Yeshiva crew team

Yeshiva University decided to field a crew team. Unfortunately, they lost race after race. They practiced for hours every day, but never managed to come in any better than dead last.

The chief rabbi finally decided to send Yankel to spy on the Harvard team. So Yankel shlepped off to Cambridge and hid in the bulrushes off the Charles River, from where he carefully watched the Harvard team as they practiced.

Yankel finally returned to Yeshiva.

“I have figured out their secret,” he announced. “They have eight guys rowing and only one guy shouting.”

The empty seat

After months of negotiation, a Jewish scholar from Odessa was granted permission to visit Moscow.

He boarded the train and found an empty seat. At the next stop a young man got on and sat next to him.

The scholar looked at the young man and thought: This fellow doesn’t look like a peasant, and if he isn’t a peasant he probably comes from this district. If he comes from this district, he must be Jewish because this is, after all, the Jewish district.

On the other hand, if he is a Jew where could he be going? I’m the only one in our district who has permission to travel to Moscow.

Wait — just outside Moscow there is a little village called Samvet, and you don’t need special permission to go there. But why would he be going to Samvet? He’s probably going to visit one of the Jewish families there, but how many Jewish families are there in Samvet? Only two, the Bernsteins and the Steinbergs. The Bernsteins are a terrible family, so he must be visiting the Steinbergs. But why is he going? The Steinbergs have only girls, so maybe he’s their son-in-law.

But if he is, then which daughter did he marry? Sarah married that nice lawyer from Budapest and Esther married a businessman from Zhadomir, so it must be Sarah’s husband. Which means that his name is Alexander Cohen, if I’m not mistaken. But if he comes from Budapest, with all the anti-Semitism they have there, he must have changed his name.

What’s the Hungarian equivalent of Cohen? Kovacs. But if he changed his name he must have some special status. What could it be? A doctorate from the university.

At this point the scholar turns to the young man and said, “How do you do, Dr. Kovacs?”

“Very well, thank you, sir,” answered the startled passenger. “But how is it that you know my name?”

“Oh,” replied the scholar, “it was obvious.”

Sitting Bull

A Native American warrior named Sitting Bear comes home to the wigwam and informs his father that he’s found a wonderful new, Jewish, girlfriend and they’re getting married.

Naturally the father is upset.

“Why don’t you find a nice Native American girl? It’s not right for our tribe to marry out. Anyway, I’m sure that Jews feel the same way. Surely they’re not thrilled with having a Native American son-in-law”.

“Not true!” replies the warrior. “They like me so much that they’ve already given their daughter a new Native American name”.

“What’s that?” says the father.

“Sitting Shiva.”

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.