“What do you THINK happens when you plant an Easter egg?”

“You wished for a rabbi? You simply have to learn to speak more clearly!”

I love vegetables from the Koshery Store.

“Trust me Farmer Gabe, you don’t wanna go down this rabbit hole.”

“Sorry, but what’s up?”

“Now before I make myself at home here, let’s get a couple of things straight. First, you know that you’re not allowed to eat me under the laws of kashrut; and, second, your wife has absolutely no plans to make either herself or you a rabbit fur hat.”

To RJ Wolf: Would you run me out of town on a rail if I suggested tinkering just a little with your caption (which, is, I think, better than all of mine so far) to make it read:

“Sorry, but what’s up, Doc … besides me?”

In addition to the wordplay , you’d have, at the very least, created a descendant of Bugs Bunny.

(I promise from now on not to insert my thoughts into any more of your great submissions.)

“My ancestors inhabited this burrow for 3500 years.”

“Were you expecting maybe the Baal Shem Tov?”

“You’re not thinking of raising the rent on my rent-stabilized rabbit hole, are you?”

“Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail will be up soon. They’re making for you a carrot tzimmes dish to die for.”

If Mel Brooks were riffing on the new cartoon, this might be something he’d write. (I really can’t presume to put words into the mouth of a genius, but it’s too tempting not to try.)

“Whatever you do, stay away from Mr. McGregor. He hates Jews. He’s the biggest anti-Semite there is. Beatrix Potter doesn’t tell the whole story in her book. It isn’t rabbits that he hates. It’s rabbis. He’s just a lousy speller. Another terrible speller was Louis Pasteur. He was really looking for a cure for rabbis,
and by mistake he cured rabies. Think about how many things in history happen for the wrong reason. Anyway, don’t go near that garden if you know what’s good for you. You can thank me later. And enjoy the tzimmes when my sisters bring it up.”

“I already have a mezuzah, thank you.”

To Dinah R: VERY funny caption; the arrow of humor goes straight into the heart before one has a chance to resist, freeing an explosive laugh; such an obvious line yet completely unexpected in this context. You’re GOOD. This should CERTAINLY be a finalist! Thanks for puncturing the balloons of pomposity, including and especially my own. That’s what great humor is supposed to do, and you certainly have succeeded, in spades! Thanks again for the wonderful surprise!

“You’re planting potatoes for my carrot kugel?”

Sorry Rabbi, you can’t use me in your magic tricks, because you have the wrong style hat.

“I came up to ask if you’ll be so kind as to officiate at my wedding. My girlfriend just accepted my proposal, and I presented her with a 14-carrot ring.”

“We’re all outta carrots”

“Could you plant an extra patch of carrots. We’re breeding like rabbits down here.”

You’re not Alice!

I hope those aren’t genetically modified carrot seeds your planting.

“Why not have an oink-oink here and an oink-oink there?”

“How come Old MacDonald never wanted borscht?”

“I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date! … Wait a minute! I’m in the wrong cartoon!”

To Jim Gorman: Thanks for your kind thoughts. Your words are gold and so mean a lot. They always indicate a mind combining warmth and scholarship and a marvelous sense of humor. Playing to me means more than winning, seeing how high our idea balloons can fly before they drift down, as they eventually must, and your conceits make beautiful patterns against the sky. Thanks again.

To Jim Gorman, again: Coincidentally, I’m now reading a biography of Sokei-an Sasaki, one of the first teachers of Japanese Rinzai Zen in America, who is quoted in conversation with a disciple: “Have you read Alice in Wonderland?” he asks. The disciple answers: “It is a delightful children’s book.” Sokei-an then replies: “I do not consider it simply a book for children. The author possesses insight like a real man of Zen … I use it with my students. Some of them are beginning to make real progress.”

“Begin at the beginning,” Lewis Carroll’s King says, “and go on till you come to the end; then stop.” (Sort of reminds one of that other Zen teacher, Yogi Berra, who famously said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

“We’re all mad here,” says the Cheshire cat. “I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” asks Alice. “You must be,” says the cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.” Reminding me of a guy who once said to me, very confidently, “I’d never have a wife who cheated on me.” “How could you be so sure?” I asked. “Easy,” he told me. “If she cheated on me, she’d no longer be my wife.” How’s that for a sample of the convoluted logic that’s the property of both sages and madmen? (Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.)

In any case, the poor rabbit in our cartoon koan is clearly out of his element, waiting for us to bail him out. Sorry for this hasty reply, but it gives me the chance to give a really big thank you to Cindy Tebo, whose VERY insightful caption altered the whole path we’re taking. (This site does have a great group of contributors, each one contributing a brick to the house we all try to build every two months.)

“Rabbi?! I was expecting that Alice shiksa.”

“Be fruitful and multiply and all that, but some carrots would be nice right now.”

“I don’t do Easter, really.”

“Rabbit, true, but I’m no chicken.”

“I’m not an ordinary rabbit. My mother was once a Playboy bunny.”

Are you Rabbi McGregor?

Don’t forget to say the Ha’Adama when it’s time to harvest!

Ehhh, what’s up doctrine?

Sometimes I think that we all really live in Alice’s world. What other world could Trump be president of? Yesterday I was listening to some PhD on talk radio railing against the inadequacies of the treatments offered patients by practitioners in the mental health field and was startled to suddenly hear him shout, “Anyone who who goes to a psychiatrist or other therapist today should have his head examined!!”

I could swear that I heard Lewis Carroll laughing.

“Am I too early for the seder?”

“Oops, my mistake. I was looking for someone heimish, not Amish.”

Caption: “Don’t bury me! The Lord said keep animals alive,”

I thought I heard a Nor’Easter.

Lettuce pray.

Why is this night different from all other nights of the year?

“You mean you really don’t care that it’s rabbit season?”

“Rabbi, you ask me whether or not I’m a rabbit. I think I’m a rabbit. I eat all the foods that rabbits eat. I live in a rabbit burrow. And my parents always called me a rabbit. But, you know, I’ve met some confusing people lately who insist that I’m not a rabbit. Don’t you think that they’re just splitting hares?”

“You know, I once was a rabbi just like you, but at her party, Alice transformed me by offering me some “t,” which I promptly put at the end of my title.

You look surprised. What did you expect – carrots?

“The Easter bunny gets all the publicity, but I’ve been around a lot longer than he has–the Pesadicher bunny, at your service.”

