A nice brisket

A newlywed went to her mother for advice. “Mom, I bought a nice brisket for dinner. I have all the ingredients, but please tell me why you always cut the tip off.”  

The mother ponders this for a moment and replies, “I don’t really know. I do it because that’s the way Grandma makes it. Let’s call her”.  

“Grandma,” the young woman inquires, “I bought a nice brisket for dinner. I don’t understand why you always cut the tip off?”

She too doesn’t know the answer. “I cut the tip off because that’s the way your great-grandma makes it.”

Still stymied but determined, the mother and daughter decide to call Bubbe in the retirement home.

“Bubbe, it’s Rachel, your grandaughter,” the older woman says. “This is driving us meshuggah. Tiffany is making brisket. I aways cut the tip off because that’s the way my mom did it. She doesn’t know why either. Do you know why we always cut the tip off?”

Three generations of women await her answer.

For a moment the old woman thinks, then replies, “Ve didn’t have a big enough pot.”

Can’t win for losing

Sometime in the 1970s, a shipment of meat arrives in a hamlet in the Soviet Union. The townspeople line up at the town store to wait to be given their rations.

After about an hour, a man comes out of the store and announces, “Comrades, I’m sorry to tell you, but there isn’t enough meat for everyone, so the Jews have to leave.”

The Jews in the line leave, grumbling.

About an hour later, the man comes out of the store and announces, “Comrades, I’m sorry to tell you this, but there isn’t enough meat for everyone, so anyone who is not a member of the Communist Party will have to leave.”

More grumbling as the non-party members depart.

Another hour goes by and the man comes out of the store again and announces, “Comrades, I’m sorry to tell you this, but there isn’t enough meat for everyone in the line, so anyone who wasn’t a member of the party before 1956 has to leave.”

More grumbling as all the younger party members leave. A few old people remain in the line.

Another hour goes by. It’s now getting dark and it’s cold.

The same man comes out of the store and announces, “Comrades, I’m sorry to tell you this, but there isn’t any meat. Go home.”

One old lady in the line turns to her neighbor and says, “See? It’s like I told you. The Jews always get the best treatment!”

A doctor’s advice

Old Mrs. Cohen sidled up to a guest at one of her daughter’s social evenings. She had heard him addressed as doctor and now she said diffidently, “Doctor, may I ask a question?”

“Certainly,” he said.

“Lately,” said Mrs. Cohen, “I have been having a funny pain right here under the heart —”

The guest interrupted uncomfortably and said, “I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Cohen, but the truth is, I’m a doctor of philosophy.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Cohen, “I’m sorry!” 

She turned away, but then overcome with curiosity, she turned back. 

“Just one more question, doctor. Tell me, what kind of disease is philosophy?”

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.