Lets celebrate jews: the chosen people among the abrahamics

New Yorker had this article:


Screams
by Lillian Ross
March 31, 2008 T

Friedman, Drew; “More Old Jewish Comedians”; Friars Club; Milton Berle Room; Parties; Caricatures; Jews The Milton Berle Room at the Friars Club was the scene the other day of a party for Drew Friedman’s “More Old Jewish Comedians,” a sequel to “Old Jewish Comedians,” collected caricatures of such revered icons, now gone, as Myron Cohen, Groucho, Buddy Hackett, Burns, Benny, et al., along with Friars present and still carrying on.

“I like to make their faces look outlandishly big,” said Friedman, a tall, friendly fellow with a fixed grin on his own big face who does political and showbiz drawings for the New York Observer. He ignored a passing tray of miniature hot dogs and surveyed the honorees, many of whom were octogenarians. “They never want to quit,” he said. “They always want to be in your face.”

“I’ve seen younger faces on cash,” said Jeffrey Ross, a newer generation Friar.

“They’re so old, their drivers’ licenses include the covered wagon,” another upstart said.

“Larry Gelbart says they’re so old, the first cruise some of them worked was on the Ark,” Friedman said. “Here’s Mickey Freeman. He was Private Zimmerman on ‘Sergeant Bilko’ for six years.”

“One hundred and forty-seven half hours, being shown in England now, the funniest show, Larry David says, ever filmed,” said Freeman, who is five feet three and has a thick mop of white hair.

“Jerry Lewis couldn’t come tonight, but his secretary called me from Las Vegas, where he’s working on a musical of ‘The Nutty Professor,’ ” Friedman said. “Jerry Lewis said, ‘I’m proud to be in the old Jew book.’ ”

“Where’s Las Vegas?” Mickey Freeman asked. “I come from the Lower East Side. To me, anything north of Fourteenth Street was Connecticut. We were so poor, we slept five kids in one bed. That’s how we invented the water bed. I never got to sleep alone till I got married.”

Freddie Roman, the president of the Friars Club, joined in. “Just got here from Boca Raton,” he said. “My old fans from New York are down there. They’re thrilled to see me. I tell them about the woman who complains to the hotel, ‘I’ve been coming down here for twenty years. This year, the food is poison! And such small portions!’ Even if they heard the jokes before, they scream!”

“Freddie is only seventy,” Mickey Freeman said. “He was substituted for Joey Faye in the book, because they found out at the last minute that Joey Faye was Italian.”

“Your next book can be about old Italian comedians,” somebody said to Friedman. “One page. About Pat Cooper.”

Freddie Roman took over again: “An eighty-nine-year-old man married an eighty-seven-year-old woman. They went on a honeymoon, took a nice big house at the beach. The first night, she went to bed first and called downstairs to him, ‘Would you like to come upstairs and make love?’ He called back, ‘I can’t do both.’ Screams!”

Freddie Roman kept going: “A couple married for forty-seven years; the woman dies. At the funeral, the pallbearers swing the coffin, which hits the wall. From inside the coffin, the woman yells, ‘Oh, my God!’ She lived another four years. She died again. The pallbearers are swinging the coffin. The husband yells, ‘Watch out for the wall!’ Screams!”

He turned to the room, in the manner of an m.c.: “Ladies and gentlemen, our brilliant comedy star from ‘F Troop’—Mr. Larry Storch.”

Storch said, “I’m only doing impressions.”

Freddie Roman told another joke: “Forrest Tucker and Milton Berle argued about the size of Berle’s legendary appendage and arranged to have an exhibition in their bathrobes. Berle said he would take out only enough to win.”

Someone told a quick joke about “a woman who went to a palm reader and heard ‘Your husband will die a violent death.’ She asks, ‘Will I be acquitted?’ ”

More Roman: “A Hasid with a frog on his shoulder comes into a bar. The bartender stares at the frog and asks, ‘Where did you get it?’ The frog answers, ‘In Williamsburg; they’re all over the place.’ ”

Finally, Jerry Stiller held up a copy of “More Old Jewish Comedians” and said gently, “If Job got a copy of this and had known these people, he’d never have written that terrible book.”

Screams. ♦

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