“My father made me promise to ask, before I got too comfortable here, whether Elmer Fudd was anywhere in the vicinity.”

“Mr. Landlord, In the apartment we’ve inhabited,
Well, we haven’t been too inhibited,
And the result, to plead our case,
Is that we need much much more space.”

Speaking of rabbits multiplying, has anyone not heard the story of the French rabbit who takes his young son aside, saying, “My boy, your mother and I have decided that you are old enough to learn the facts of life. In front of you in the field is a long line of female rabbits. What you have to remember is to greet each one as you approach her by saying ‘bonjour,’ and then at the end to part with her by saying ‘merci.’ Do you understand?” The boy nods and goes down the line at first slowly and then more and more quickly: “Bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … bonjour, merci … ohhhhhh … pardon, Papa!!”

To Stephen Nadler: I’m a little surprised that, given the fact that John Updike is one of your favorite writers, with all this talk of rabbits you haven’t yet surrendered to the temptation of submitting a caption referencing arguably the most influential literary rabbit of all, Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, featured in at least four of Updike’s acclaimed novels. I wouldn’t know how to do it, but you might very well be able to in a humorous way to make us all smile, as you usually do with all the captions you submit. Best wishes.

“I hope those are organic…”

“I was once a beautiful princess who was transformed into a rabbit by a wicked witch and can only be changed back by a kiss from a handsome prince and, oy, I can see that I’m in a lot of trouble.”

Hey! You just missed me by a hare!

“To me, organic is better than kosher.”

“We don’t need an introduction
If it’s too much of a bother,
But my name is Harry Angstrom
And John Updike is my father.”

(For Stephen Nadler, no cigar, not even close,
but thought I’d give it a try …)

“I just don’t feel as energetic as I normally do.”

“You call it dirt…..I call it “Home Sweet Home”.

This is a community garden, isn’t it?

“Rabbi, there’s no need for you to be wasting your time digging around like that. I’m from TaskRabbit, and our online marketplace can quickly provide Taskers to offer any sort of home assistance to you so that you can more valuably spend your time studying Torah.”

N.B. If anyone bothers to check, you’ll find that there really IS a business called TaskRabbit (www.taskrabbit.com) which connects homeowners and others with qualified Taskers (not real rabbits, though) to help them with almost any task they want done. When I heard about this enterprise, I thought, Why shouldn’t our hardworking cartoon rabbi take advantage of it? Thus the caption.

I do hope that the help he’ll receive will enable him to really devote more time to Torah. Cheers.

No more potatoes. Carrots, just carrots. I’ve put on ten extra pounds already.

[For Gerald Lebowitz:]
“Rabbi Angstrom? Rabbit Angstrom here. I’m afraid neither one of us lives up to John Updike’s conception.”

To SN: Rabbit Angstrom was an Immaculate Conception and worth two Pulitzer Prizes, if my memory serves. Who could live up to that? Updike, by the way, as I’m sure you know, loved art and especially cartooning, and his essays on art are my favorites. When he was an undergraduate at Harvard, he saw art as his future. If he were alive today, I’m sure that he would take an avid interest in all the new forms of graphic storytelling that are appearing, a far cry from the primitive stories in Action Comics #1, which appeared in 1938 and began the Golden Age of Comics.

Thanks for connecting. It’s reassuring to note that you’re out there, observing even when not commenting.

To SN again: I just re-read my previous post to you above and came to the last sentence: “It’s reassuring to note that you’re out there, observing even when not commenting.” Those words could easily express one’s feeling about G-d, couldn’t they? “Observing even when not commenting” also reminds me a little of Stan Lee’s 1960’s Marvel Comics creation The Watcher, a man who was directed to observe everything but was not supposed to interfere, although he often violated that directive to aid the Fantastic Four and other Marvel heroes, just as you descend from time to time to aid us …. 🙂

“Dig, man, dig! Save a hand puppeteer!”

To SN: “Excelsior”? Then you must also have been a member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society. Do you know what words often dance around my head at the oddest moments? Not from Gilbert and Sullivan or Cole Porter or Ira Gershwin or even Shakespeare or Keats or Shelley or anyone else you might expect. No, it’s

“When Captain America throws his mighty shield,
All those who chose to oppose his shield must yield”

from that small Marvel promotional record that I once listened to, over and over again.

Underneath all our layers of adult sophistication often lie the more meaningful passions of a child, don’t they?

‘Nuff said.

“I’m sure you’ve heard of rabbits pulled out of hats; why then should you be so surprised when one pops out of your garden?”

“Rabbi, I’d like you to share some of your talmudic wisdom with me. How come so many people consider a rabbit’s foot to be a symbol of good luck when it obviously wasn’t good luck to the rabbit it came from?”

“We’ve had seven litters—what we call mitzvahs!”

To SN, your excellent caption made me curious, so I did some checking (that’s one way to learn). It seems that a single female rabbit (a doe) can have one to fourteen babies per litter and can mate and get pregnant again right after giving birth. You do the math: one litter (say, average six babies) a month equals 72 offspring a year for one rabbit! For your Jewish rabbit, the mitzvahs would quickly turn into nightmares–imagine having to plan and cater 72 bar/bat mitzvahs each year! Would your rabbit be able to file for bankruptcy?

Turning a liability into an asset, however, your rabbit would be very good at poker. He’d always have a full house.

(Ouch! I know that’s bad.)

Oh, by the way, the gestation period (the time from conception to delivery) for a female rabbit is only 30 days, more or less, thus the insulting phrase “they breed like rabbits” used by people like Pope Francis against those who are looked at as contributing to the world’s overpopulation when they could instead be civilized and use birth control. In other words, Dr. Nadler’s rabbit would be the subject of scorn from many quarters, even as it went to synagogue and thanked G-d for all the mitzvahs it received.

[For Gerald Lebowitz]
“Here’s my impression of Bugs Bunny reading Rabbit, Run: ‘Eh… What’s Updike?'”

SN: Your masterpiece. Quit now, take the money, and run. You’ll never do better than this.

The money, figuratively speaking of course, is measured by the good will you always share with all of us through your humor. You’re a rich man in many more ways than one.

I’m out of work because the hats are all sold out!”

Perhaps we could have a two garden solution.

I thought it would be safe to steal your carrots on a Saturday. . . I didn’t realize you were Amish.

“Are you a Jewish Uncle Remus?”

“I don’t care how cute your daises would look, Dave. I don’t invade your home”

“Please tell me that story again about Brer Rabbit playing a trick on the Conservative rabbi!”

