Editor’s Note. What can we do. Reality is getting too much. We need to try and diversify our thoughts. Let’s try…
Jewish Jokes
Great traditional Jewish jokes.
American Jewish Humor 101
What is Jewish Humor?
From Groucho Marx to the Borscht Belt to Sarah Silverman, many of America’s best-known comedians have been Jewish. And so important is humor to Jewish culture that a landmark study on American Jewish identity in 2013 found that 42 percent of American Jews consider “having a good sense of humor” to be “an essential part of what being Jewish means.” (In contrast, only 19 percent said observing Jewish law was essential.)
READ: The 10 Best Jewish Jokes in ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’
But Jewish humor can be difficult to define. As William Novak and Moshe Waldoks write in The Big Book of Jewish Humor, it is easier to describe Jewish humor in terms of what it is not, than what it is.
It is not, for example, escapist. It is not slapstick. It is not physical. It is generally not cruel and does not attack the weak or the infirm. At the same time, it is also not polite or gentle.
Below are examples of some Jewish jokes.
The Top Hat
Schwartz is sitting in his room, wearing only a top hat, when Steinberg strolls in.
“Why are you sitting here naked?”
“It’s all right,” says Schwartz. “Nobody comes to visit.”
“But why the hat?”
“Maybe somebody will come.”
Rain in Chelm
Two men of Chelm went out for a walk, when suddenly it began to rain.
“Quick,” said one. “Open your umbrella.”
“It won’t help,” said his friend. “My umbrella is full of holes.”
“Then why did you bring it?”
“I didn’t think it would rain!”
Our Luck
Two Jews sat in a coffeehouse, discussing the fate of their people.
“How miserable is our history,” said one. “Pogroms, plagues, discrimination, Hitler, Neo-Nazis…Sometimes I think we’d be better off if we’d never been born.”
“Sure,” said his friend. “But who has that much luck — maybe one in 50,000?”
Hoodlums
Two Jews are walking through a neighborhood one evening when they notice they are being followed by a pair of hoodlums.
“David,” say his friend, “we better get out of here. There are two of them, and we’re alone!”
The Terrifying Rumor
In a small village in Poland, a terrifying rumor was spreading: A Christian girl had been found murdered.
Fearing retaliation, the Jewish community gathered in the shul to plan whatever defensive actions were possible under the circumstances.
Just as the emergency meeting was being called to order, in ran the president of the synagogue, out of breath and all excited. “Brothers,” he cried out, “I have wonderful news! The murdered girl is Jewish!”
The Census
The census taker comes to the Goldman house.
“Does Louis Goldman live here?” he asks.
“No,” replies Goldman.
“Well, then, what is your name?”
“Louis Goldman.”
“Wait a minute–didn’t you just tell me that Goldman doesn’t live here?”
“Aha,” says Goldman. “You call this living?”
The Converts
Three Jews who had recently converted to Christianity were having a drink together in a posh restaurant. They started talking about the reasons for their conversions.
“I converted out of love,” said the first. “Not for Christianity, but for a Christian girl. As you both know, my wife insisted that I convert.”
“And I,” said the second, “I converted in order to rise in the legal system. You probably know that my recent appointment as a federal judge may have had something to do with my new religion.”
The third man spoke up: “I converted because I think that the teachings of Christianity are superior to those of Judaism.”
“Are you kidding?” said the first man, spitting out his drink.
“What do you take us for, a couple of goyim?”
Manure
Schwartz, an elderly man, is resting peacefully on the porch of his small hotel outside Boca when he sees a cloud of dust up the road. He walks out to see who could be approaching: It is a Southern farmer with a wagon.
“Good afternoon,” says Schwartz.
“Afternoon,” says the farmer.
“Where you headed?” asks Schwartz.
“Town.”
“What do you have in the wagon?”
“Manure.”
“Manure, eh? What do you do with it?”
“I spread it over the fruit.”
“Well,” says Bernstein, “you should come over here for lunch someday. We use sour cream.”
Lightbulbs
How many Zionists does it take to replace a light bulb?
Four: One to stay home and convince others to do it, a second to donate the bulb, a third to screw it in and a fourth to proclaim that the entire Jewish people stands behind their actions.
