Old Jews Telling Jokes

by Sam Hoffman

  She says, “Yeah. The first time’s in November; the second time’s July.”

  MIKE LEIDERMAN

  Mike Leiderman produces events and fund-raisers for a number of nonprofit organizations, including the Chicago Emmy Awards, the Fox Sports Net Awards for the March of Dimes, the NFL Players Association Mackey Award banquet for BBF Family Services in Lawndale (a section of Chicago), and the annual Jewish United Fund telethon.

  Breakfast Lovin’

  Abie and Becky are at the doctor’s office. Abie says, “Doc, it’s our sex life. It’s terrible.”

  The doctor says, “Describe your technique.”

  Abie says, “Okay. Well, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday …”

  The doctor says, “Stop right there! That’s the whole point. You can’t plan these things. You must be spontaneous. Whenever the spirit moves you, that’s when you have to act—with passion! Come back and see me in two weeks.”

  Two weeks later, they come back, and the doctor says, “How’d it go?”

  Abie says, “Fan-tastic! You couldn’t believe it! You’re absolutely right! Spontaneity is the key! We were at breakfast. My wife dropped a spoon, bent over to pick it up, and—lo and behold—I got the urge like an animal! Right there on the breakfast table, three times we made love!”

  The doctor says, “That’s terrific. Any problems?”

  Abie says, “Just one. They won’t let us eat at Howard Johnson’s anymore.”

  SIDNEY KIMMEL

  Many people know that Sidney Kimmel is the founder and chairman of the Jones Apparel group, the producer of numerous acclaimed feature films, and a leading philanthropist—but who knew he could tell a joke?

  Sexual Techniques

  So these three old Jewish guys are bragging about their sexual exploits.

  They had decided to compete and see who could make their wife moan and scream the most.

  So the first guy says, “I win hands down. When I’m in the middle of having intercourse with my wife, I use a feather and she screams—she screams!”

  Second guy says, “I can top that. I do it the Japanese style and in the middle of it, I use these marbles and it really works and she screams like crazy.”

  Third guy says, “I don’t know what you guys are talking about.”

  He says, “I just jump on—do my one, two, six—and when I get off, I go over to the drapes, wipe myself off, and you should hear the screams!”

  ANNIE KORZEN

  Korzen played the recurring character of Doris Klompus on Seinfeld, and John Turturro’s mother in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

  Hello Dolly

  This guy, Lenny, is having a one-night stand. In the middle of the night the lady says to him, “You know, this has been so much fun, I’m gonna let you in on a secret.”

  He says, “Really? What’s that?”

  “My vagina … can sing.”

  “You’re kidding! Let’s see!”

  She pulls off the covers, he looks down, and he sees it singing, “Hellooo, Dolly! Well, hellooo, Dolly!”

  Well, he’s just astonished.

  He says, “This is fantastic! You should go on the road! You should get bookings! We could make a lot of money off of this! I have a friend who’s an agent. I’m going to call him right now.” He calls his friend, the agent, Moe.

  “Moe! It’s Lenny.”

  “Whaddya want?”

  “Moe, you won’t believe this! I have this act! A singing vagina. You have got to listen to this! Listen to this!”

  He puts the phone down between her legs.

  “Hellooo, Dolly! Well, hellooo, Dolly!”

  “You called me at three o’clock in the morning to hear some dumb cunt singing ‘Hello, Dolly!’?”

  MIKE MARCUS

  Mike Marcus was a senior agent at the Creative Artists Agency during its heyday in the 1980s. His client list included Tom Cruise, Sydney Pollack, Robin Williams, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, John Landis, David Cronenberg, Roger Donaldson, Frank Oz, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker.

  “Hey, Kid!”

  An old man is sitting on his rocking chair, rocking comfortably away. Over a hill, in front of his house, comes a young boy carrying something in his arms.

  The old man says, “What’ve you got there?”

  “Some chicken wire.”

  “What’re you gonna do with that chicken wire?”

  “I’m gonna catch me some chickens.”

  The old man says, “Oh, you danged fool! You can’t catch no chickens with chicken wire!”

  Of course, later that afternoon, up that hill comes that same kid dragging that chicken wire. There’s a bunch of chickens stuck in it.

  Next morning, the kid comes down the hill, carrying something in his hand.

  “Hey, kid. What’ve you got there?” says the old man.

  “I got me some duct tape.”

  “What’re you gonna do with that duct tape?”

  “I’m gonna catch me some ducks.”

  The old man says, “Oh, you danged fool! You can’t catch no ducks with duct tape!”

  Lo and behold, later that afternoon, that kid comes up the hill dragging a roll of duct tape. There’s a bunch of ducks stuck to it.

  Next morning, the kid comes down the hill, carrying something in his hand.

  The old man says, “Hey, kid. What’ve you got there?”

  “I got me some pussy willow.”

  The old man says, “Hang on! Lemme grab my hat!”

  CHARLOTTE BORNSTEIN

  Charlotte Bornstein grew up in Boston and later moved to Los Angeles. She still roots for the Sox and the Celtics and still cannot pronounce words with r in them.

