but I will not accept payment from you." The
priest thanks him and leaves; returning a little while later with a beautiful
crucifix. Next day during a most interesting conversation with a customer
the barber learns that he is a Rabbi. When it came to the time to pay, the
barber says, "I'm not a Jew, but I respect any religious leader. So I will
not take a money from you." The Rabbi is very grateful and an hour later
he returns with another Rabbi!
"A terrible thing," says Jacob to his friend. "My daughter is to be married
tomorrow and I promised a dowry of 5,000 rubles. Now, half the dowry is missing."
"So what?" replies his friend. "One usually pays only half of the promised
dowry at the beginning of the wedding." "True, but that's the half that is
missing."
A khukham calls on the rabbi of a town and asks for help. "Everything I owned,
Rabbi, was lost when my house burned down in a terrible fire. I've been left
with nothing." "Do you have a letter from the rabbi of your town attesting
to this fire?" the rabbi asks. "I had such a letter, but alas, that too was
lost in the fire."
A small Jewish man is sitting on the boatdeck next to a huge sleeping Texan.
The Jew gets seasick and ends up vomiting all over the Texan. The Texan starts
to stir. Then to his horror sees the mess he is in. "You feel better now?"
the little Jew asks.
The same man served for many years as the wagon driver for the 18th century
rabbi Landau of Prague. He accompanied him everywhere on his lecture tours.
Many of his talks were repeated and these the driver soon learned by heart.
One day shortly before they entered a city that they had never been to before,
the driver said to the rabbi, "In every town we go, I see the great respect
that people show you. I'd love to know what it feels like to be given such
honour." "Then today you shall. We will exchange clothes and you will give
the talk." Everything proceeded well and the driver gave the talk he had
learned perfectly, while the rabbi listened at the back of the synagogue.
The driver even managed to answer all the questions. Then came a question
that he had never heard before so he was stymied. Standing quietly beside
the lectern he said, "That question is not so difficult as it may sound;
even my driver can answer it." So he asked him to come forward.
A khukham named Goldstein goes into a restaurant and orders potato latke.
When they come he does not like the look of them and changes his order to
blintzes. When he had finished he stands up and starts to leave. "Wait a
second," said the manager, "You haven't paid for your blintzes." "What are
you talking about?" Goldstein replies. "Those blintzes were only an exchange.
I gave you the potato latke for them." "Yes, but you didn't pay for them
either." "Why should I pay for the potato latke? I didn't eat them."
Two Jews are dragged off by anti-Semites before a firing squad. The first
one cries, "Stop! Stop! You're murdering an innocent man. "Sh ... Sh...,"
say the second Jew. "Don't cause trouble"
A very wealthy American Jew arrives in Israel and during his tour he asks
to see the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. There is no such tomb in Israel,
so in order not to disappoint him they had to improvise. They showed him
the grave in a military cemetery. But the American started to look round
the side of the grave and saw the name, Abraham Goldman 1920-1948 engraved.
Very angrily he said to his guide, "I thought this was supposed to be the
grave of the Unknown Soldier!" "It is," the guide replied. "As a soldier
he was unknown, but as a tailor he was very well known."
I grew up to have my father's looks, my father's speech patterns, my fathers
posture, my father's opinions and my mother's contempt for my father.
One day Dwight Eisenhower met Ben Gurion in the Oval Office. He said, "It
is very hard to be president of 170 million people." Ben-Gurion responded,
"It is much harder to be prime minister of 2 million prime ministers."
Chutzpah means insolence or audacity. But in Hebrew is has an overwhelmingly
negative connotation. It is like the man who murders both his parents and
then pleads with the judge to have pity on him for he is an orphan. Or a
Palestinian terrorist who blinded himself when a bomb he was making exploded.
In the Israeli court, when other offences were being considered, the man
pleaded for mercy since he was blind. The Boston Globe then compounded the
chutzpah when it headlined the incident, Israelis convict blind
Palestinian.
In 1939 a Viennese Jew enters a travel agent's office and says, "I want to
buy a steamship ticket." "Where to?" the clerk asks. "Let me look at your
globe, please." Every time he suggests a country, the clerk raises an objection.
"This one requires visa, ... this one is not admitting any more Jews, ...
the waiting list to get in there is ten years." Finally the Jew looks up.
"Pardon me, do you have another globe?"
In a small European city there was a priest who was an expert in Biblical
Hebrew. He was always at loggerheads with the Rabbi at the local synagogue.
So he thought he would finally settle the matter in a public challenge. Each
would ask the other to translate a Hebrew term and the first to fail to do
so would be immediately executed. The Rabbi was terrified, and the Jewish
community was in a terrible quandary. Finally a Jewish labourer comes forward.