Richest Man in Town
At the funeral of the richest man in town, a stranger saw a woman crying very loudly. The stranger said, “Are you a relative of the deceased?”
“No.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“That’s why!”
source https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-jokes/
Editor’s Note. Jokes by Muslims for Muslims are not so easy to find. Arab jokes are difficult to translate into English. May be some readers can help?
Well, there is always Mullah Nasiruddin …
Mullah Nasruddin Jokes
Vengeance – Nasruddin style
One day, Mullah Nasruddin heard a knock on his door. He opened the door and found his daughter standing there crying with a bruise on her eye. “What happened?” Nasruddin asked. She said that she got into a fight with her husband and he beat her. To his, Nasruddin responded by slapping his daughter in the face. He closed the door and quickly called her husband. When he picked up the phone, he told his daughter’s husband, “I heard about what you did, but I’ve had my vengeance – because you hit my daughter, I slapped your wife, take that!”.
Deductive reasoning
– “How old are you, Mullah?”, a boy asked.
– Mullah Nasruddin responded, “3 years older than my brother”.
– “How do you know that?” the boy asked.
-“Reasoning!”, said Mullah Nasruddin. “Last year, I heard my brother tell someone that I was 2 years older than him. A year has passed. Now, I am older by one year. I shall soon be old enough to be his grandfather!”
Tit for tat
Mullah Nasruddin went into a shop to buy a pair of trousers. Once inside, he changed his mind an chose a cloak instead, which was at the same price. Picking up the cloak, he left the shop. “Wait! You have not paid!”, shouted the merchant. The Mullah responded, “I left you the trousers, which is the same value as the cloak”. “But you did not pay for the trousers either”, the confused merchant said. “Of course not”, said Mullah Nasruddin. “Why should I pay for something that I did not want to buy?”.
More useful
One day Mullah Nasruddin entered his favorite teahouse and declared, “The moon is more useful than the sun”. An old man asked, “Why Mullah?” Mullah Nasruddin replied, “Because we need the light more during the night than during the day”.
Standing by his word
A friend asked Mullah Nasruddin how old he was. “Forty”, replied the Mullah. The friend said, “but you said the same thing two years ago!”. “Yes”, replied the Mullah, “I always stand by what I have said”.
Replace my donkey
“You may have lost your donkey, but you don’t have to grieve over it more than you did about the loss of your first wife”, a villager told a sad Mullah Nasruddin. “Ah”, said Mullah Nasruddin, “but if you remember, when I lost my wife, all the villagers said we will find you someone else, so far, nobody has offered to replace my donkey”.
Wet Nasruddin
Mullah Nasruddin nearly fell into a pool one day. A man whom he know was nearby, and saved him from falling in. Every time, this man met Nasruddin, he would remind him of the event and how he saved him. After several times, Nasruddin took him to the water, and jumped in. He stood with his head just above the water, and shouted, “Now I am as wet as I would have been if you had not saved me, so leave me alone!”
source https://www.afghan-web.com/culture/nasruddin-jokes/
A wide swath
Nasruddin’s new style is fresh and vibrant, says one movie critic, who heard Nasruddin chatting in the grocery checkout line. It’s true that his new stories cut a wide swath through traditional spiritual tales of many faiths. Of course, no one knows what his old style was like; it is probable that the present behavior is a continuation of long-standing proclivities.
The Venerable Mullah, may he be prosperous all his days, was never one to hold back from saying the right thing, and he hasn’t changed a bit.
One of his favorite stories, The Sweetest Strawberry the World Has Ever Known, is actually a Nasruddin-ized version of a beautiful zen Buddhist tale. In Nasruddin’s hands it is filled with danger, humor, excitement, absurdity; the audience is not aware they have just imbibed subtle and valuable esoteric teachings!
Says the Zen monk credited with first telling the classic tale several hundred years ago, “We don’t mind too much if Nasruddin tells it. As long as his heart is in the right place, we just wince and avert our eyes.”
