Last month, I wrote about the disappearance of my sense of humor. Two years of war, nonsensical accusations against the State of Israel, and rising antisemitism had dampened by spirits. I just couldn’t find anything funny. So, I asked you, dear readers, to flood my inbox with jokes. You kindly responded. 

In addition to the jokes, which I will share below, I also received life tips. One lovely reader offered me a free course in meditation. I very much appreciate the offer, but I have to confess that I’ve flunked meditation every time I’ve tried it.  I do my deepest thinking while swimming. 

Here is a selection of the jokes that happily came my way. I haven’t asked permission to use the contributors’ names. But you know who you are. I thank you all! 

In this season of light, let’s try some lightheartedness. 

Catskills humor 

A reader heard this joke 50 years ago in the former heartland of Jewish humor, the Catskills (the Catskill Mountains in New York State). 

A man is standing in the vestibule of a train near the doors. 

The conductor comes over and says, “Sir! You are not allowed to stand here while the train is in motion. Please go and take a seat and take that suitcase with you.” 

The man ignores the conductor and stays right where he is. The conductor again asks him to move, and still the man ignores him. When the train pulls into a station, the conductor takes the suitcase and tosses it out through the open doors. 

The train then moves on and the conductor says, “That’s what you get for breaking the rules. What do you say about that?” 

The man smiles and, in a sing-song manner, he utters…. “Yuba, buba, yuba, buba… It’s not my suitcase!” 

Blissful Humpty Dumpty  

Another reader sent me a cartoon of Humpty Dumpty enjoying autumn. Humpty Dumpty is blissfully lounging in a pile of colorful leaves, having slipped from a tree. The caption reads: “Humpty Dumpty had a great fall!” 

From a kibbutznik 

The phone rings. A 12-year-old girl answers and speaks very softly. 

“Is your mother home?” the caller asks.  

 The girl answers, “She’s taking a nap.”  

“Is your father home?” the caller asks. 

“He’s also napping,” she replies. 

“And what are you doing?” the caller asks. 

 The little girl replies, “I have trumpet lessons…”  

The Sahara Forest 

During the Great Depression, a newcomer from Russia applies for the only job available, that of a lumberjack.“Mr. Schwartz, you don’t look like a lumberjack.” 

“Appearances can be deceiving. I’m a very experienced lumberjack.” 

“So where did you work before?” 

“I worked in the Sahara Forest.” 

“You mean the Sahara Desert?” 

“Well, now it’s a desert!” 

Down the motorway 

 A woman calls her elderly parents on their cellphone.  

“Be careful, Mom and Dad. It says on the radio that there’s someone driving the wrong way down the motorway.” 

 “It’s not one, honey,” they answer, “it’s hundreds of them.” 

Lunch at a kosher deli 

Two older Jewish men are having lunch at a kosher deli. The Chinese waiter addresses them in flawless Yiddish. When they pay the bill, they compliment the owner on the excellent food and service and ask how the waiter knows such good Yiddish.  

“Shh,” he whispers. “He thinks we’re teaching him English.” 

The wrong Colchester 

Another reader suggested that I had been looking in the wrong places to find something funny. Although I grew up in Colchester, Connecticut, I should be investigating what makes people laugh in the original Colchester – that is, the British city.  In short, he said that British humor would be guaranteed to make me laugh. 

I admit to initial skepticism.  

When I was 15, my Connecticut parents took my sister and me on our maiden trip abroad to England and Denmark. Having heard about the wonders of West End theaters, they asked the hotel concierge to book several shows for us. 

In addition to catching Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, we found ourselves in the stalls of the Palladium with a “beloved comedian, renowned for his sharp wit and playful humor.” While the other 2,282 people in the audience laughed through the show, the four of us Americans sat there bewildered.  

Nonetheless, I take readers’ ideas seriously and hoped that the British comedians would heal my broken “humorous” bone. He suggested that I might want to combine something Jewish and British, and begin with a dose of “The Two Ronnies.” And yes, I laughed through it. It defies description; just search The Two Ronnies: Insurance against becoming Jewish. 

One YouTube video led to another.  

The great Jackie Mason 

The lords of YouTube sent me on to a clip of the late and great Jackie Mason’s lecture at Oxford University’s Oxford Union Society, Part 1. Mason had the rare distinction of being popular in both the United States and Britain. When he received an award from the esteemed society at the esteemed university in 1992, he was given instructions, which he promptly ignored, to give a serious lecture. No jokes.  

Mason hailed from a long line of rabbis and was an ordained Orthodox rabbi himself. His “bima [pulpit] humor” filled the house of worship before he became a full-time comedian. At Oxford, Mason’s self-effacing Jewish jokes had the youthful audience – a mix of non-Jews and Jews, a fair number of whom wore kippot – roaring with delight. 

Everyone seemed very relaxed about the jokes, which included a stream of them about Jews “spending their whole lives trying to prove they’re not Jewish,” such as driving Mercedes cars and having plastic surgery. “Every time you are talking to a Jew, you’re looking at bandages for an hour and a half,” Mason said. 

Today, I would feel intensely uncomfortable sitting in the audience of nearly any American or British university having Mason, one of the funniest people in the world, tell such jokes. Mason died in 2021, at age 93. I wonder what his comedy routine would include today. 

From Jerusalem, wishing you a lighthearted Hanukkah.