  Cab Ride

  This woman in New York jumps into a cab, and she’s stark naked. I mean, butt naked. She says, “Take me to Fifth and Broadway.”

  The cabdriver’s looking in his mirror, and he’s thinking, Oh, great. He says, “Lady, how do you plan on paying me? I mean, you have no clothes on, and you don’t even have a purse with you—so how are you going to pay me?”

  She says, “I’m gonna pay you with this,” and points to her vagina.

  He looks through the rearview mirror and says, “Lady, haven’t you got anything a little smaller?”

  RICHARD LEVINE

  After my father retired from the bench he teamed up with a law firm to do mediation and arbitration. That’s how we found Richard Levine. He is a longtime client of the firm.

  Club Med

  A woman meets her friend. She says, “How ya doin’? I understand you’ve been on vacation?”

  She says, “Oy, what a vacation we had.”

  She says, “Where’d you go?”

  “I went with Sarah and Sadie. We went to a travel agent, and she sends us to a place in the Caribbean called Club Med. We don’t know from nothing. We go there, nice room, right on the beach, a pretty day. So we take our blanket, and we go sit on the beach. You won’t believe what it was.”

  “What are you talking, ‘what it was’? What was it?”

  “It was a nude beach! People walking around naked. The men walking around hanging like this.”

  “No kidding?”

  She says, “Yeah, then you know what happened?”

  “What happened?”

  “One of the men came over to the blanket. Sarah took one look and had a stroke.”

  She says, “Oh my God!”

  “Then Sadie had a look and had a stroke!”

  “You, Becky, are you all right?”

  “Me?” she says. “I wouldn’t touch that thing!”

  MICHAEL BERGMAN

  According to Mr. Bergman, his first full sentence was “A priest, a minister, and a rabbi walk into a brothel.”

  His intellectual development ended there.

  Confession

  An elderly, slight man walks into a church, walks over to the confessional, sits down. Priest pulls back the little curtain, the man doesn’t say anything. He just sits there. Finally th
e priest, to move things along, says, “Can I help you, my son?”

  The man says, “I vant you should listen to vat I’m going to tell you.”

  The priest says, “Okay …”

  The man says, “Foist of all, you should know I’m eighty-seven years old.”

  “Eighty-seven. Has it been a good life?”

  “Is ups and downs, good, bad, like everyting else, until eleven months ago.”

  “What happened eleven months ago?”

  “My vife, Shirley, may she rest in peace, she pass avay.”

  “How long were you married?”

  “Ve married sixty-three vonderful years. I vas so lonely, I don’t know vat I would do, vat saved my life—there’s a voman, a girl, maybe thirty-two years old, lives in the building, she comes over, she bring me a bowl of soup, a chicken …”

  “What a Christian act!”

  “Vell, ve never talked about nothing like that, but I vanted to say thank you, so at last I took her out to dinner to a nice place in the neighborhood, had a vonderful dinner, came back to the building, and she said that she had just made a fresh cake, you should come up and have a piece of cake, I go up to her apartment—to make a long story short, we ended up last night making love seven times.”

  The priest says, “Seven times?”

  “That’s right, seven times.”

  The priest says, “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Ask me vatever you want to ask me.”

  “Are you Catholic?”

  He says, “I’m not Catholic!”

  “Then why are you telling me?”

  “I’m telling everybody!”

  HARRY RISKIN

  Harry Riskin went to college with my father at Rutgers, where they were fraternity brothers. He has devoted his law practice to the area of real estate value litigation and the defense of property rights for property owners for over forty years. Riskin served as deputy attorney general for the state of New Jersey and was also special counsel to the commissioner of transportation.

  The Towel

  Murray is getting on in age, and he marries this much, much younger woman. As a result, they’re having some problems with intimacy—the younger woman is just not being satisfied. So they decide to go see the rabbi for advice.

  Murray tells the rabbi that he’s trying to satisfy his young wife, and that he’s been unable to do that. The rabbi strokes his beard thoughtfully and says to Murray, “Let’s try something they did years ago. Go out and find a nice, handsome young man. Have him come in while you’re making love and wave a towel while you’re performing.”

  Murray and his wife agree to do what the rabbi suggests. They go out and find a handsome young man and they bring him into the bedroom with them. Murray gets into bed with his young, beautiful wife, and the young man waves a towel while they have sex. They try this a couple of times, and it doesn’t work. The wife is getting no satisfaction. They decide to go back to see the rabbi again.

  They tell the rabbi what happened, and the rabbi listens to them, and says, “Listen. Why don’t you go back and try it again, but just reverse roles. Murray, you wave the towel. The handsome young man, he gets into bed with your wife, and let’s see what that does. We do anything in the Jewish tradition to satisfy our wives.”

  They go home and go back into the bedroom. The handsome young man comes in, and Murray explains to him what has to be done. Murray picks up the towel, the handsome young man gets into bed with the wife, and they start having wild, passionate sex. The wife starts screaming, going absolutely crazy, having this wild orgasm.

  Murray grabs the young man and says, “Schmuck, this is how you wave a towel!”

