Old Jews Telling Jokes (10 page)

But couples that survive find their balance. They scratch each other’s itches and they provide something essential for each other. To an outsider they may seem like bickering old kooks who hate each other, but in fact they are bickering old kooks who hate each other who (really, actually) love each other.

Sylvie Drake joined the
Los Angeles Times
in 1971 and served as its chief theater critic from 1991 through 1993.

Sam Mendelbaum comes home from work and finds his wife scantily dressed in front of the mirror, preening herself.

When she sees him, she says, “Oh, Sammy, I had the most wonderful report from Dr. Goldstein today. He said I had the body of a thirty-five-year-old, the face of a thirty-year-old, and the hair of a twenty-five-year-old.”

And Sam says, “Yeah? What’d he say about your big, fat ass?”

“Sam, we didn’t talk about you, darling, at all!”

Max Rosenthal was born in Berlin and was forced to leave shortly after Kristallnacht. He and his family immigrated to the United States in 1939 and lived for many years in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan.

These two couples get together at one of their houses, and afterward the husbands are talking in the living room; the women are in the kitchen. One of the men says, “I was at this restaurant yesterday. For twelve dollars, you can eat five meals—it’s unbelievable! Fantastic! The food was delicious.”

The other guy says, “What’s the name of the restaurant?”

He says, “Uh … hmm … the name of the restaurant. I forgot the name of the restaurant. Oh, wait. What’s that flower, that red flower? It smells good, it’s got thorns on it …”

The other guy says, “You mean ‘rose’?”

He says, “Yeah! That’s it! Hey, Rose, what’s the name of that restaurant?”

Steve Platt got a degree in agriculture from the University of Georgia and then enjoyed a wonderful career in the apparel industry.

During the commission of a bank robbery, one of the bank robbers’ masks falls off. He puts it back on real fast. There are a couple of people standing off to his right, and he says to one of the guys, “When my mask fell down, did you get a look at my face?”

The guy says, “Yeah, I did.”

He shoots him.

There’s another guy standing next to the first guy, and he asks him, “When my mask fell down, did you get a look at my face?”

The second guy says, “Yeah, I did.”

He shoots him.

There is a third guy standing there, and the bank robber asks him, “You know, when my mask fell down, did you get a look at my face?”

He says, “No, I didn’t, but my wife did.”

Dennis Spiegelman has played poker with the same group of guys every Thursday night for the past thirty-six years. He refuses to disclose how much money he’s lost over that time.

Frank and Lena are in their retirement home down in Florida. Frank calls his son and says, “Look, son, I’ve been married for forty-five years to your mother—I cannot take it anymore! I’m out of here! I can’t take the kvetching and the criticism. I’m getting my own apartment. I’m leaving.”

The son says, “Dad, don’t do anything until I get back to you.”

The son immediately calls his sister and says, “Look, sis, I just got this call from Dad. Mom and Dad are gonna get a divorce! We can’t let this happen. We have to stop it. Why don’t we go down to Florida and talk to them, and talk them out of it?” So, they agree.

He talks to his father and says, “Look, Dad, don’t do anything rash. We’re gonna come down. We’re gonna talk to you—face to face—and show you the reasons not to get a divorce. When’s the best time to come?”

He says, “Come on down on Friday.”

“Okay, we’ll see you on Friday.”

Frank hangs up the phone, turns to his wife, and says, “Good news. The kids are coming for Passover and they’re paying their own airfare.”

Ira Wohl, born in 1944, is both a documentary filmmaker and a psychotherapist. His film
Best Boy
won the Academy Award for best feature documentary in 1980.

Max and Sadie are at home watching TV. She goes to the bathroom, and about a minute later he hears her screaming, “Max! Max! Come quick! It’s terrible!”

He goes back to the bathroom and looks at her. She’s sitting on the toilet. Her legs are spread apart, her support hose are down by her ankles, and she says, “It was terrible! A mouse came, he ran up my leg, and he went inside! What am I gonna do?”

He says, “I don’t know! I don’t know what to do! Just sit there, I’ll call the doctor.” So he goes to the phone and calls the doctor. The doctor says, “Look, just relax. Don’t get nervous. It’ll be okay. I can be there in twenty minutes but until I get there, go to the refrigerator and get a piece of cheese and see if maybe you can coax it out.”

Max says, “Okay.”

Twenty minutes later, the doctor comes up and walks back to the bathroom. He sees Max, lying across Sadie’s thighs, waving a pickled herring back and forth.

He says, “What’re you doing? I said ‘cheese’!”

Max says, “I know, but I had to try and get the cat out first!”

During the 1980s, Sylvie Drake was a personal interpreter for the playwright Eugene Ionesco.

This man goes to see his rabbi. He says to his rabbi, “Rabbi, I think my wife is poisoning me. I know she’s poisoning me.”

The rabbi says, “Calm down, calm down.”

He says, “No, no, I know! But I don’t know what to do. I need your advice.”

The rabbi says, “Well, give me a chance to talk to her, and then I’ll get back to you.”

About three days later, the rabbi calls the guy, and he says, “I had a long talk with your wife. I talked to her for about three hours.”

He says, “Yes, yes, so what’s your advice?”

“Take the poison.”

Harry Macklowe is a real estate developer based in New York City. In his words: “I grew up listening to my parents’ generation of comedians, Jack Benny, Henny Youngman, Myron Cohen, instilling in me a lifelong appreciation of a well-told joke.”

A couple is in a supermarket. She has a problem, though. She steals; she’s a kleptomaniac. She steals a can of fruit and is taken before the magistrate.

The magistrate says, “Sarah, how could you do something like that? What did you take?”

She says “Well, I just took one can of peaches.”

“Peaches you took? How many peaches?”

“I think there were six peaches in the can.”

“Sarah. You are going to go to jail for six nights. That’s it, it’s final.”

“Oh my God.”

Her husband stands up. “Your honor. She also stole a can of peas.”