«Jewish Observer»
JEWISH UKRAINE
16/35
August 2002
5762 Elul

MY HOBBY
BORIS FELDMAN
Main page To print

To tell you the truth, I haven't had it for long. I would have never thought I would have it, particularly nowadays, when all the nations of Ukraine are equal and all, without an exception, are flourishing. Well, may be, some live a bit better...

As one educated Ukrainian nationalist, a strong friend of our nation, said to me: "Anyway, you, Jews, live better than Ukrainians!"

And when I asked him to call at Jewish canteens where hundreds of poor pensioners eat up their "joint's" lunch, he exclaimed: "This is the best confirmation of the fact that, as always, you live better!"

It is sad, of course, but I will continue talking about my hobby, which I began pursuing in our democratic time, after I first came across our democratic newspaper "Our city". The newspaper is not only democratic; it is an official publication of the Dnepropetrovsk city council. Well, every issue of this newspaper contains a section of jokes.

I cannot say they are all new. Some of them are old and used to be published in newspapers during the occupation. For example, the one about Adam and Sara. Or about Izya and Moisha. About their greedy and sly natures. So, I decided to collect clippings with these seemingly endless jokes, to collect and classify. What do I have? In 12 months from May of last year till the May of the present one, 31 jokes were published. Now, if you have some patience I shall show you what they are like. In 13 jokes Jews are "greedy", in 5 - "sly", in four - "mean", in two - including the cited opinion of Zhirinovskiy - "bad people", in others two - "rich", and in the rest - just importunate. And the most surprising is that the newspaper is subsidized by the city council, which budget contains the part of Jewish taxpayers' money and the subsidy is allotted, in particular, by the Jewish deputies who seem to be deaf and blind.

And this nonsense takes place in Dnepropetrovsk where Jews have everything - a synagogue, a community center and even a Jewish restaurant.

What we do not and probably will never have is the Jewish public opinion.

Top

«Jewish Observer» - obozrevatel@jewukr.org
© 2002 Jewish Confederation of Ukraine - www.jewukr.org