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AND THE NEW YORK TIMES
Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe
Syosset, New York
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As we approach Yom Kippur, the most solemn day on the Jewish calendar, I remember two "tzaytung" (newspaper) stories:
No. 1
An elderly couple, recently emigrated from
Europe, decided it would be nice to meet
some of the people who sunned themselves
in the nearby park every day. In order to
show that they were "educated," they bought along a copy of the New York Times,
although neither could read a word of
English.
They found a bench near other Jewish gossipers of the afternoon, sat down, opened the newspaper, and pretended to read.
"Yankel," whispered the old lady to her husband, "turn your part of the paper around. You're holding it upside down!"
"How do you know?" her husband whispered back, just as fiercely. "You can't read English either."
"See the picture of that man?" she asked,
pointing to an advertisement. "By you he's
walking on the ceiling?"
(Source: "Joys of Jewish Humor"
by Henry D. Spalding)
No. 2
Overheard at Walgreens drugstore in
lower San Francisco on Sunday:
Uptight woman rushes in and cuts in front of me in line.
Woman: "Do you have the New York Times?"
Cashier: "Uh yeah, it's four hours ahead."
Woman: "It's THREE hours ahead, and I mean
the newspaper!"
(Source: Dilbert newsletter)
Arnold Fine ("I Remember When," The Jewish Press, Oct. 10, 2003), wrote about his "bobbeh":
"I'll never forget how before Yom Kippur, my grandmother would go to her butcher and purchase a live chicken In those years, the butchers kept live chickens, and I loved to go there. It was like going to the zoo. Grandma would take the chicken home wrapped in a copy of the New York Times, with just the chicken's nose sticking out, squawking all the way home.
Nu, so why the Times? Grandma said it added class to her garbage when she put it on the dumbwaiter."
(Note: Residential dumbwaiters are simply small elevators that are used to transport goods and supplies between floors. However, unlike an elevator, dumbwaiters are not designed to transport "di layt" (people/persons). This is not to be confused with Harold Pinter's one-act play, "The Dumb Waiter." Marjorie Wolfe's grandparents, Louis and Clara Gottlieb, had a dumbwaiter in their apartment on East 98th St. and Rutland Road, B'klyn.
Arnold Fine continues, "She [grandmother] would take the chicken and shortly before Yom Kippur, she would shlug kapores, saying the necessary prayer as she swung the squawking chicken over her head."
Arnold Fine also remembers going into the fish store for the Sukkos holidays. "The fish-store man would wrap the carp, soaking wet, also in the New York Times. Grandma would then race home."
Although one cannot compare the New York Times with The Forward, Irving Howe said that [years ago] everyone read a Yiddish paper, even those who knew little more than Alef-Bet. After dinner, a family would leaf through it page by page, and sometimes the mother or father would read some interesting items aloud. "Not to take a paper was to confess you were a barbarian," according to Irving Howe's book, "World of Our Fathers."
Howe said, "You didn't tear, cut or muddy the pages of The "Forverts," any more than you did the Torah. In fact, we boycotted a storekeeper who once wrapped 2 lbs. of carp in the pages of The Forverts."
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Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe agrees with Richard A. Moran: "Read USA Today for trends, the New York Times for depth, and the comic strip 'Dilbert' for the truth." She wishes all of her readers "a zisn yor."
Rutland Road, Brooklyn
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