Quotes from Leo Rosten

A Jew, crossing the street, bumped into an anti-Semite. "Swine!" bellowed the paskudnyak. "Goldberg," said the Jew, bowing.

I have it on indisputable authority that in Scarsdale, during a school celebration of Christmas, one of the children sang the carol as "God rest ye, Jerry Mandelbaum.

I think of a shmegegge as a cross between a shlimazl and a shlemiel—or even between a nudnik and a nebekh.

I think the purpose of life is to be useful, responsible, honorable, compassionate. It is, above all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.

Circumcision is described as "the seal of God"—a seal in the flesh, as it were. (In the early days of Christianity, baptism was called "sealing.") In Genesis 17:10, you may remember, the Lord says: "This is my covenant … every man child among you shall be circumcised." And Abraham, who was a very great man, circumcised himself.

Sholem Aleichem defined a shadkhn as "a dealer in livestock.

Lendler has come down through the decades to enjoy a place of its own in the distinctive argot of Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens. When you rented rooms from a lendler, you became his tenor. Singing had nothing to do with it.

Dr. M. J. Kornblum and Dr. Albert Steinhoff, both obstetricians, share an office. On the door, under their office hours, some lets printed: 24-HOUR SERVICE … WE DELIVER

Jews participated in the ownership of human beings right up through to the nineteenth century, and biblical texts were quoted by some Civil War–era American rabbis to justify the South's "peculiar institution.

The shadkhn was impressing the young woman with the boundless virtues of a female and ended: "And to look at, she's a regular picture!" The young man could not wait for his blind date. But when he accosted the shadkhn the next day, his voice was frosty: "Her eyes are crossed, her nose is crooked, and when she smiles one side of her mouth goes down—" "Just a minute," interrupted the shadkhn. "Is it my fault you don't like Picasso?

To be sure, the cheder curriculum was narrowly limited, the pedagogical methods primitive: drill, repetition, and cracks across the knuckles with a pointer or ruler. But at a time when the overwhelming majority of humanity was illiterate, there was hardly a Jewish male over the age of five who could not read and write. The cultural impact and importance of this are for historians, sociologists, and educators to appraise.

Two shlemiels were drinking tea. In time, one looked up and announced portentously: "Life! What is it? Life—is like a fountain!" The other pondered for a few minutes, then asked, "Why?" The first thought and thought, then sighed. "So okay: life isn't like a fountain.

Yiddish is the Robin Hood of languages. It steals from the linguistically rich to give to the fledgling poor. It shows not the slightest hesitation in taking in house-guests—to whom it gives free room and board regardless of genealogy, faith, or exoticism. A memorable remark by a journalist, Charles Rappaport, runs: "I speak ten languages—all of them in Yiddish.

The rabbi of Chelm visited the prison, and there he heard all but one of the inmates insist on their innocence. So he came back, held a council of wise men, and recommended that Chelm have two prisons: one for the guilty and another for the innocent.

It has been said that the basic principle of Jewish ethics lies in the idea of mandatory mitzvas. Said Eleazar ben Simeon: "The world is judged by the majority of its people [and] an individual by the majority of his deeds. Happy is he who performs a good deed: that may tip the scale for him and the world [italics mine]." Israel Zangwill called the mitzvas the Jews' "sacred sociology.

Yiddish became the Jews' tongue via the Jewish mother, who, not being male, was denied a Hebrew education.

The Talmud expresses this lovely thought: "God found the Jews as one finds grapes in the desert.

Since God is the King of kings, all men, whether princes or paupers, are His servants. Hence, the rabbis taught that no man should serve another,* for all are servants of God alone. A sign in a café in Jerusalem reads: "Self-service. 'For you are servants unto Me,' saith the Lord.

The shnorrer was no fool, please note, no simpleton. He often had read a good deal, could quote from the Talmud, and was quick on the verbal draw. Shnorrers were "regulars" in the synagogue and, between prayers, took part in long discussions of theology with their benefactors. The status points involved here are too delicate for Newtonian physics, or Parsonian sociology,* to handle. (Certain Hindu and Oriental groups recognize the beggar in the same way.)

when the overwhelming majority of Europeans were illiterate, it would have been hard to find a Jewish male over the age of five who could not read. Virtually every Jewish boy had to learn Hebrew.

In the Middle Ages, church and secular powers often forbade Jews to trim their beards in any way. Why? To be certain that a Jew could be identified.

A shnorrer came to the back door on his biweekly rounds. "I haven't a penny in the house," the baleboste said apologetically. "Come back tomorrow." "Tomorrow?" said the shnorrer with a frown. "Lady, don't let it happen again. I've lost a fortune, extending credit.

A shnorrer knocked on the door of the rich man's house at six-thirty in the morning. The rich man cried, "How dare you wake me up so early?" "Listen," said the shnorrer, "I don't tell you how to run your business, so don't tell me how to run mine.

In the Jewish communities of Europe, learned but poor Jews were much, much more highly respected than rich but unlearned ones.