The Jewish scholar from Odessa
Posted by: clean-hewmor <clean-hewmor@...>
permission to visit Moscow. He boarded the train and found an empty seat.
At the next stop a young man got on and sat next to him. The scholar looked at
the young man and thought: "This fellow doesn't look like a peasant, and if he
isn't a peasant he probably comes from this district. If he comes from this
district, he must be Jewish because this is, after all, the Jewish district."
"On the other hand, if he is a Jew where could he be going? I'm the only one
in our district who has permission to travel to Moscow. Wait- just outside
Moscow there is a little village called Samvet, and you don't need special
permission to go there."
"But why would he be going to Samvet? He's probably going to visit one of the
Jewish families there and there are just two of them - the Bernsteins and the
Steinbergs. The Bernsteins are a terrible family, so he must be visiting the
Steinbergs."
"But why is he going? The Steinbergs have no sons and three daughters, so maybe
he's their son-in-law. But if he is, then which daughter did he marry? Sarah
married that nice lawyer from Budapest and Esther married a businessman from
Zhadomir, so it must be Sarah's husband. Which means that his name is Alexander
Cohen, if I'm not mistaken."
"But if he comes from Budapest, with all the anti-Semitism they have there, he
must have changed his name. What's the Hungarian equivalent of Cohen? Kovacs.
But if he changed his name he must have some special status. What could it be?
A doctorate from the University."
At this point the scholar turns to the young man and said, "How do you do, Dr.
Kovacs?"
"Very well, thank you, sir" answered the startled passenger. "But how is it that
you know my name?"
"Oh," replied the scholar, "it was obvious".