I asked my grandpa if he had any jokes that he loved. His response was that he only had Jewish jokes, because that is what his Jewish father would always tell him growing up in Brooklyn.

He began to tell me the joke after I asked him this question, “It was the winter Olympics, there were 3 finalists in the ski competition, one from Israel, one from Sweden, and one from Italy. The top favorite was the man from Israel, who normally finished the competition in 2 minutes 10 seconds. The man from Sweden went first and timed a 2 minutes and 46 seconds, next the man from Italy went and timed a 2 minutes and 22 seconds, finally it was the man from Israel’s turn, they waited as he went down the mountain, but the time kept ticking, it went past his normal time of 2 minutes 10 seconds, finally he crossed the finish line at 4 minutes and 20 seconds. The reporters asked him what happened and he said, “WHOEVER PUT THE MEZUZAHS ON THE GATES IS TOAST”.

Background Info: My grandpa is from Brooklyn and was raised in a Jewish family, he loves these types of jokes because they help explain parts of the culture. The joke is that whenever a Jewish person sees a Mezuzah, he/she has to stop and say the prayer that is inside of the Mezuzah, and remember why they are Jewish, this stalled the man from Israel’s competition as he had to stop at each Mezuzah.

Context: My grandpa told me this joke during Passover dinner

Analysis: My grandpa has been telling me jokes since I can remember, but I had not heard this one before. A lot of his jokes are about the Jewish culture, but have meaning to them in remembering the importance of certain aspects of the culture, for example this joke is meant to remind you to recognize the prayer whenever you see a Mezuzah.