“How much might it be worth to you if no one were to disturb your crops through, say, Sukkot?”

*Rabbit Noises*

*Rabbit Noises*
*Rabbi Noises*

“It’s Shabbat, I’ll take care of it.”

SN: It almost looks as if you’ve created a backstory for that great animated/live action movie of the 80’s, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” in which the title tune character is accused of murder and fights to be cleared. Now, thanks to you, we learn that he really hadn’t been exactly law-abiding before the murder took place.

A long time ago I took an English course in which I wrote a paper that the professor found all kinds of insights in that I had been unaware of. When I went up to him after class, he said that a writer is allowed to claim credit for anything valuable that a reader finds in his work. So you are entitled to that same credit for your piece on the innocent-looking rabbit engaged in his version of the protection racket that later is somehow linked to the Roger Rabbit movie. (By the way, the teacher of my course was Mark Van Doren, the critic and Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry, so his opinion was not just a flash in the pan offered by a teaching assistant.) In any event, I’m confident that your rabbit will beat the rap.

You want me to hide the AFIKOMAN next year?

SN: It wouldn’t be MY way, it would be HIS way, but if you think about it, I’m sure that his remark was given tongue in cheek. After all, if you write something and someone interprets it as a call for violence, for example, are you then to be given credit for the mayhem that follows? Anyway, I’m glad that you were impressed; I just wanted to give you this impression. Thanks for the comment, as always.

To Adrian S (quoted from the book “Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution” in a chapter telling how 12-year-old Stephen Sondheim taught Oscar Hammerstein II the game of chess): “Stevie taught Oscar how to play chess, but soon enough the competitive older student beat the young instructor. Sondheim had set a complicated multi-move trap, which Hammerstein eluded at the last moment. “Gosh, you’re getting good,” Sondheim told him. “You saw what I was setting up.”

“No,” Oscar replied. “I heard your heart beating.”

Man phones his doctor. “Doctor, I’m very worried about my wife’s hearing. It’s getting worse. Can I bring her in to see you?” “Not for a while,” the doctor replies, “but why don’t you test her hearing from various distances so that you can determine exactly how bad her condition is?”

Man’s wife is in the kitchen making dinner. Man goes upstairs and yells, “Do you need any help?” No reply. Then he comes down and repeats the question. Still no reply. Then he approaches the kitchen. “Do you need any help?” Still no reply. Then he gets very close to her and yells, “Do you need any help?”

The wife whirls around, furious. “For the fourth time, no!” she screams. 🙂

“If you let me stay with you, I’ll sit on top of your television set and get you the best reception you’ve ever had.”

Adrian S, the above is your idea, so the credit is yours. (Why would someone buy manufactured rabbit ear antennas when the real ones were around?)

“If you take me in, I’ll sit on top of your television set and get you the best reception you’ve ever seen.”

(Credit for the above goes to Adrian S, who fully understands that it would be foolish to buy an artificial rabbit ears antenna if a real rabbit were around to perform the same service.)

One morning an old Chinese farmer awakened to find that his herd of prized horses had escaped from his corral during the night and were all gone. His friends and neighbors gathered around to express their sympathies. “The old farmer said, “We’ll see.” The next morning his horses returned, bringing with them a whole group of beautiful wild horses. “How wonderful!” exclaimed his friends. “We’ll see,” said the old farmer again. The next day the farmer’s son tried to break one of the wild horses, but the horse bolted and the son’s leg was broken. Again the old farmer said “We’ll see” when confronted by the consternation of his friends. The following day the emperor’s soldiers arrived to conscript his son to fight in a coming war but couldn’t take him because of his leg. “How fortunate!” exclaimed one of the friends.

And the farmer smiled once more and said, “We’ll see.”

Shalom.

“Who would have ever thought that they would pick our house in Jerusalem to be the new U.S. Embassy?”

“I can’t believe how much the cost of housing has gone up here in Israel. Even the birdhouses regularly sell for more than 300,000 shekels.”

“I love the new flag. To think, the United States and Israel used to be two separate countries.”

To SN: Congratulations on your winning entry. You came through, as usual. (Personally, I’d prefer that she HAD a headache rather than an outfit like that. 🙂

Down South we call it the Stars and Bar-mitzvahs.

It’s the Star Spangled Bar-mitzvah.

That flag was sewn by none other than Betsy Rothenstein.

It’s the Star of Camp David.

“And YOU thought they would choose the dollar sign!”

“Word is Jared and Ivanka still have some pull.”

“So do you still take off your cap for the national anthem?”

Amazing! No matter how good I think some of my entries are, you guys always put me to shame with the brilliance of your wordplay and fantastic sense of humor. A person truly has to be good to even think of playing in this court.

“Oh, it’s not the quantity, dear.”

“Does IL stand for Illinois or Israel?!”

Humor is a funny thing. I don’t mean that as a pun. I mean funny-strange. It’s funny what we laugh at and what we don’t. For example, I found humor in a story told by Jane Goodall, the primatologist, a story certainly not meant to be funny. Maybe it was just me. The story was that a Yale psychologist saw no reason why chimpanzees and other great apes should not talk. To test out this theory, a baby chimp was placed in the household of another psychologist, Winthrop Kellogg, and his wife, who for several months raised the chimp alongside their own infant son. Soon enough their son was speaking while the chimp, to the Kelloggs’ disappointment, remained mute, although they were convinced that the chimp did understand at least a hundred words. But then–and this is what I found humorous–the experiment was suddenly halted because the Kelloggs’ baby suddenly stopped speaking and began making chimp sounds. I guess it was survival of the fittest, and the chimp had unpredictably turned the tables and imposed his own will on the boy. After all, didn’t Charles Darwin title his book “The DESCENT of Man”?

“Now that we’re old and retired, dear, do you ever think back with longing to the wild days of our youth when we were both Palestinian terrorists?”

(The previous caption came to mind when I wondered how, if he were alive, that wonderfully wicked old cartoonist Charles Addams might have tackled the new cartoon. May he rest in peace.)

“The 51st state…. The Palestinians are the 52nd. That’s MY two-state solution.”

The new American Embassy in Jerusalem

DR: Ingenious and totally original, your caption is a very fresh take on the cartoon, and now you’ve left a high bar for the rest of us to try to clear. What a great competitor! Thanks! (Maybe you’ll even win the Nobel Peace Prize for finally figuring out a way to end the conflict–stranger things HAVE happened.)

