Leo Rosten Quotes

How just is the Lord,” said an am horets from Chelm, the mythical town inhabited by fools. “He gives the food to the rich — and the appetite to the poor!

The only thing I can say about W. C. Fields … is this: Any man who hates dogs and babies can't be all bad.

in converting Jews to Christians you raise the price of pork. — The Merchant of Venice, act III, scene

It was at this point, visualizing too vividly another Mr. Kaplan in the class, that anxious little lines had crept around Mr. Parkhill´s eyes.

If you're going to do something wrong, at least enjoy it.

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 cheder students were discussing how hard and tiring their studies had become, and impulsively one blurted: “Let’s run away!” “Run away? … Our fathers would catch up with us and give us a sound thrashing.” “So we’ll hit them back!” “What? Hit your father?! You must be mad. Have you forgotten the Commandment — always to honor your father and mother?” “Mmh…. So you hit my father and I’ll hit yours.

On his first day in cheder, the boy’s mother and father would stand over him as the teacher pointed to the letters of the alef-bet (alphabet). The lad repeated the names of the Hebrew letters: alef … beyt … giml … daled … And for each name, his mother would give him a little honey cake or cookie, shaped in the form of that letter, or would put honey into his mouth, to eat with the cake — to show how sweet learning is.

He sat there, sighing and moaning and ruminating thusly: “Oh, if only the Holy One, blessed be His name, would give me ten thousand dollars, I promise I would give a thousand to the poor. Halevay! … And if the Holy One doesn’t trust me, He can deduct the thousand in advance and just give me the balance.

Yiddish, the language which will ever bear witness to the violence and murder inflicted on us, bears the marks of our expulsions from land to land, the language which absorbed the wails of the fathers, the laments of the generations, the poison and bitterness of history, the language whose precious jewels are undried, uncongealed Jewish tears.

The twelfth-century poet Abraham ibn Ezra, whom you encountered in high school as Browning’s Rabbi ben Ezra (may his tribe increase), limpidly described the shlimazl’s lot when he wrote: If I sold lamps, The sun, In spite, Would shine at night.

God, I know, will provide,” sighed one disconsolate Jew. “I only wish He would provide until He provides.

Mr. Kaplan smiled back and answered promptly, “Vell, I´ll tell you about Prazidents United States. Fife Prazidents United States is Abram Lincohen, he vas freeink de neegers; Hodding, Coolitch, Judge Vashington, an´ Banjamin Franklin.”
Futher encouragement revealed that Mr. Kaplan´s literary Valhalla the “most famous tree American wriders” were Jeck Laundon, Valt Viterman, and the author of “Hawk l. Barry-Feen,” one Mock- tvain. Mr. Kaplan took pains to point out that he did not mention Relfvaldo Amerson because “He is a poyet, an´I´m talkink about wriders.

Everyone, in some small secret sanctuary of the self, is nuts.

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.