My friend Laurie knows I can’t stand when people forward jokes and parables and Send-This-To-Six-People-Or-You’ll-Ruin-Everything emails, so she’s very judicious about what she passes along. Today she sent me the following joke, which cracked me up at the very moment in my day when I needed a laugh. I hope it’ll do the same for you. Here we go…
Jesus was wandering around Jerusalem when he decided that he really needed a new robe.
After looking around for a while, he saw a sign for Finkelstein, the Tailor.
So, he went in and made the necessary arrangements to have Finkelstein prepare a new robe for him. A few days later, when the robe was finished, Jesus tried it on — and it was a perfect fit!
He asked how much he owed.
Finkelstein brushed him off: “No, no, no, for the Son of God there’s no charge!
“However, may I ask for a small favor. Whenever you give a sermon, perhaps you could just mention that your nice new robe was made by Finkelstein, the Tailor?”
Jesus readily agreed and as promised, extolled the virtues of his Finkelstein robe whenever he spoke to the masses..
A few months later, while Jesus was again walking through Jerusalem , he happened to walk past Finkelstein’s shop and noted a huge line of people waiting for Finkelstein’s robes.
He pushed his way through the crowd to speak to him and as soon as Finkelstein spotted him he said: “Jesus, Jesus, look what you’ve done for my business!
Would you consider a partnership?”
“Certainly,” replied Jesus. “Jesus & Finkelstein it is.”
“Oh, no, no,” said Finkelstein. “Finkelstein & Jesus. After all, I am the craftsman.”
The two of them debated this for some time.
Their discussion was long and spirited, but ultimately fruitful — and they finally came up with a mutually acceptable compromise.. A few days later, the new sign went up over Finkelstein’s shop:
Silly! Thanks for the smile to begin my day.
You’re welcome!
I love it. True fact — one of my many Jewish teammates on my Old Mens’ softball team forwarded that one to me this week…and of course, I knew better than to send it to YOU, having already burned up my once-a-quarter quota! But that’s a good ‘un!!
Although, as you know all too well, I’ve been guilty of WAAAY too many joke-forwardings in recent years, it’s been incredibly fun & delightful to be one of the token goys on my ballclub. Boss-Man Charlie has all of our e-mail addresses, and sends out breathless updates on our schedule & competition during the season… but in the “offseason,” it’s all fun-mail. LOTS of GREAT jokes — sometimes raunchy (hey, we’re GUYS) — mostly Jewish in nature — always lampooning themselves — and one thing I learned from 20 years of umpiring is that umping the Jewish Mens’ League on Sundays was the BEST, because you were laughing thru most of the games! Oh, and they told jokes too (ba-da-BOOM)…
P.S. I wonder how many of your reader-bloggers know to which famous delicious N.Y. food product you were subtly referencing with your blog title today…?
Not surprised you’d already seen the joke since you get and forward so many of these, Dave. (And yes, for the most part I throw them in the trash so they’re wasted on me.) I wasn’t subtly referencing any food product, btw, although now that you mention it there’s a deli in NY with a version of that slogan?
Y’know, I guessed that you might not have remembered that old ad campaign from our misspent “yute” — namely — “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s” — as in rye bread. And whatever else they made. Remember those goofy pictures of cowboys or Indians or Asians or Lord-knows-who munching on a nice deli sandwich? Or so my memory goes, anyway. Lately, that’s been more ‘going’ than coming.
As long as we’re on this silly subject…it reminds me of another marketing story in the NYC area. One of the more popular cheapo beers, you may recall, was Rheingold. They even had (have?) a light-up sign at the Mets’ ballpark back in the day, where you waited for either the “h” or the “e” to light up, signalling either a hit or an error. Remember? WELL…
Everything was ducky with Rheingold until they tried a new ad campaign. “In New York, where there are more Italians than in (let’s say Naples), more people drink Rheingold than any other beer! Why? We must be doing SOMETHING right!” Oh so clever. And every ethnic group got noted.
Except that at that point, the beer-drinkers (not exactly a mensa group) began to say, hey, waitaminit. I don’t wanna drink the same beer that all the ITALIANS drink! Or the Irish. Or…you get the idea. Sales plummeted. And I don’t know if they turned off, or tore down, the Rheingold sign. Ah well…such is life…
Dave, you are a virtual encyclopedia. Or should I say a wikipedia? I remember Rheingold beer, of course, and even the “Miss Rheingold” contests with their jingle. But I have no memory of their sign at the Mets’ park, maybe because I didn’t go there, or their ad campaign featuring the ethnic groups. Times sure have changed. I can only imagine if they tried that today.
I’ve seen this one, but it’s still funny :-)
Glad it’s still funny the second or third time around, Bethany!