“I just don’t know Pa, is it too Jewish?”

“The dog days are here Pa. Do you want a nice cold glass of Manischewitz?”

Davy, nobody gets it. So take it down already!

“What do you think, Menachem? Should we let that artist draw us? He keeps saying that he wants to create a painting called ‘Israeli Gothic’ as the Jewish version of Grant Wood’s ‘American Gothic.’ He even said he’d get you your own pitchfork.”

The Compromise: He wanted aliyah, she didn’t

To JZR: I guess then that your couple found THEIR two-state solution after all. Unfortunately, they can’t set a pattern.in today’s Middle East, where BOTH parties made aliyah and now fight over the same territory. Nice job! Thanks!

“The dove of peace that was supposed to fly here … we even built that house for him … has never shown up. Do you think he decided not to make aliyah?”

“So now it goes, ‘Oy, say can you see…?'”

To SN: If Francis Scott Key ever saw the above desecration of our national anthem, he’d turn over in his grave.

(But in spite of your disrespect, your creativity never seems to flag.)

SN: Guilty as charged. I await sentencing (another pun, I fear).

Your great caption, incidentally, made me realize that there are very short expressions in English that turn into their opposites by simply reversing the letters. For instance, wouldn’t you rather be OK’d for a job than KO’d by an illness? And wouldn’t you rather be spirited and optimistic like Sylvester Stallone in “Rocky” and say “Yo” than downhearted and depressed and say “Oy”?

Oy, that’s enough for now. Thanks.

The “Yiddish Star & Bars.” This flag signifies the friendship between the United States and Israel. (Es zikh oys dos harts meshugener.)

To Marvin Sager: You’re our resident Yiddish expert with a marvelous sense of humor, so I’m taking the liberty of thinking out loud to you that even though “yo” and “oy” might be conceived as opposites, I don’t suppose there’s any way in which “yo vey” would ever be acceptable as an expression of joy and well being to counter the feeling of despair that oy vey conveys (no pun intended)??

Is there such a thing as Jewish humor? I suppose it’s humor that captures the Jewish way of facing life, that is, with an attitude of skepticism or distrust. There’s an old saying that grim, determined people like to utter as they forge ahead in life: “I never take no for an answer.” Well, the Jew is different. He could easily say, “I never take yes for an answer.” No matter how good things may get, the Jew somehow feels short-changed and looks for imperfections, and Jewish humor reflects this. Consider the classic story of the old lady who takes her einekel (Mr. Sager, grandchild, right?) to the beach for an outing, but not before buying him a sailor suit complete from head to toe. But as the child is playing on the sand, a huge wave suddenly appears and carries him out to sea. The old lady looks up at the heavens, full of desperation. “God, God, please save him! Please save him!” As if in answer, another huge wave appears and safely deposits the boy back on the sand. The old lady takes one look at him, then raises her fist up at the sky: “He had a HAT!” she cries.

Another story concerns a man whose wife is not well. She lies in bed in a darkened room day after day. Finally the doctor tells him, “What your wife needs is a change of attitude. Why not get something to cheer her up?” The husband gets a bright idea and rushes out to the neighborhood pet store and tells the owner the problem and the owner suggests that he buy a canary. The minute the bird is in the wife’s room it bursts into song and sings as if every lovely melody in the world were in its tiny throat. Miraculously, the wife recovers. The first thing she does is open the blinds to let the sun in. It is then that the husband notices that the bird is limping, that it has only one leg. Furiously he darts back to the pet store. “You cheated me!” he yells. “In my haste I never noticed the bird’s limp.” The pet shop owner looks at him calmly. “Listen, mister,” he says, “what did you want, a singer or a dancer?”

And the last story concerns a little old man who is crossing the street when a cab makes an unexpected left turn and knocks him down. The cab driver rolls down his window and yells, “Hey, mister, why don’t you watch where you’re going?” The old man, sitting dazedly in the middle of the street, looks up. “Why?” he asks. “Are you coming back?”

“When,” the Jew asks, “is misfortune going to hit next?” He hopes not today. But to tide him over, he has his amazing humor, which helps him look back and somehow turn the rust to gold.

”Sheldon Adelson paid you HOW MUCH?”

SN: Maybe that IS Sheldon Adelson and his wife after they bought the whole country of Israel and replaced the Knesset with a board of directors. 🙂

The Irving Berlin “God Bless America” flag!

Is it the “God Bless America” flag or Sheldon Adelson’s new corporate logo? (Thanks, Stephen Nadler,, for alerting us to this possibility.)

Caption for June 20 cartoon:

“I got it at the gift shop at the US Embassy in Jerusalem.”

Mark Goldenberg
Beverly Hills, CA

To Marvin Sager, your humor is understated, not obvious pie-in-the-face humor but, like a paper cut, slips in close to the bone and, almost before we know it, captures us , reminding me of the American humorist Sam Levenson, who once told a story of going to shul with his father on the first Shabbat after his bar mitzvah. As they were praying, the father suddenly leaned over and whispered to him, “Louder, louder,” and the boy who was Sam Levenson perplexedly replied, “Am I talking to YOU?” Like his, your humor slips through all our defenses. Please keep it up. A sheynem dank!

Caption for cartoon in May/June 2018 issue”

“I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Mr. Sager’s humor reminded me of the wit of American humorist Sam Levenson, but once activated, the faucet of memory can’t so easily be turned off. Here’s one other of his stories that I remember …

Mr. Levenson was born in the early 1900’s to a poor family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. His mother wanted to instill learning and culture in her children and managed to buy a piano for them. One day when he was about nine years old, Sam sat down to his daily practice and for whatever reason slammed his hands down on the keyboard. His mother rushed in and yelled at him: “If you keep on doing that, you’ll break the instrument.” The young boy looked up. “Why?” he asked innocently. “How does the piano know that it’s not Mozart?”

No more Sam Levenson stories, I promise. (But I’m happy I was reminded of them.)

“Why do you suppose it isn’t trending?”

FYI: Two interesting articles this month on myjewishlearning.com: One is by Simcha Weinstein and is titled “Superman: From Cleveland to Krypton: The Man of Steel’s Jewish Roots,” and the other is Arie Kaplan’s “How American Jews Created the Comic Book Industry.”

