by Sam Hoffman
STEVE “SHECKY” PLATT
Steve Platt got a degree in agriculture from the University of Georgia and then enjoyed a wonderful career in the apparel industry.
Bank Robbery
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
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.
“I’ve Had Enough of Your Mother”
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
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.
A Better Mousetrap
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!”
SYLVIE DRAKE
During the 1980s, Sylvie Drake was a personal interpreter for the playwright Eugene Ionesco.
“My Wife Is Poisoning Me”
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
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.”
Kleptomaniac
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.”
DANIEL OKRENT
Daniel Okrent’s achievements in media and publishing are too numerous to mention. Seriously, too numerous. Also, an account of his writings (four books!) and scholarship (Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School!) wouldn’t fit in this space. But I would be egregiously remiss if I didn’t tell you he invented rotisserie baseball! This is like having Thomas Edison tell you a joke.
Schmuck
Feldman comes down to breakfast one morning. He’s sitting at the table having his breakfast. His wife’s across the table as usual, with the newspaper in front of her.
She suddenly drops the newspaper, looks at him, and says, “I’m through with you.”
He says, “What are you talking about? We’ve been married for forty years.”
“Yeah. And for forty years you’ve been a schmuck. The day I met you you were a schmuck; I just didn’t realize it. For forty years you’ve been the essence of schmuckness. You’re such a schmuck, you’re the second-biggest schmuck in the whole world.”
Feldman says, “If I’m such a schmuck, how come I’m only the second-biggest schmuck in the world?”
“Because you’re a schmuck.”
NEIL ELLIOT
Neil Elliot was born in Manhattan, then lived in the Bronx, Queens (Laurelton), Denver, Portland, Burbank, and San Diego—all before college at Berkeley. After graduation, he managed a psychedelic rock nightclub in Hollywood from 1967 to 1969, moved back to New York to work in theater, and then moved back to Los Angeles, where he stayed.
A Divorce
Sadie and Moshe go to the divorce attorney. They’ve decided they want a divorce.
“Well, this is very hard,” he says. “You’ve been married for sixty-three years!”
“That’s right.”
“And you’re both in your eighties. Why do you want a divorce? Why now?”
“Well, we just wanted to wait until the children were dead.”
MAX ROSENTHAL
Once Rosenthal finished school and ended a stint in the army, he studied pattern making and worked in the children’s wear business for his entire career.
Flowers
These two ladies meet, and one of them says to the other, “Hi, how are you doing? I haven’t seen you for a while. How’s your husband?”
“Oh, my husband. He’s such a wonderful man. He’s such a doll. Every Shabbos, he brings home a bouquet of flowers for me.”
She says, “Flowers? I hate flowers. Terrible. I can’t stand flowers!”
“Why?”
“Because you know what I have to do when he comes home with flowers?”
“What?”
“You know �
� I have to lie down and spread my legs.”
“Oh my! Don’t you have a vase?”
STEVE “SHECKY” PLATT
Platt jokes that these days he is involved in “the table pad business” (those pads your grandmother used to put under the tablecloth). He says that the last time he got an order, “Truman was in the White House.”
Traffic Stop
This elderly couple is driving in a car. She’s driving; he’s in the passenger seat. She has horrible, horrible hearing. They’re on the freeway, and a police officer pulls them over. She rolls down the window.
The police officer says to her, “Did you know you were speeding?”
She turns to her husband and says, “What? What’d he say?”
Her husband says, “He wants to know if you knew you were speeding!”
The police officer says, “License and registration, please.”
She turns to her husband and says, “What? What’d he say?”
He says, “He wants to see your license and registration!”
The police officer looks at it and says, “Oh, I see that you’re from New Jersey. I dated a woman from New Jersey and, if I remember correctly, it was the worst sex I ever had in my life.”
She turns to her husband and says, “What? What’d he say?”
Her husband says, “He says he knows you!”
Gershon Evan
Adam and Eve
After Adam was created, there he was in the Garden of Eden, all alone. Of course it wasn’t good for him to be all by himself, so God came down to visit.
“Adam,” He said, “I have a plan to make you much, much happier. I’m going to give you a companion, a helpmate for you—someone who will fulfill your every need and desire. Someone who will be faithful, loving and obedient. Someone who will make you feel wonderful every day of your life.”
Adam was stunned. “That sounds incredible!”
“Well it is,” God said. “But it doesn’t come for free. In fact, this is someone so special that it’s going to cost you an arm and a leg.”
“That’s a pretty high price to pay,” said Adam. “What can I get for a rib?”
Cynthia Fisher
Bionic Penis
Mr. Goldberg wakes up in the hospital, bandaged from head to foot. The doctor comes in and says, “Ah, I see you’ve regained consciousness. Now, you probably won’t remember, but you were in a pileup on the freeway. You’re going to be okay, you’ll walk again and everything, but… something happened. I’m trying to break this gently, but the fact is, your penis was chopped off in the wreck and we were unable to find it.”
Goldberg groans, but the doctor goes on: “You’ve got nine thousand dollars in insurance compensation coming to you, and we have the technology to build you a new penis that will work as well as your old one did, maybe even better! But the thing is, it doesn’t come cheap. It’s a thousand dollars per inch.”
Goldberg perks up!
