A Joke to Start the Week - "English as a Second Language"

 

Michael Krasny has been telling Jewish jokes since his bar mitzvah, and it’s been said that he knows more of them than anyone on the planet. He certainly states his case in his latest book Let There be Laughter. 

In promoting the book, Krasny has been giving lectures and interviews in which he tells some of the classic Jewish jokes, explaining the cultural expressions and anxieties behind the laughs.

We found some videos of these lectures, and today we're sharing an oldie but goodie. This one was originally told by Leo Rosten, the author of The Joys of Yiddish and The Education of Hyman Kaplan, a book about the experiences of European Jews, just off the boat from the shtetl, trying to learn English in the melting pot of New York.

Here's the setup: A man waits for the bus and then goes to his English class. The teacher asks him to spell the word  "cultivate". And then...

Enjoy!

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