  Mickey Antonetti

  Two Surprises

  One afternoon at the retirement home, Morris is talking to a fellow resident, Sadie, who he is interested in.

  “So Sadie, you want to come to my room and do it?”

  She agrees and they go to his room.

  When they are finished, Morris says, “Sadie, if I knew you were still a virgin I would have done this long ago!”

  Sadie replies to Morris, “And if I knew you could still get an erection I would have taken off my pantyhose.”

  A Bonus Freudian Knock-Knock Joke

  “Knock knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Cigar.”

  “Cigar who?”

  “Penis.”

  9

  Oral Sex

  And Other Stuff That Probably Isn’t Kosher

  GROWING UP IN MY GENERATION, BEFORE THE INTERNET, SOME boys were introduced to oral sex through illicit copies of Penthouse or the stories of older friends or relatives. This joke (I can’t recall the teller) was my introduction:

  “How would you describe the worst blow job you’ve ever gotten?”

  “Terrific.”

  Now that’s something to anticipate!

  Oral sex has long been taboo among all cultures. But for the Jews it has held a special concern, not because it is forbidden, but because it directly conflicts with two activities for which the mouth can more efficiently be used: eating and complaining.

  In truth, Jewish men do have a commandment to reproduce. Consequently, during his wife’s fertile period, theoretically, he shouldn’t, shall we say, waste the seed. But outside of that commandment, the Halacha is fairly supportive of husbands and wives doing whatever they find mutually enjoyable.

  “Honey, what do you mean you don’t like to do it? The Halacha is very supportive of it. My birthday? That isn’t for like eight months!”

  I don’t know, maybe the Halacha argument will work for you. If it does, let me know. Giving up bacon might be worth it.

  ALLEN PINSKY

  Allen Pinsky went to Camp Delwood with my dad. Then they lived in the same community in central New Jersey for many years, but my father never recognized him because he didn’t have white hair when they were kids at summer camp.

  Mr. Rabinowitz

  Mr. Rabinowitz is suffering from a malady that nobody can diagnose. They’ve gone up to Mass. General, they’ve gone to Mount Sinai, University of California, University of Chicago, nobody can tell him what’s happening. They finally go to a famous physician at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center.

  The doctor says, “Mr. Rabinowitz. What’s bothering you?”

  He runs him through an exhaustive battery of tests and lo and behold, he discovers what’s wrong.

  “Mr. Rabinowitz, is your wife waiting for you?”

  “Yes, she’s in the waiting room.”

  “Will you step outside and ask her to come in here?”

  She comes in and says, “Yes, doctor? What’s the matter with my Irving?”

  “Mr. Rabinowitz has a very, very rare disease. It’s almost invariably fatal. There’s only one cure for it.”

  “Yes, what’s that? We’ll do anything.”

  “The only thing that will help him is oral sex.”

  “What?”

  “Oral sex. Do you know what that means?”

  “Oh yeah, oral sex, I know.”

  She goes out and finds Mr. Rabinowitz in the waiting room.

  He says, “What’d the doctor say?”

  “You’re gonna die.”

  BARNETT HOFFMAN

  During my dad’s tenure as a criminal judge, he started the Adult Substance Abuse Program, or ASAP. It’s the only judicially supervised in-custody substance abuse program in the state of New Jersey and makes it possible for drug-dependent people to help themselves while incarcerated. I’m really proud of him for that.

  Neil Armstrong

  Some years ago, they were celebrating Neil Armstrong’s landing on the moon. It was the thirtieth anniversary, and they said, “Mr. Armstrong, it’s amazing—the feat that you did, and how you went down in history. Especially that wonderful quote: ‘One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.’ ”

  And Neil Armstrong says, “I never said that.”

  “What are you talking
about? Everybody knows you said that. It was all over the news! On television! It’s recorded! It’s taught in schools!”

  He says, “That may be, but I never said that.”

  “Well, what did you say?”

  “I said, ‘One small step for man, one giant leap for Manny Klein.’ ”

  A pause. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, where did that come from?”

  And Neil Armstrong says, “When I was growing up in Brooklyn, our family lived next door to the Kleins—Manny Klein and his wife. The walls were very thin, and I used to hear Manny begging all the time that his wife should give him oral sex.

  “And she would always say, ‘Manny, when a man walks on the moon …’ ”

  NORMAN STILES

  Norman Stiles wrote and produced a television show, Lomax, the Hound of Music, for PBS. The hound dog hero is named Lomax as a tribute to Alan Lomax, the American folklorist and ethnomusicologist who traveled across America collecting and preserving American folk music. Alan Lomax is one of the inspirations for our website.

  Paratrooper Training

  Parachute training in Israel: Guy comes back from his first flight trying to make his first jump.

  His friend says, “Well, how did it go?”

  He says, “Oh, it was really scary. I was the last one ’cause I couldn’t go first.

  “So, I was last in line, and everybody was jumping and I’m getting seriously scared. And finally it’s my turn and I’m holding on and I say, ‘I can’t do it, I can’t jump, I can’t.’