‘Merica Is-Real

To Dale Stout: You have a positive genius for taking words apart and rearranging the letters to create breathtaking new combinations and meanings which are completely appropriate and original. For example, in the last contest you came up with “Lettuce pray,” which was certainly better than my entry, and “I thought I heard a Nor’ Easter” And now “It’s the Star of Camp David” and “”Merica Is-Real.” I’ve long thought that there are words like “therapist” which could be rearranged to form “the rapist,” but what humor could be derived from such a split? Also, the word “apart” means separated even though the letters are together while separating the letters to form “a part” creates a phrase that means together. Strange language, but you have certainly mastered it.

I can hardly wait to see what combinations you come up with next!

Dale, thanks for the comment, but it leaves us with a conundrum. Apparently the more stress you’re subjected to, the more humor you produce, sort of like the oyster’s protecting itself from irritation by forming the pearl. Should we then, selfishly, hope for more stress to occur in order to enjoy the beautiful pearls of humor that you produce?

“Every time I finish knitting a flag, the Israeli government changes the pattern so that I have to start all over again.”

“Tell me what you dreamed and I’ll tell you what it meant.”

“Sitting here on the porch in our retirement years would’ve been boring, Moishe, if you hadn’t had the clever idea to put up this Rorschach flag so that we could listen to all the things the meshuggeners who pass by say they see in it.”

To Marvin S: Thanks very, very much for your message. I didn’t understand a lot of it, but it cheered me up immensely. 🙂

(Proving once again that the spirit in which words are sent is more important than the words themselves.)

To Marvin S Thanks again for your good wishes. They would make anyone’s day much brighter. Sometimes, however, messages are better when they’re not translatable, when they hover between sound and sense as in poetry or in the nonsense verses of Lewis Carroll. Clare Boothe Luce once protested the translation of the Roman Catholic Mass into English because she said that knowing what the words meant and following them during services was a block to true contemplation. And a Zen Buddhist priest once made the priceless remark that the sound of the rain needs no translation. (But of course I had to make sense to send this message of appreciation to you. 🙂

“Life has become so complicated. Since Israel and the United States have merged, what we now need is a 52-state solution.”

To AS: Thank you, old friend. Your spirit always hovers above all our individual entries.

Finally!

“Jew-S-A! Jew-S-A!”

“Tell me, is it that the wind is moving the flag or that the flag is moving the wind; or is it just that both of us have been sitting here for too long without moving?”

To SN: “Jew know, that’s a pretty good caption that you submitted. I think I’m going to walk over to the refrigerator now and toast to your success with a clear cold glass of orange jews. (Or maybe even grape jews–I’m not prejudiced one way or another.) If your entry does win the contest, I know that you’ll be jewbilant.

“They won’t know whether to salute, bow, genuflect, make the sign-of-the-cross or send a prayer note
on twitter!”

“Well I’ll be, a Yankee Doodle Brisket!”

“They should be so lucky!”

“I knew we’d get to use them again!”

“Does this mean Hanukkah is just one day now?”

“It does look like something Max Bialystok and Leo Bloom would do”!

“That’s funny, Trump doesn’t look Jewish!”

“You’re kidding me, her real name was Betsy Rossenberg, who knew?”

“Mur-reey,I love it!” “Most of the illegals call it the Jewnited States of a America, now anyway!”

Oh George , is that the flag for the Star Up nation we keep hearing about?

Just when I thought that maybe all the creativity available for this contest had burned itself out, along come Tim Collins and Alan Friedman shining as brightly as the Halley’s Comet that marked the birth of Mark Twain. Thanks, guys!

“I know you’re a proud American, Zeke. Is there something else you want to tell me?”

“Well, Ma, I suppose it’s time for me to confess: I was once known as Clark Kent, star reporter for the Daily Planet newspaper in Metropolis, but after an encounter with red kryptonite permanently robbed me of all my powers, I was forced to flee here to sit out the rest of my days here on the porch with you.”

To Webmaster: Would it be possible for us to start the next contest on a cleaner slate by deleting some or all of the 186 prior entries remaining on the site so that we won’t have to scroll down this long list every time we enter? The future is what counts, not the past. Many thanks!

I hope everyone had a Happy 4th of Jew-ly.

Thanks for your good wishes. The 4th of Jew-ly was certainly much warmer and sparkly than the 4th of Jew-ne. Meanwhile, the best of luck to you on your entry’s winning the previous contest!

To Dale Stout: You’re a man of few words, so I too will be brief. Your caption deserved to win. Congratulations and best wishes always!

“I guess I was stupid to decline the free megaphone they offered me when I accepted the job of pulpit rabbi here. But who knew?”

“From now on I’m not going to waste time preparing anything to say. I’ll just hum the sermon.”

“HaShem, would it be so very wrong of me to pray for a power outage?”

I like this one.

I meant ‘Keep it Simple, Stupid’ not KISS.

Where’s Gene Simmons when you need him?

Either you can or you cantor.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, that’s what Rabbi means to me.

“”Either that’s the way he styles his hair or he’s being electrocuted.”

“After all my years as a rabbi, I’d never realized until now that ‘Adon Olam’ was classic rock.”

“And now please allow Cantor Ari Goldfarb to kiss the sky.”

“He calls himself the Rock Star of David.”

“Definitely missing little Artie’s ‘Sounds of Silence’ right about now.”

“He used to play with the Rolling Steins.”

“As you know, today is Bring Your Son to Work Day…..”

“I wish I could be Captain Kirk for just one moment so that I could order, ‘Bimah him up, Scotty,’ and he would be transported back to the Starship Enterprise and out of my aching ears.”

(Please forgive me. This must be the worst pun ever perpetrated.)

The L-rd is my rock (Psalms 18:2)

To DR: My entries have been circling the cartoon, jabbing and weaving and groping for cleverness. But in your five little words, you’ve nailed it, you’ve pierced the very core of the set-up with your play on the word “rock.” fusing the physical and the spiritual. If you ever enter an archery or dart-throwing contest, please tell us; I couldn’t lose by betting my money on you.

“Welcome to the Shul of Rock.”

“The difference between you and me, young man, is that G-d is my rock while rock is your G-d.”

(Thanks, DR)

I said come up to the PULPIT not the MOSH PIT.

“Now I can finally understand the Christian hymn ‘Rock of Ages.’ It means that every age chooses its own kind of rock.”

Revision: “Now I really understand the great Christian hymn ‘Rock of Ages.’ It means that every age rolls with its own kind of rock.”

One doesn’t have to be a dentist to know when there’s a cavity. Well, there’s an empty space here due to the absence of one of our most prolific and ingenious captioners: Adrian Storisteano.