"I am willing to accept the Priest's challenge. On the day when all were
assembled, the labourer was told to ask the first question. He asked, "What
does ai-neh-nee yoh-day-ah mean?" The Priest answers, "I don't know."
(Which is what the two Hebrew words literally mean). And he is immediately
executed. The Jews celebrate and are very impressed with the labourer's
ingenuity. They ask him when he got such a brilliant idea. "I grew up in
a village near here," he replied, "and our Rabbi was one of the greatest
scholars. One day someone asked him the same question, to which he replied,
'I don't know.' So I figured that if our old Rabbi didn't know, then this
priest wouldn't know either."
Albert Einstein once said, "If my theory of relativity is proven successful,
Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen
of Europe. But if my theory should prove untrue, then France will say that
I am a German, and the Germans will say that I am a Jew."
When some Egyptian archeologist discovered a very old mummy they were unable
to date it. None of their tests were consistent. Some KGB agents who happened
to be near by heard about the problem and volunteered to solve it for them.
Their offer was refused; what could they know about such matters? Finally
in desperation for the KGB men were allowed into the room with the mummy.
An hour later they emerged. "The mummy is from 3625 BC," they said. "How
can you be so sure?" the startled Egyptians asked. "He confessed!"
On day when Brezhnev was making one of his usual boastful speeches, he said,
"By the year 2000, every Soviet family will have their own aeroplane." A
voice from the crowd cried out, "Why should they all want an aeroplane?"
"Fool," cried out Brezhnev to the man, "Suppose you live in Moscow and you
hear that in Kiev they have potatoes!"
"Comrade Rabinowsky, why were you not at the last meeting of the Communist
Party?" "No one told me it was the last meeting," he replied, "If they had
I would have been there and would have brought my wife and children too."
"Isn't it true that both the American and the Soviet constitutions guarantee
freedom of speech?" "Yes, but the American constitution also guarantees freedom
after speech."
A Ukrainian Jew went to the Emigration Office to ask for a visa to go to
Israel. Why do you want to leave the best country in the world?" the official
asked. "I have two reasons," the Jew replies, "When my neighbour get drunk
he bangs on my door and screams that when they have put an end to the Communist
party, then they will get rid of all the Jews. Well, I don't want to wait."
The official smiles, "Don't pay any attention to him. The Soviet regime will
last for ever." "Well, that's my second reason."
The American banker Otto Kahn was Jewish by birth but had converted to
Christianity. One day he was walking with a hunchbacked friend as they passed
a synagogue. "You know, I used to be a Jew," Kahn said. "And I used to be
a hunchback," his friend replied.
Many years ago, in Poland, long before the establishment of the state of Israel, a fervant Zionist sent out a wedding invitation: "The service will be held on Temple Mount, Jerusalem, at 11 a.m. on Sunday 4th November." At the bottom of the invitation in small letters, these words also appeared: "If on the other hand, the Messiah has not yet come, then the service will be at The Akiva Synagogue, Casimir Street, Warsaw."
A KGB agent comes across a Jew reading a Hebrew grammer book on a bench in Gorky pPark. "Hey Jew," he says, "why are you bothering to read that? You know they will never let you go to Israel." "Well," says the Jew, "I'm reading it in case thet speak Hebrew in heaven." "And what if you go to hell?" "Ah," says the Jew, "Russian I already know."
In Russia a powerful local police chief lost his favourite ring and offered a huge reward. Eventually it was found by a local Jew who took it to the police chief. True to his word he asked the Jew what he would like. He replied, "All I want is that you should forget that I exist.!
Two Jews meet on a train. One asks the other f he has the tim. No answer. Again he asks. Again no answer. Eventually he taps him hard on the knee and almost shouts the question. Aat last he tells him the time. "And why did it take you so long to tell me?" "Well, it's like this. We''ll get talking. we'll beome friendly, when we get to Vienna I'll ask you to come home with me an have a bite t eat. And you'll meet my daughter, she's beautiful, and you're a good-lookin chap, and you'll fall in love and you'll want to get married. And quite frankly I don't want a son-in-who hasn't got watch!"
Two Jews were visiting a Rabbi. While waiting for him, his wife brought them some tea and two cakes. One of them said to the other, "You choose first." "No said the other, you choose." So he did and took the bigger cake. The first one was outraged. Why did you take the biggest one?" "So, he replied, if you had had forst choice which would you have taken?" "The smaller one of course." "Well then, what are you complaining about? You got the smaller one."