Old Jews Telling Jokes (9 page)

“You’ll send who a chicken?”

“Judge Breitkof.”

“You can’t send Judge Breitkof a chicken. He’ll be very insulted, he’ll be outraged, he’ll probably call the prosecutor, and you’ll never win the case with stuff like that with Judge Breitkof. Don’t do it.”

“All right, no chicken.”

They go to court, Schwartz testifies, Gottesman testifies, and at the end of the case Judge Breitkof says, “It would be an easier case to decide if there were records. But there are none, so I’ve had to judge
the two men who appear before me and I find Schwartz to be a man of great character, complete credibility, Gottesman is obviously a dodgy character and not worthy of belief. Judgment for Schwartz: eighty thousand dollars.”

As they’re going down the steps of the courthouse, Schwartz says, “Great lawyers you are. You wanted me to settle; you wanted me to take less than I got. I took care of it.”

“What do you mean you took care of it?”

“I sent him a chicken.”

“You sent Breitkof a chicken?”

“Yeah.”

“That was a terrible thing.”

“Yeah, I sent him a note along with it.”

“Oh my God—what did the note say?”

“It said, ‘Judge Breitkof, enjoy the chicken and your family should enjoy it, too, and there’s more where that came from if you know what I mean.’

“And I signed it, ‘Gottesman.’ ”

Diane Hoffman, my mother, was born in 1942 in Trenton, New Jersey. As I mentioned in the chapter “The Jewish Mother,” she is one of those super-capable women of her generation who can basically do everything. She started a career in hospital administration later in life, after I was already off to college, and eventually ran the radiology department at St. Peter’s, our local Jewish hospital.

A woman went into the greengrocer and asked the clerk for a pound of broccoli.

“Oh, ma’am, I’m so sorry. We just don’t have any broccoli today. How about a pound of spinach?”

“Okay. I’ll have a pound of broccoli.”

“Maybe you didn’t understand. We just don’t have broccoli. How about a pound of string beans?”

“Um. All right. I’ll have a pound of broccoli.”

“Ma’am, we just don’t have any broccoli. How about some asparagus?”

“No. I’ll have a pound of broccoli.”

Exasperated, he said to her, “Ma’am, can you spell
cat
as in
catastrophic?”

“Of course. C-A-T.”

“Can you spell
dog
as in
dogmatic?”

Perplexed, she says, “Of course. D-O-G.”

“Can you spell
fuck
, as in
broccoli?”

“There’s no
fuck
in
broccoli!”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you.”

Mike Leiderman describes himself as a patriotic son of the Catskills, having been “conceived in Liberty and raised in Monticello.” Growing up, he snuck into every hotel nightclub he could when his parents took him to the mountains.

Three guys are going to be executed: a Frenchman, an Italian, and a Jew. They each get a chance to pick their last meal.

They ask the Italian, “What do you want?”

The Italian says, “Pasta primavera! I love-a pasta primavera!” So they bring him the pasta. He eats it, and they shoot him.

They say to the Frenchman, “What would you like?”

The Frenchman says, “Filet mignon.” They bring him a huge filet mignon and he eats it. They shoot him.

They say to the Jew, “Well, what would you like?”

The Jew says, “Strawberries.”

“Strawberries? We don’t have any strawberries. They’re out of season!”

The Jew goes, “Eh, I’ll wait.”

Chuck Berke grew up in Chicago, where he practiced law for several years. He then moved to Mexico to run a seventy-year-old health spa.

Two elderly Jewish men are talking about their ailments. One of them says, “I haven’t been with my wife sexually in many years. It’s a part of my life that’s behind me.”

The other man says, “I have sex with my wife three or four times a week!”

He says, “Well, how do you manage that?”

The other man says, “Rye bread.”

“Rye bread? Where do you get such rye bread? I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

He says, “There’s a bakery at the corner. Just go in and get a rye bread.”

The man goes in and he says, “I’ll have a rye bread, please.” Then he thinks, and he asks, “Well, how many loaves of rye bread do you have?”

She says, “We have five left.”

He says, “I’ll take all five loaves.”

She says, “You know, by the time you get to the fifth, it’ll be hard.”

He says, “You know? Everyone knows!”

Charlotte Spiegelman is a psychotherapist based in Los Angeles. As far as we can tell, she is no relation to Eric. Or, if they are related, they certainly aren’t close.

A grasshopper walks into a bar and orders a drink.

The bartender looks at him and says, “You know we have a drink here named after you?”

The grasshopper replies, “You have a drink named Stanley?”

Joe Simonowitz was born in 1931. Before he retired, he was a salesman for Western Bagels.

A lady goes into a butcher shop in New York. She says to the butcher, “I want a Long Island duck.”

He says okay, and brings out a duck. She sticks two fingers up the duck’s tuches.

She says, “This is not a Long Island duck! This is a Florida fowl. Please, get me a Long Island duck!”

He goes in the back, and brings out another one. She proceeds to do the same thing. She says, “No! This is a Wisconsin chicken! If I want a chicken, I’ll let you know. I want a Long Island duck!”

He goes in the back, brings out another duck. She does the same thing. She says, “Ah! This is a Long Island duck. Clean it, flick it, I’ll wait for it.”

As he’s cleaning up the duck, she makes conversation.

She says, “What’s your name?”

He says, “Irving.”

She says, “Where you from?”

He turns around, drops his pants, and says, “I don’t know—you tell me!”

7
Husbands and Wives

BEFORE JEWISH COUPLES MARRY, THEY ARE REQUIRED TO SIGN A
prenuptial contract of sorts known as a ketubah. The word
ketubah
is difficult to translate, but most scholars agree it means something to the effect of “here comes da pain.”

A long-term marriage, in any faith, is a unique challenge. A couple needs to handle the pressures of raising a family, juggling careers and finances while still remaining intimate and interested in each other. It can’t be easy. Of course, in my marriage, with my particular wife, who is almost certainly going to read this at some point—it’s easy. I mean, couldn’t be easier. It’s easy like Sunday morning. But for most people, I would imagine, it’s got to be tough.

Are we meant for monogamy? Does it really make sense to “mate for life”? Many animals do, including the gray wolf, the bald eagle, and the beaver. Can we learn any lessons from nature? Well,
gray wolf
and
bald eagle
could describe many older Jewish couples I know but clearly
beaver
has nothing to do with monogamy—so I guess that’s a bust.

Long-term marriage obviously has its advantages. For men, these include never having to make another decision for the rest of your life; learning that your family, which you heretofore thought was fairly normal, is actually completely fucked up; and learning how to fail at being a mind reader. For women, it includes having a really big, hairy, smelly child to care for in addition to your children; learning
how to field phone calls from the supermarket asking, “Which is the cereal that I like?”; and having a spare razor around to use on your legs.