8/3/96
Take
Your Pick
We
can give you 10 good reasons to read this,
And
10 good reasons to skip it.
10
Worst Quotes
1.
"Mr. Vanunu, you're hired. Welcome
to Dimona."
2.
"So here's the plan: we occupy the
Gaza Strip until the Egyptians beg for
it back."
3.
"So here's the plan: we give the
Gaza Strip to the Palestinians, and get
them out of our hair once and for all."
4.
"Are you nuts? A bunch of kids against
the greatest army in the world? This intifada
won't last a week."
5.
"But Arafat promised."
6.
"It'll never happen. The day you
see Palestinian autonomy is the day you
see a black president in South Africa."
7.
"Mickey Berkovitz is washed up."
8.
"Relax. It's Yom Kippur."
9.
"Trust me. Buying shares in our bank
is the safest investment."
10.
"But he is the Messiah. You
wait and see."
5
Best Quotes
1.
"The Postal Authority is a mess;
let's put Yitzhak Kaul in charge."
2.
"Bezek is a mess; let's put Yitzhak
Kaul in charge."
3.
"Never mind what they say now, someday
the world will thank us: I say we bomb
Iraq's nuclear instalation."
4.
"It's just a hunch, but it's not
inconceivable that some Israelis might
buy these cellular telephones."
5.
"Mr. Rabin, Assad's on the line,
he wants the Golan back immediately as
a precondition to -- oh, rats, I cut him
off."
10
Greatest Unsung Zionists
1.
Rose ("Rosie") Rosenbaum-Rosenzweig,
a Holon pensioner, inventor of the solar
heater. One blazing-hot morning in 1951,
she was sitting on her roof, shvitzing
and krechtzing. Her neighbor Libby said,
"Nu? Hot enough for you?" Rose
responded: "Oy, you could boil an
egg up here." Israeli rooftops would
never look the same again.
2.
David Alper, team podiatrist with Hapoel
Ritchratch, revolutionized soccer with
a patented procedure he called the Crew
Cut: using a high-speed sanding belt,
he evened out the toes on each player's
kicking foot, then invented the
square-toed shoe. His players were able
to kick the ball 28.5 percent straighter
and 16 percent stronger. Soccer experts
from Brazil to Wales to Algeria unanimously
credit Alper for Hapoel Ritchratch's first-place
finish in Division Six.
3.
Angus MacAbbee, who ran the cafeteria
at the largest slaughterhouse in the country,
invented a whole new concept of intercultural
dining. He mixed together a batch of mulch,
meal, suet, body parts and leftovers,
stuffed the mixture in a cow's intestine
which he then boiled in a sheep's stomach,
and then cooked it for a further 24 hours
in a cholent. The workers on the production
line pronounced it excellent. (Gourmet
critics are still debating whether this
should be indexed in cookbooks as "Scottish
kishke" or "Jewish haggis.")
4.
Zelko Czyxjq5oviszch of Nes Ziona won
a citation from the Communications Ministry
for his remarkable attempts to contact
his chronically aged mother. He tried
calling her but the phone was out of order,
so he ran to his car and tried on the
cellular phone, but got into an argument
with her answering machine, so he ran
back into the house and interfaced his
computer with hers via fax-modem, but
she was busy in the Internet so he e-mailed
her. She put him on hold. Disgusted, he
stomped out and marched over to her house
in Rishon Lezion, determined to solve
their communication problem. It was a
joyous reunion: they hadn't seen each
other in 20 years.
5.
Insurance saleswoman Chava Hapidei perfected
the Israeli business card. Thrifty and
waste-conscious, Hapidei refused to order
new cards until the current batch was
used up. It was no problem, she insisted,
to jot down a correction each time she
gave out a card. From 1953, when the cards
were printed, to 1994, when she retired,
Hapidei changed her surname twice, her
office moved seven times, twice to a different
city. Her title changed five times, the
company name twice, the phone number 31
times. Her phone number went from four
digits to five to six to seven, she added
a fax number, an e-mail address, and for
that matter, a postal code. The only thing
that didn't change was her first name
-- though she had to cross that out too,
because it was misspelled as "Chana."
6.
Prof. Perchik Pinchuk improved on the
process for cryopreserving sperm, eliminating
the embarrassment by having the sperm
frozen before it comes out.
7.
Yosef By-God, "the clown prince of
the Knesset," succeeded in bringing
down the rule of deific authoritarianism
in the country. By his wacky antics in
parliament, he proved that the most powerful
leaders and most powerless citizens are
really, at their worst, not so different.
8.