Where are you? How are you? It’s not like you not to be among the first to jump in to a contest with a clever quip.

How about sending us a small paragraph?

A sentence?

Even just an emoji?

Thanks.

“And the Lord sayeth, shred thee from all sin.”

“That guitarist and I–as unlikely as it may seem–have one thing in common: I write my sermons and he makes his music, and we both do our jobs by fretting.”

Sorry, RW, I forgot to give you the credit for my caption, suggested by your word “shred,” which is a kind of synonym for “fret.” Yours is a great line. Thanks.

“How about I handle the encore?”

“Now we turn to the Song of Songs.”

Cantor Bruce will now sing “Worn by the UJA”.

We’ll conclude with ADONOLAM in the style of Jimmi Hendrix.

Before the Oneg Shabbat, Cantor Bruce will perform his new song ” Hungry for Halvah”.

“I have to admit that the loud blues music he’s blasting goes particularly well with this week’s parashah about the fall of man from the garden.”

(I’m floored. One gem after another from you guys. How can anyone compete?)

“Jacob, your cover of ‘Hava Nagilia’ is very interesting. But your take on tefillin and the payot has got to go!”

Kosher music “spiked” to dull the senses with or without booze.

To some they are the High Holidays but to our new Cantor they are the Glory Days.

To AS: Thanks very much for easing my mind. Your presence is always uplifting. You’ll find a different cast of characters here since you last checked in, and they’re amazing! Their creativity is crackling, with each submission better than the last. It’s almost impossible to top them. As to your situation, there must be something called a Humor Gene, which your granddaughters must undoubtedly possess passed down from you. So why not let them enter the contest in your place? You know the old saying: “Out of the mouths of babes …” I eagerly await their gems. 🙂

Give it up for Bruce Springstein singing “Born in the Jew-S-A”.

(A conglomeration congregation conflagration with sampling thanks to Stephen Nadler for ‘Jew-S-A’ and William Agress for ‘Cantor Bruce’).

“Now we know what hell may be like.”

Shoyn genug. Fardrey zikh dayn kop. This is a shul, and not the GONG Show!

“This is the modern version of the Song of Songs? I think I just heard King Solomon turning over in his grave.”

(credit:JZR)

“Let us pray for his proposed Aliyah, may it come already”

To SN: In trying to figure out why you submitted a blank entry (20:49h, 16 July), I’ve come up with three possibilities. The first is that, like most scholars, you’ve found that as you continue studying, you’ve been learning more and more about less and less until finally you’ve reached the pinnacle and find that you now know everything about nothing, and you want to share this nothing with us.

The second possibility is that you’ve become a follower of that Taoist sage Lao Tzu, whose famous statement is that he who knows doesn’t speak while he who speaks doesn’t know, and you’ve attained the true state of knowledge.

The third possibility, of course, is that before you sent in your entry you hit the delete key by mistake.

🙂

The fifth possibility, which I hadn’t wanted to mention, was that you considered Dr. Schwartz’s cartoon self-explanatory and therefore in no need of any caption at all.

If that were the fact, your non-caption might’ve won the contest and you might have been awarded a no-prize to be delivered to you in no time.

Anyway, the mystery has now been solved, to everyone’s non-relief. (I had never thought that a missing emoji could cause such confusion.)

“You know we’re forbidden to ham it up.”

“Oh Jews do that something dududududu every seventh day. Yeah Jews do that something dududududu they go to Shul and pray”

OK, so there are 614 versions of Adon Olam!

“Since he started playing his version of ‘Lecha Dodi’ every Friday evening, the Sabbath Bride has absolutely refused to appear.”

I said “temple” not “tempo.”

Hmmm,…the temple is right, but the melody’s wrong.

Let us all welcome a former member of the Maccabeats who was asked to leave when he tried to work a Jew’s Harp into an arrangement.

“What psalm is it you wanna hear?”

I have been at this too long. The idea of a contemporary jewish service is an oxymoron.

“Good evening, ladies and germs. Welcome to Temple Beth-El’s first comedy special , featuring the Rabbi and the Rocker, ready to lift your ruachs. I’ll sermonize, he’ll harmonize, we’ll both circumsize your woes. So give us your attention, don’t turn down your nose , and we’ll have you all laughing before we bring this to a close. For our first selection, our conception of ‘Kol Nidre.’ I bet you never heard it played this way before …”

“He really makes the 23rd psalm come alive, especially the part about walking through the valley of the shadow of death.”

(Thanks, SN)

“I can’t figure out whether that’s a melody or a malady.”

“Today I am eliminating the Cantor’s Discretionary Fund.”

I don’t think “Losin’ My Religion” speaks for all of us…

Your medley of Christmas songs may be written by Jews, but it still doesn’t belong here!

After you’re done using your cell phones as “lighters”, please remember to keep them silenced during the Amidah.

I didn’t say “play a solo”, I said “play so low that it doesn’t drown out our singing”

To LL: That’s a very funny line. Did you have Chico Marx in mind when you wrote it? That’s just the way he would have pronounced “play so low” so as to sound like “play a solo.” Welcome to the fray. Your talent with words is awesome, and like cream you’re rising to the top.

Welcome our new Cantor. He attracts the base.

Hit that Rock (and Roll) Moishe!

Cantor John Paul is singing his new Shabbat song ” Oh I believe in Saturday “.

I said you could come BACK, and play ON THE Sabbath!

You’re not Orthodox, are you?

Cantor Cohen, this is not the bar mitzvah party!

Some say this is the Messiah for which we have waited for so long. But, others say this child of god was just ask to take a sabbatical from heaven.

Do you know any Ashkenazi Osbourne?

“Nobody wants to get into a fender bender while driving a car, but I hope that you’ll enjoy this musical Fender-bender with our very talented acoustic guitarist and cantor giving his impassioned rendition of that great Jewish classic ‘I Have a Little Dreidel.'”

Welcome to the contest Scott Evans, an accomplished surveyor of the human predicament whose many books are written with great insight about all those who somehow can’t fit into the cookie-cutter society in which we live and yet are leavened with humor to make his wisdom easier to assimilate. A pleasure to see you among us!

Religious Experience

Can I Get An Amen

We Rock!