“So,” the doctor says, “it’s for you to decide how many inches you want. But it’s something you’d better discuss with your wife. I mean, if you had a five-inch one before, and you decide to go for nine inches, she might be a bit put out. But if you had a nine-inch one before, and you decide only to invest in five inches this time, she might be disappointed. So it’s important that she plays a role in helping you make the decision.” He agrees to talk with his wife.
The doctor comes back the next day and says, “So, have you spoken with your wife?”
“I have,” says Mr. Goldberg.
“And has she helped you in making the decision?”
“Yes, she has,” he says.
“And what is it?” asks the doctor.
“We’re getting granite countertops.”
8
Sex
What Is This I Hear About a Revolution?
SO THERE’S THE GARDEN, RIGHT? LET’S CALL IT EDEN.
There’s a dude, Adam, and his lady friend, Eve, and everything is just perfect for, let’s say, the first two chapters.
Then, in chapter 3, sex comes along and, like it always does, ruins the relationship.
Of course you know about Genesis chapter 3. Everybody, everywhere knows about chapter 3. Chapter 3 reads like a metaphoric reduction of a bad night out clubbing: The drug-dealing snake arrives, ecstasy apples are eaten, awareness of nakedness occurs, shame rains down hard, management gets super-pissed, everyone gets kicked out of the VIP room.
And the hangover—forever.
Oh yeah, and as an extra bonus, there’s verse 16:
To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children.”
Thanks.
It doesn’t take a semiotics professor to get the message here. The Old Testament puts it on a billboard early on the trip: Sex, despite that sweet burst of juicy apple flavor, is dirty, shameful, and bad. If you do it, God will know and he will be very disappointed. As in “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.”
Cut to 1960. A little pill comes along called “the Pill.” So much for verse 16. Suddenly biting the apple comes at a far more affordable cost. Women, and the men who want to love them, if only for a short while, grow braver. Emboldened by the tiny pill, they are willing to risk the approbation and disappointment of the Almighty. And you know what—they learn they can live with it.
For the Jews born in the 1930s and ’40s, the sexual revolution spawned by the Pill arrived with their young adulthood. Some were already married with young children; many had grown up with parents who slept in separate beds. As Playboy grew in popularity and Deep Throat played at local theaters, the disappointed God of Genesis was still there in the back of their minds.
Conflict is the heart of the story and discomfort is the wellspring of humor. This sex-driven conflict and discomfort, between guilt and pleasure, between Genesis and the Pill, drives the humor of this chapter’s jokes.
BARNETT HOFFMAN
Barnett Hoffman is a die-hard Rutgers Scarlet Knights fan. During their undefeated 1975–76 basketball season, our family traveled all over the eastern seaboard to follow their run to the Final Four. It doesn’t get much better than that for a nine-year-old.
Fidelity
So Jake and Becky are married for fifty years, and it’s their fiftieth wedding anniversary and Becky asks Jake, “Jake: all these years. All these years, have you been faithful to me?”
“Of course. Never have I strayed in fifty years. And you, Becky?”
“Well …”
“Becky. Did you hear me?”
“Yeah, I heard you.”
“Well, you’re not answering me.”
“Well …”
“You mean to tell me?”
“Three times,” she says.
“Three times! Tell me about it.”
“The first time, you remember, Jake, you opened up that little dry goods store on Main Street. You had trouble getting that favorable lease because of that momzer landlord, and I went to go see the landlord. You got the favorable lease, didn’t you, Jake?”
He says, “Well, you’re right on that.”
“The second time, Jake, remember, you were having financial difficulties, you wanted to get a loan at the bank and that no-good loan officer wouldn’t lend you a nickel? You got your loan, didn’t you, Jake?”
“Yeah, that’s true. What was the third time?”
“Jake, do you remember a couple of years ago, you ran for president of the temple, and you were fifteen votes shy?”
ALMA PILLOT
Alma Pillot left home at age sixteen to dance on the nightclub circuit, working with the likes of Jackie Gleason and Lenny Bruce. After that, among many other things, she taught dance and served as a regional Hadassah president. At Hadassah, she put her talents to good use, staging fund-raising musical productions that starred enthusiastic temple members. Alma Pillot passed away on September 6, 2009.
Mom’s Cooking
Mr. Rabinowitz hir
es a little girl to start working in his office and she’s a beauty and he’s got the hots for her.
And he tries to make time with her and she ignores him. One day he says, “Let me take you out to dinner. I’ll take you to dinner; you have anything you want.”
She says, “Okay.”
So he takes her to this high-class restaurant, and they sit down and she orders a double lobster cocktail and a big bowl of soup and a gorgeous salad and a big steak with all the trimmings. Crêpe suzette for dessert. And orders a bottle of champagne.
And he’s looking at her and he says, “Tell me, darling. Your mother cooks for you like this?”
She says, “My mother’s not looking to fuck me.”
MAX ROSENTHAL
From Max’s son Rich: “Whenever my brother and I would ask him what he wanted for his birthday, Hanukkah, anniversary, whatever, every time he would say the same thing. ‘All I want are two nice boys.’
“That’s Max.”
The First Time
Mr. and Mrs. Shapiro go to the doctor and, at the end, the doctor calls in Mrs. Shapiro.
The doctor says to her, “Mrs. Shapiro, you’re fine. You’re husband’s fine. There’s just one problem: Your husband tells me that there’s a little problem with his sex life. Just a little problem there.”
She says, “So, what’s the problem?”
“Well, he says, the first time it’s perfectly fine. But the second time, he starts to perspire and sweat and is completely soaked afterward. You understand that?”