View a video of one of Nasruddin’s stories >>
source https://www.nasruddin.org/
Nasruddin and his donkey: Tales of the holy fool
BY RICH HEFFERN
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February 9, 2011
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The holy fool, or the fool as wise soul, is a figure in many wisdom traditions, including the Russian Orthodox spirituality tradition, the Sufis of Islam, Zen Buddhism, Christianity and the inheritors of the Hasidic movement of Judaism. Such fools amuse, confuse, sometimes speak in simile or circuitous riddles, are often ridiculed. They are trickster figures. They are, after all, intentionally ridiculous but can succeed by that very character in breaking through a crust of resistance or disbelief. Holy fools turn our spiritual traditions upside down and inside out — just as Jesus’ parables do — so that we can more readily see the truth within them.
“There is an enigmatic quality to the fool’s cloak of madness or nonsense that provokes attention, response, reflection, as well as laughter. The fool’s inherent humility, too, may loosen the defensive, ego-inflated character of those who make too much of themselves and thus lose touch with a deeper reality,” writes John Boettinger.
The great holy fool from the Sufis is Mullah Nasruddin. Here are some of the tales told about him:
— A neighbor who Nasruddin didn’t like very much came over to his compound one day. The neighbor asked Nasruddin if he could borrow his donkey. Nasruddin not wanting to lend his donkey to the neighbor he didn’t like told him, “I would love to loan you my donkey but only yesterday my brother came from the next town to use it to carry his wheat to the mill to be grounded. The donkey sadly is not here.” The neighbor was disappointed. But he thanked Nasruddin and began to walk away. Just as he got a few steps away, Mullah Nasruddin’s donkey, which was in the back of his compound all the time, let out a big bray. The neighbor turned to Nasruddin and said, “Mullah Sahib, I thought you told me that your donkey was not here. Mullah Nasruddin turned to the neighbor and said, “My friend, who are you going to believe? Me or the donkey?
— One day there was news in every corner of the town about the Mullah’s donkey which he had lost. When his neighbors heard the news they got sad and decided to go to mullah’s house and help him to find his donkey. So they came to his house and saw that he was happy and thankful to God. They asked him: “Mullah, aren’t you sad about losing your donkey?” Mullah laughed and said “I am happier because God helped me that I was not riding it otherwise I would be lost as well.”
— The mullah went to see a rich man to earn some money from him. He asked the man to give him some money. The man said why you need money?
Mullah said I want to buy an elephant so that is why I need money!
The man said if you don’t have enough money how are you going to look after the elephant? Mullah said, “I came here to get money not advice!”
— Mulla Nasruddin had been calling on his girlfriend for over a year. One evening the girl’s father stopped him as he was leaving and asked, “Look here, young man, you have been seeing my daughter for a year now, and I would like to know whether your intentions are honorable or dishonorable?” Nasruddin’s face lit up: “Do you mean to say, sir, that I have a choice?”
— It was a cold winter day, and a heavily dressed man noticed Nasrudin outside wearing very little clothing. “Mullah,” the man said, “tell me, how is it that I am wearing all these clothes and still feel a little cold, whereas you are barely wearing anything yet seem unaffected by the weather?”
“Well,” replied Nasrudin, “I don’t have any more clothes, so I can’t afford to feel cold, whereas you have plenty of clothes, and thus have the liberty to feel cold.”
— As Nasruddin rested under a tall walnut tree one day, he looked a few yards to his side and noticed a big watermelon growing on a thin vine near the ground. Nasruddin looked up and said, “Great God, please permit me to ask you this: Why is it that walnuts grow on big strong trees, while watermelons grow on think weak vines. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
But at that very moment, a walnut fell from high on up in the tree and hit Nasrudin square on the head. “Ah!“ remarked Nasrudin. “I suppose Nature’s ways might not be as backward as I thought. After all, if a big watermelon fell out of the tree and onto my head, it might have killed me!“
— One day, the town’s new conqueror asked Nasruddin, “If I were a slave, how much would I cost?” “Five hundred dollars,” Nasruddin responded. “What!“ the conqueror shouted in great anger. “Just the clothes I’m wearing right now are worth five hundred dollars!“ “Yes,” replied Nasruddin, “I factored the clothes into my price.”
source https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/earthbeat/eco-catholic/nasruddin-and-his-donkey-tales-holy-fool
Categories: Jews, Laughter is the best medicine, Muslims