Tallit troubles

One Shabbat a man spilled grape juice on his tallit. The very next day he brought it to the cleaners. When the time came to pick it up, he was stunned see the bill for $50.

“Fifty dollars!” he shouted. “To clean one little tallit?”

“Do you have any idea how long it took me to get out all those little knots?” the dry-cleaner replied.

A Jewish mother on the jury

After 40 years, a Jewish mother received a notice to report for jury duty, and was not only selected for a jury but was elected the foreman.

It was a criminal case. A husband had shot his wife’s lover, but had only grazed his arm. The jury was out for more than four hours before returning. Everyone waited with bated breath as the judge asked her whether the jury had reached a verdict.

The Jewish mother stood up, and firmly replied, “We have, your honor; we decided not to butt in.”

A divine upgrade

Avraham Avinu wants to upgrade his PC to Windows 2000. His son Yitzhak is incredulous.

“Pop,” he says, “you can’t run Windows 2000 on your old, slow 386! Everybody knows that you need a minimum of 128 megabytes of memory in order to multitask effectively with Windows 2000.”

But Avraham, the man of faith, gazes calmly at his son and replies, “God will provide the RAM, my son.”

Sex-change sorrows

A Jewish man has been talking to his psychiatrist about his wish to have a sex-change operation.

The following month, after the operation is completed, the transsexual goes back to the psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist asks her, “Is there anything you miss because of your sex-change operation?”

The patient replies, “I miss laying tefillin.”

Yiddish and English

A Jewish woman approaches a man at a bus stop on Market Street. She tugs on the sleeve of his coat and asks, “Farshtayn Yiddish?” (“Understand Yiddish?”)

The man answers: “Yes, ich farshtay.” (“I understand.”)

The woman replies: “Vot time is it?”

Arguing in synagogue

A young scholar from New York was invited to become rabbi in a small old community in Chicago. On his very first Shabbat, a hot debate erupted as to whether one should or should not stand during the reading of the Ten Commandments.

The next day, the rabbi visited 98-year-old Mr. Katz in a nursing home. “Mr. Katz, I’m asking you as the oldest member of the community,” said the rabbi. “What is our synagogue’s custom during the reading of the Ten Commandments?”

“Why do you ask?” asked Mr. Katz.

“Yesterday we read the Ten Commandments. Some people stood, some people sat. The ones standing started screaming at the ones sitting, telling them to stand up. The ones sitting started screaming at the ones standing, telling them to sit down … “

“That,” said the old man, “is our custom.”

These jokes have been e-mailed to us by friends and associates who, for the most part, have downloaded them. We therefore cannot verify the authorship.