May I share some Grooks with you? (This was not a rhetorical question. I actually waited five minutes and didn’t hear any word of dissent, so I’ll proceed.) Grooks were created bu Piet Hein, a scientist turned poet during the Nazi occupation of Denmark. In our country, these would’ve been called light verse. Anyway, I’ve always found them marvelous. Here are three. Please forgive me:

SIMPLY ASSISTING GOD

I am a humble artist
moulding my earthly clod,
adding my labour to nature’s,
simply assisting God.

Not that my effort is needed;
yet somehow I understand,
my master has willed it that I too should have
unmoulded clay in my hand.

A PSYCHOLOGICAL TIP

Whenever you’re called on to make up your mind,
and you’re hampered by not having any,
the best way to solve the dilemma, you’ll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.

No–not so that chance should decide the affair
while you’re passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you’re hoping.

And one last (hoping I haven’t worn out my welcome):

PRAYER

Sun that givest all things birth,
shine on everything on earth!

If that’s too much to demand,
shine at least on this our land.

If even that’s too much for thee,
shine at any rate on me.

“I’m not used to hearing feedback during my sermon.”

The spiritual leader of Las Vegas has been reported missing. Warning: Elvis Nudnik (Er kert iber di velt) is turning the world upside down! If he is in your shul, then call the proper authorities and have him incarcerated for trying to impersonate a cantor.

Rabbi Berger found himself daydreaming during the Amidah again.

“From now on we are going to be substituting for your regular rabbi on the weekends. He has been thoroughly studying the Mishnah and has concluded that coming to shul and delivering a sermon is
work expressly prohibited on the Sabbath.”

I know my sermons rock, but I never expected this.

“Welcome to services at B’nai Ostentatious.
Our synagogue is spacious,
Our rav is sagacious,
Especially when he discusses bereishis,
And even our music is very audacious.
What are we? We’re certainly not in a box.
Just say as a shul we are unorthodox.”

“I never thought that we’d have to resort to something like this in order to get our congregation back and away from their smartphones.”

“Since we introduced our all-inclusive app, nobody’s coming to shul anymore.”

“Haven’t the Jewish people suffered enough?”

AS: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

To AS: It occurs to me that I might be giving credit for your caption to the wrong person. Did your seven-year-old granddaughter take over for you in this instance? Or perhaps even the three year old might have been capable since she too must be carrying your humor gene?

In the end, though, it really doesn’t matter who hit the ball. The important thing is that it went way over the right-field fence. 🙂

I don’t believe I’ve ever heard such a stirring rendition of The Dreidel Song.

“We are proud to present Moloch, the lead guitarist for the Gehenna Band, in a concert designed to excite and inflame, especially designed for those who didn’t show up for services last Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.”

To AS, yes, your older granddaughter has good taste, especially if she doesn’t like the crop of current New Yorker cartoons and is taken with Calvin and Hobbes, that marvelous old strip that ran until cartoonist Bill Watterson got tired of doing it and threw in the towel so that he could concentrate on his own paintings. Would it be too early to introduce her to the philosophies of the real Calvin and Hobbes? At the very least you could buy her something by Calvin Klein. Glad you’re back.

AS: A current comic strip your granddaughter might enjoy is “Zits,” by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman, about a sixteen-year-old high school sophomore and hopeful rock musician. I think it’s one of the best and VERY funny, contrasting Jeremy’s view of the world with his parents’ more staid outlook. I know, I know, Jeremy is sixteen while she’s only seven, but she certainly seems bright and sensitive and imaginative enough (after all, she is YOUR granddaughter) to appreciate the humor.

(This suggestion, of course, comes with no guarantees, so there can’t be any basis for a lawsuit.) 🙂

He’s also a member of ‘Guns and Rosenthal’s’.

He’s from ‘Guns and Rosen’.

”And now, with a blast from the past, Cantor Coolevitch will lead us in a rockin’ Mi Kamocha.”

A young guy still in yeshiva asks a young woman to marry him. She’s from a wealthy home, and her father is anxious to talk to him. How, for example, is he going to support his daughter, who’s been accustomed to only the very finest things?

The father begins. “How do you intend to make a living?” he asks. The young man replies, “G-d will provide.” “How about a beautiful house for her to live in?” the father persists. The young man repeats, “G-d will provide.” “How about beautiful clothes and vacations?” “Again, “G-d will provide.”

Later the father returns home. “”What do you think?” both daughter and wife ask in unison. The father beams. “”The young man is absolutely wonderful. I like him VERY much. I’m so flattered. Imagine that! He thinks I’m G-d.”

So. The Cantor can, but perhaps he shouldn’t.

” Rock Hashanah SEEMED like a good idea…”

AS: In addition to the usual authors, has your granddaughter gotten acquainted with Shel Silverstein {“The Giving Tree,” “The Missing Piece,” etc.)? Also, by now she must be good at chess, tutored by a master strategist, yes?

Rhythm and Jews, the new Rock and Roll!

To Melody Savala, you have a nice ear for the sounds of words, making them splash playfully like water over pebbles in a pool. Dale Stout and others also do this very well. I could picture you writing lyrics for musical theater in the mischievous style of an Ira Gershwin. The big problem, of course, would be that you probably don’t have a brother like George Gershwin to provide the music. And, of course, song lyrics aren’t what they used to be. Please contribute more. Thanks.

An awful man died. Nobody in the Jewish community had a kind thing to say about him. The rabbi tried desperately to get someone to deliver the eulogy at his funeral service. Finally, to everyone’s relief, someone came forward who was willing to do it. On the day of the service he climbed the dais and looked down at the crowd, which waited expectantly. Finally the man frowned and then uttered just four words before walking off. The eulogy? “His brother was WORSE!”

Speaking of eulogies, that famous vaudevillian of the early twentieth century, George Jessel, made it a business later in his life to give eulogies. One day he delivered a particularly glowing remembrance of the deceased at a service which made everyone cry, including the gravediggers. At the end the rabbi approached him and said, “That was so moving, Mr. Jessel, your words almost brought the man back to life. It was the most amazing tribute I’ve ever heard in all my life.” Jessel waved away the compliment. “I could’ve done much better,” he said, “if I had actually known the man.”

For this, I ask for something nice and what do I get, rock the casbah.

To AS: It was good that you wrote “work in progress” rather than the often-used “work in process,” since the former implies upward progression rather than just change. Onward and upward or, as Stan Lee used to say, “Excelsior!” Your granddaughters are very lucky to have you bring out the very best in them! May the curve always move up!

