Quote Originally Posted by Eric C. View Post
Anyone here even get the first one? I spent a lot of time going through it dozens of times, but it just sounds to me like a normal conversation... Throbert, what was meant to be the tag line? =))
Heh-heh... I wondered if this joke would "translate". You need to understand that in Anglo-American humor, it's a stereotype that Jewish mothers are experts at making their children feel guilty. Thus, if the first joke were told about a Jewish man and his mother, it would go like this:

A Jewish man phones his mother: "Mom, I know I promised you last week that I'd come to your house for dinner tonight, but it turns out that a girl from the office who I'm interested in is free this evening, and I'd really like to get together with her instead."

A long silence follows.

"I hope you don't mind, Mom," says the Jewish man.

"Mind? Of course I don't mind, darling! Why on earth should it bother me if my first and only son, the son I carried in my womb, the son I gave birth to after fifty-six hours of excruciatingly painful labor, would rather go out with a girl than visit his poor widowed mother?"

"Mom, now that I think about it, I could go out with the girl some other night..."

"Don't be silly, darling! You go out and have your fun with your blonde shiksa floozy from the office -- I'll just sit here alone, slowly growing a brain tumor. But don't worry about me, I'm used to being alone since your father died, God rest his soul. It's a shame that your favorite beef brisket and noodle kugel will go to waste after I spent 17 hours slaving over a hot stove, but I could always give it away to the poor, I suppose..."

[etc.]


In other words, the joke about a "Gentile man and his mother" is REALLY a "Jewish mother" joke turned upside down.

A much shorter joke on the same theme:

Q. How many Jewish mothers does it take to change a light bulb?
A. [с еврейским акцентом] "Don't worry about me," --sigh -- "I'll just sit here in the dark while you go out and have fun..."

Apparently this stereotype about Jewish moms belongs specifically to Anglo-American culture, and isn't part of the "Одесские анекдоты" genre?

P.S. There are, by the way, other jokes that appear to be about "Gentiles" (неевреи) but are, in fact, jokes told by евреи about themselves, playing with familiar Jewish stereotypes. For instance:

A Gentile couple goes to a nice restaurant. The man says: “I’ll have the steak and a baked potato, and my wife will have the chicken breast with green salad. We’ll both have coffee.” The waiter asks, “How would you like your steak and salad prepared?” The man says, “I’d like the steak medium-rare... and my wife will have Italian dressing on the salad.” The waiter says, “Thank you.”
The joke here is that in Jewish vaudeville-style comedy, one would normally expect "Abraham and Sarah" to endlessly kvetch (придираться) about the quality of the steak, the freshness of the salad greens, and whether it's better to wrap potatoes in aluminum foil before baking them, and Sarah would remind Abraham about his cholesterol level and gallstones, etc. But Gentiles just order their meal without any fuss -- and thus without any comedy. (So there's also a joke that "Jews may be neurotic, but at least they're less boring than the Gentiles...")