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Beth Goodtree is a writer specializing in political commentary, Islamism and the Middle East and also writes the occasional science and humor articles. She has a background in advertising and works as a consultant on Islamism and terrorism to a security firm.
Her web site is:
http://hometown.aol.com/bgoodtree/
She may be reached at
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By Beth Goodtree
December 1, 2004
When Faigey and Shmuel Foinbom realized they were about to become parents for the first time, they decided to move to America to give their child the opportunities they never had in Ekatrinislav.
It was an arduous journey, requiring many modes of transportation merely to get to Antwerp, where they boarded a boat for America. But finally they made it to Ellis Island and promptly moved in with cousins living on Second Ave and 5th Street, in New York City.
Three months later, Faigey presented Shmuel with a healthy baby boy whom they named Chaim. He was a beautiful baby, and as Faigey was proud to tell anyone who would listen, "our little Chaim is a true Yankele, born right here in our bedroom on 2nd Avenue!"
Chaim, although handsome and healthy, wasn't the brightest menorah in the window. The other children would say "When G-d was handing out brains, Chaim thought he said chrain and said 'No thanks, that smarts my tongue!'"
Chaim was not merely a little slow, he was a bi-lingual tsatskele. For example, his mother would say to him in her best English "Dahlink, go auht and play kotch mit your friends." Chaim would promptly look for a duck to throw back and forth.
Chaim thought a shpiel was the skin on a Jewish banana. To him, a yiddisher kop was a Jewish policeman, and zitsfleysh were pimples on a bar mitzvah boy. People would say of him that at least he was lucky he had such good looks and health. But what Chaim had in looks, he lacked in sechel. His first date was a prime example.
Chaim's parents had warned him about girls. "Don't date a big k'nocker," his father told him. "She'll only make you miserable." His mother had more advice. "Make sure she speaks the mama-loshin. You want a good Yiddeshe maideleh."
When Chaim brought his first date home to meet his parents he showed her off proudly. But all his parents could see was a scrawny, flat-chested Italian girl. "Vas is dis?" his father asked. "A shiksa?"
"But Papa, she's not a shiksa," Chaim protested. I got a girl with everything you said. "She's not a big k'nocker---her chest is flat as a board, and her mama uses a wonderful-smelling lotion on her psoriasis."
Faigey and Shmuel could only shake their heads and wonder idly if the priesthood would accept a good (if somewhat stupid), Jewish boy and thus keep him out of trouble with girls.
Well, somehow Chaim managed to graduate high school and wisely decided that college was not in his best interests. So he got a job. Chaim became the newest member of the NYC maintenance crew. He would happily spend his days painting fire hydrants and doing whatever it is that maintenance people do.
The first time the holiday season rolled around, Chaim was given the task of putting up wreaths on some of the lamp posts in the shopping district of midtown Manhattan. Now Chaim may have been a little dim, but he was still a good Jewish boy. While he dutifully carried out his task, he pondered what he could also do to show that NYC was an equal-opportunity decorator when it came to the holidays. After much cogitation, Chaim had an idea. Below the wreaths he would also attach his Tanta Roisa's matzoh balls, all tied up with blue and white ribbons like they did with Christmas balls.
Now Tanta Roisa was usually a great cook; her shav was just the right shade of green, her chicken soup so clear as to make the finest crystal jealous. Her flanken fell apart in your mouth and just looking at her honey cake could give you diabetes. Chickens vied for the privilege of giving up their skins for her grebenis, and even her mustard plasters were good enough to eat. But her matzoh balls, OY! They were so heavy they could clog up a brave man within seconds of eating them. On the other hand, they made excellent weapons when thrown.
So when Chaim went over to his Tanta Roisa's and asked her to make him a huge batch of matzoh balls, her first reaction was to ask if he was planning an attack on the Bolsheviks living in Brooklyn. Chaim told her they would be used to spread the joy of Hanukkah. So Tanta Roisa went to work making her matzoh balls. By the time she was done, she had made enough to constipate the entire city of Pinsk. And the next day Chaim happily hung his matzoh ball clusters along with the wreaths, secure in the knowledge that he was spreading the joy of Hanukkah.
For several days those matzoh ball clusters hung securely from the lamp posts, making dull clunking noises whenever the breeze blew them. People would look and wonder about the odd dull-beige balls swinging and clunking in the air, but assumed they were some new-fangled decoration designed to withstand the wind. And then it snowed. What with the weight of the matzoh balls themselves, the added coating of snow was too much and they began to fall off the lamp posts.
The first ones to fall did so at night when the streets were devoid of people. However, they were not empty-- not by a long shot. When the citizens of New York go home, the first creatures out at night are the roaches. They took one look at those matzoh balls innocently sitting in the dents they had made in the concrete and saw an all-you-can-eat kosher buffet. Soon the sidewalks were covered in cockroaches too constipated to move. They just rolled around the sidewalks looking for discarded Ex-Lax wrappers to lick.
Almost immediately, the rats caught the whiff of cockroach-with-matzoh-ball-stuffing and couldn't resist the culinary challenge. But what clogs man and cockroach will also clog a rat. In no time flat, the sidewalks were covered with half-eaten matzoh ball-stuffed and constipated cockroaches, and rats who could barely move. Yet somehow they managed to roll themselves back into the sewer. This was not a good idea since, being so stuffed with matzoh ball-laden cockroaches, they immediately sank to the bottom of the sewer pipes.
However, never underestimate the water pressure of 10,000 toilets flushing at any given time. The rats were swiftly carried to the nearest sewer junction where they lay there and proceeded to swell to several times their size -- matzoh balls being more absorbent than sponges. Pretty soon the sewers began to overflow and by the time morning rolled around, midtown Manhattan was a smelly mess.
The first people sent out to fix the sewer problem and clean up the streets got conked on their heads by the matzoh balls that had not yet fallen off the lamp posts. The ambulances that came to rescue them then skidded on whatever matzoh balls were still lying around and started crashing into the early morning delivery trucks. Midtown was a disaster. Mr. Gimble blamed it on Mr. Macy and Mr. Macy blamed it on Mr. Orbach. But after they all talked it over, they decided it was really a slick move by the Bergdorf family to get the shopper traffic to shlep uptown to buy over-priced shmattas and chatchkas.
Finally the whole mess was cleared up and midtown returned to normal in time to make the holiday season a financial success. And not all of the matzoh ball decoration calamity was a catastrophe. A boatload of Italian immigrants had just landed and they were too poor to afford any presents for their children. But when the Italian kids saw those matzoh balls lying on the ground, they erroneously thought they were beige bocce balls from heaven. The Italians thus had a great Christmas, the Jewish store owners had a holiday windfall, and for a brief time, midtown Manhattan was devoid of cockroaches and rats.
But no one forgot how the whole mishegass began. Now, whenever someone does something really idiotic, something that any normal person could see is a catastrophe in the making, he's called a Chaim Yankel.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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