“Members of the congregation, you’ve all heard of rhythm and blues. Well, let us introduce you tonight to a new type of music, rhythm and Jews. Now, you may ask, how can “Jews” replace “blues”? Easy. We Jews like to kvetch, so even when we’re supposed to be happy, we look as if we always have the blues. Even the word “enjoy” has an “oy” in it. Ray Charles, if you can hear this in Heaven, I apologize for what we’re doing to your music, but I hope that the rest of you here feel it in your neshomehs.”

(This is based on the absolutely marvelous caption submitted by Lois Karhinen. I’ll be very surprised if her entry is not one of the winners.)

The spiritual leader of Las Vegas ( Elvis Nudnik / alias Rabbi Elvis Nudnik ) was spotted entering a house of ill repute. It was reported that after an exhausting music exhibition at a local shul, Rabbi Elvis Nudnik requested a “lady of the evening” provide sexual services with kosher methods. One young girl sheepishly indicated that she was prepared for this procedure. She led Rabbi Elvis Nudnik into a room, then undressed. Next, she jumped into bed and immediately admitted she did not know kosher. But, she told Rabbi Elvis Nudnik, “If you teach me Kosher, then I will let you have the sex for half price!” Then Rabbi Elvis Nudnik replied, “O.K., das ist kosher.”

Uh, oh, MS, like Captain Kirk, you’ve gone “where no man has gone before,” at least in taking the humor on this site in a new direction. But following your lead, the classic story in the genre you’ve introduced is of the newly widowed rabbi who feels very lonely and approaches a woman on the street. “Excuse me,” he says, “could you have an affair with me for two dollars?” The woman is indignant. “What kind of woman do you think I am?” she shouts. “O.K.,” the rabbi continues, ” then how about two million dollars?” The woman pauses. “Well,” the rabbi continues, “now that we’ve established the parameters, can we now negotiate?”

”…And now, with a blast from the past, Cantor Cooly Kulevitch will rock us with “Ma’oz Tzur”

After hearing about Rabbi Elvis Nudnik’s musical rendition in a local shul, he was invited to attend a multicultural religious gathering at a holy shrine. The Pope was to address the attendance and give a sermon on the sins of gambling. There were four clergy ( a Baptist Minister, a Catholic Priest, a Buddhist Monk, and Rabbi Elvis Nudnik) in an isolated room playing poker and betting money. As the Pope approached the room, the four clergy removed the cards and the money from the table. The Pope had a suspicion that illegal gambling was taking place. When the Pope entered the room, he asked the Baptist Minister, “Were you gambling?” The Baptist Minister said, “No, your Holiness, I am a pious man.” The Pope turned to the Catholic Priest and asked, “Were you gambling?” “No, your Grace.” I believe in the tenets of the church. Next, the Pope asked the Buddhist Monk, “Were you gambling?” Again, the Buddhist Monk issued a denial. Then, the Pope asked Rabbi Elvis Nudnik if he was gambling. The Rabbi Elvis Nudnik looked around the room and said, “Mit who?”

To MS: O.K., I admit defeat. Your story, in both the content as well as the pacing, trumped (with apologies to the current president) mine. Good shabbos, my friend.

MS: The ending of your most recent excellent joke, by the way, reminds me of another story with the same ending. It seems that one day a man’s stockbroker phoned him with a tip. A certain over-the-counter stock was selling at 3 and1/8 and was a good bet, he said, so the man bought 1000 shares. The stock went up a point and the man was ecstatic. The next day the broker called again and recommended another purchase of the same stock, so the man bought another 1000 shares. The stock promptly went up another point and the man was in heaven, counting his winnings. Over the course of the month the man bought more and more and more and the stock went up and up and up. Finally the stock was at 14 and the customer had had enough. He called his broker. “Sell everything,” he said.

And the broker replied, “To whom?” 🙂

GL: Did you hear about Rabbi Elvis Nudnik deciding to take a boat trip for a vacation. Out to sea, the boat was overloaded with people and began taking on much water. The captain proclaimed that the boat will sink unless three people voluntarily jump overboard. A native American Indian approached the bow of the boat, yelled “Geronimo,” and jumped overboard. Then, a Frenchman went to the bow of the boat, and shouted, “Vive la France” and jumped overboard. The crazy Rabbi Elvis Nudnik went to the front of the boat, and yelled, “Remember the Holocaust!” Then he picked-up a small neo-Nazi and threw him overboard.

MS, thanks for your kind words, but they’re misplaced. I’m only a function of the site, a small finger on a large hand, constantly amazed and stimulated by the aptness of the entries. I’ve learned that there is no one true interpretation of any picture, that no one has the last word, that each of us brings equal strength. I get much more than I give. So in a deep sense what you see is your own reflection, like a dewdrop reflecting all the other dewdrops in a field. You’re the one bringing light into this world, and it’s to you and everybody else that I owe thanks.

thank you.

GL: The saga of Rabbi Elvis Nudnik shall continue …

From Loren Eiseley’s “The Star Thrower”:

“Early one morning an elderly man was walking along the beach after a big storm. The sand was littered with starfish that had been washed ashore and were helplessly stranded.

“The man saw a young boy approaching. As he came near he picked up a starfish and threw it back into the sea. The elderly man laughed. ‘There must be literally thousands of starfish here. You won’t be able to make much of a difference.’

“The young boy looked up. ‘I made a difference to the one I threw back.'”

Rabbi Elvis Nudnik was asked to listen to a dying husband’s confession in a hospital by the dying man’s wife. In the hospital room, the dying man admitted that he cheated on his wife many times. Also, the dying husband admitted that he always used vulgar profanity when referring about his wife to others. Lastly, the dying husband revealed that he squandered all the family inheritance. The wife looks at her husband and says, “You are forgiven.” The wife then turns to the Rabbi Elvis Nudnik and asks if she is forgiven. “After all,” she said, “I am the one that poisoned him.”

To MS: Well, you’ve created a memorable figure in Rabbi Elvis Nudnik, whose adventures remind me a little of the famous Father Brown mysteries in the 1920’s, also featuring a clergyman (a Roman Catholic priest in this case) who solves mysteries, created by the writer and humorist G. K. Chesterton. But the problem here, though, is that with the name Nudnik, your central character will be blasted out of existence by the criticism he’ll receive from the Anti-Defamation League, which is very sensitive and considers it an act of war to make fun of Jews.

Could you consider changing the protagonist’s name to, say, O’Leary? Then, at least, you wouldn’t have your own people to worry about. 🙂