Industrial engineer Ofer Even-Saik created
the Israeli tissue pack. He devised two
models: one, from which the next tissue
conveniently pops up but in which all
the tissues are cleverly attached so the
imminent sneezer pulls out the entire
pack in desperation; and two, from which
unattached tissues do not pop up, requiring
the imminent sneezer to reach in and grab
the entire pack in desperation. Even-Saik's
ingenious designs increased sales by 8,000
percent in one year, and boosted the national
economy by .5 percent.
9.
Contractor Dudu Ben-Lulu was hired by
the Cohen family of Kiryat Gat to build
them a new kitchen. Ben-Lulu did all the
work himself, finished the job early at
a cost below his estimate, he cleaned
up himself, and he didn't have to come
back to redo anything.
10.
Eliyahu Buxbaum, a 10-year-old son of
Nahariya yekkes, singlehandedly took on
a violent gang of thugs, educating them
on the evil of their ways. He convinced
them that teaching finger-painting at
the local old folks home could be very
satisfying. He lectured his peers on the
scourges of litter, graffiti, dishonesty
and tailgating. He taught the hora to
inmates at a maximum-security prison,
and in his spare time wrote letters to
newspapers decrying sex ads. He had no
friends and no future, but he insisted
that was a small price to pay considering
all the good he was doing for mankind.
Top
10 Fables
1.
"Theodor Herzl was the father of
modern Zionism."
Did he come live here? Did he leave
the comfy fleshpots of Europe to drain
a swamp or green a desert or live in a
crappy three-room apartment? Nah. He sat
there in Vienna and said the Jews should
go forth and forge a state of their own,
but mumbled some excuse that for personal
reasons he wouldn't be able to move here.
No. Herzl was in fact the father of the
modern Zionist.
2.
"The whole world hates us."
Not true. Eleven kilometers south
of Wewak, Papua-New Guinea, is an isolated
tribe of cave-dwellers who have never
heard of us. But some anthropologists
believe that if ever they do hear
of us, they will hate us.
3.
"Israelis have no sense of humor."
Not true. Three out of five Israelis
reading this understand that it's meant
to be funny. (You're probably laughing
at the assumption that there are five
Israelis who read this.)
4.
"There is no lasting solution to
the Palestinian problem."
There is. Mass conversion to Judaism.
Then they would be a Jewish problem.
5.
"We're rude."
The hell we are.
6.
"Yasser Arafat should be tried as
a terrorist."
Technically, he should be protected
as a collaborator.
7.
"Everything reaches Israel 20 years
after it hits America."
Not true. Distressed immigrants
come here first and only then go to America.
8.
"Aliya is the ultimate expression
of Zionism."
Actually, it's the best cure for
it.
9.
"Patriotism is a belief in 'my country,
right or wrong.'"
Not in Israel. Here, it's "my
country, right or left."
10.
"The settlers are the greatest obstacle
to peace with the Palestinians."
No, the Palestinians are the greatest
obstacle to peace with the settlers.
5
Greatest Israeli Inventions Not Yet Invented
1.
Crumbless challa
2.
Car-alarm mufflers
3.
Walls that stay up after you put in a
nail
4.
Safe safety matches
5.
A pop-up toaster big enough for Iraqi
pita
Orbaum's
Quandaries and Conundrums
1.
Before the death of Jesus, what did they
blame the Jews for?
2.
When they want to test placebos, what
do they give the control group?
3.
When a driving instructor is testing someone
learning to be a driving instructor, who
drives?
4.
Where did the person go to patent the
idea of a patent office?
5.
Where do Caribbean residents go for a
vacation?
6.
If unemployment were completely eliminated,
what would happen to the people who write
the unemployment checks?
7.
If World War I was "the war to end
all wars," why wasn't World War II?
8.
If we voted for them, who are we to blame?
Top
10 Hits
1.
Yihye Tov
2.
Ma Pitom?
3.
Hakol Chara
4.
Rabin Ashem v'Arafat Ashem v'Hasmol Haras
et Hamedina
5.
Kibinimat
6.
Ya Ima Shelcha
7.
Stom et Hapeh Shelcha
8.
Yoter Tov b'America
9.
Yoter Tov b'Morocco
10.
Oy Tzuris, Tzuris, Tzuris
5
Worst Jobs
1.
Proofreading the telephone book
2.
Painting red-and-white stripes on the
curbs
3.
Painting blue-and-white stripes on the
curbs
4.
Promoting the "Jordan is Palestine"
movement
5.
Driving Haifa's Carmelit subway up and
down the hole
2
Greatest Dangers to National Survival
1.
Them
2.
Us
