Book: Let There Be Laughter: A Treasury of Great Jewish Humor and What It All Means
Quotes of Book: Let There Be Laughter: A
A young Jewish man escapes the Holocaust and makes his way to England, where he manages, through sheer entrepreneurial genius, to make a fortune. His old widower father remains behind in the Warsaw ghetto and the young man is able to pay for an incredible, daring, and expensive airlift to rescue him. Once his father is safe in England, the young man tells him he must think of himself as an Englishman. "That is what I am now, Papa," he explains to the old man. "This land has given me refuge and a haven and I have succeeded here. I am, by God, an Englishman and you must think of yourself as one from now on, too." He takes his father to Bond Street and has him fitted for and dressed in a brand-new expensive suit in a haberdashery there. Then he takes him to a fancy tonsorial place where the old man is put in the barber chair and the hair cutter begins cutting the old man's payos, the locks of hair worn by religious Hasidim. The father is suddenly sobbing convulsively and his son, with deep compassion as he watches his father's hair locks tumble to the floor, sympathetically asks: "What, Papa? Are you crying because you feel you are losing your Jewish identity?" The old man shakes his head, sniffs, and, with another convulsive sob, says: "No, son. I'm crying because we lost India. book-quote
