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The NYC School Board has officially declared Jewish English a second language. Backers of the move say the district is the first in the nation to recognize Jewberish as the language of many American Jews. Look for other cities to follow suit, notably Miami Beach, Los Angeles and Scarsdale.

In Jewberish: Questions are always answered with questions:

Question: "How do you feel?"
Jewberish response: "How should I feel?"

Question: "Why do you always answer my question with a question?"
Jewberish response: "What do you want me to say?"

The subject is often placed at the end of a sentence after a pronoun has been used at the beginning:
"She dances beautifully, that girl."

The emphatic negative of words is made by adding "sh" to the front of a word:
Mountains becomes "shmountains"; turtle becomes shmurtle."
(mountains-shmountains / turtle-shmurtle)

These common phrases were translated from "Standard English" to Jewberish:
English: "He walks slowly"
Jewberish: "Like a fly in the Vaseline he walks."

English: "Sorry, I don't know the time"
Jewberish: "What do I look like, a clock?"

English: "I hope things turn out okay"
Jewberish: "You should BE so lucky!"

English: "I see you're wearing one of the ties I gave you."
Jewberish: "What's the matter, the other tie you didn't like?

English: "Anything can happen."
Jewberish: "Things are never so bad that they can't get worse"

English: "May I take your plate sir?"
Jewberish: "You've hardly touched your food. What's the matter, something's wrong with it?"

English: "It's been so long since you've called."
Jewberish: "You didn't wonder if I'm dead yet?"

English: "Let's not go skiing"
Jewberish: "Mountains, shmountains! Do I look like a sled to you?

1) When there's only one other person in the elevator, tap them on the shoulder and then pretend it wasn't you.

2) Push the buttons and pretend they give you a shock. Smile, and go back for more.

3) Ask if you can push the button for other people, but push the wrong ones.

4) Call the Psychic Hotline from your cell phone and ask if they know what floor you're on.

5) Hold the doors open and say you're waiting for your friend. After awhile, let the doors close and say, "Hi Greg. How's your day been?"

6) Drop a pen and wait until someone reaches to help pick it up, then scream, "That's mine!"

7) Bring a camera and take pictures of everyone in the elevator.

8) Move your desk in to the elevator and whenever someone gets on, ask if they have an appointment.

9) Lay down a Twister mat and ask people if they'd like to play.

10)Leave a box in the corner, and when someone gets on ask them if they hear something ticking.

11)Pretend you are a flight attendant and review emergency procedures and exits with the passengers.

12) Ask, "Did you feel that?"

13) Stand really close to someone, sniffing them occasionally.

14) When the doors close, announce to the others, "It's okay. Don't panic, they open up again."

15) Swat at flies that don't exist.

16) Tell people that you can see their aura.

17) Call out, "group hug!", then enforce it.

18) Grimace painfully while smacking your forehead and muttering, "Shut up, all of you, just shut up!"

19) Crack open your briefcase or purse, and while peering inside, ask, Got enough air in there?"

20) Stand silently and motionless in the corner, facing the wall, without getting off.

21) Stare at another passenger for a while, then announce in horror, "You're one of THEM!" and back away slowly.

22) Wear a puppet on your hand and use it to talk to the other passengers.

23) Listen to the elevator walls with your stethoscope.

24) Make explosion noises when anyone presses a button.

25) Stare, grinning at another passenger for a while, and then announce, "I have new socks on."

26) Draw a little square on the floor with chalk and announce to the other passengers, "This is my personal space!"

Getting married is very much like going to a restaurant with friends. You order what you want, then when you see what the other person has, you wish you had ordered that.

At the cocktail party, one woman said to another, "Aren't you wearing your wedding ring on the wrong finger?" The other replied, "Yes, I am, I married the wrong man."

After a quarrel, a husband said to his wife, "You know, I was a fool when I married you."
She replied, "Yes, dear, but I was in love and didn't notice.

A lady inserted an 'ad' in the classifieds: "Husband wanted". Next day she received a hundred letters. They all said the same thing: "You can have mine."

The bride, upon her engagement, went to her mother and said, "I've found a man just like father!" Her mother replied, "So what do you want from me, sympathy?"

When a woman steals your husband, there is no better revenge than to let her keep him.

Man is incomplete until he is married. Then he is finished.

A little boy asked his father, "Daddy, how much does it cost to get married?" And the father replied, "I don't know son, I'm still paying."

Young Son: "Is it true, Dad, that in some parts of Africa a man doesn't know his wife until he marries her?" Dad: "That happens in every country, son."

Then there was a man who said, "I never knew what real happiness was until I got married, and then it was too late."

A woman was telling her friend, "It is I who made my husband a millionaire." "And what was he before you married him?" asked the friend. The woman replied, "A billionaire."

The trouble with being the best man at a wedding is that you never get to prove it. The first marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. The second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.

If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep.

Just think, if it weren't for marriage, men would go through life thinking they had no faults at all.

Personally, I think one of the greatest things about marriage is that as both husband and father, I can say anything I want around the house. Of course, no one pays attention.

The most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once.

Words to live by: Do not argue with a spouse who is packing your parachute.

First guy (proudly): "My wife's an angel!" Second guy: "You're lucky, mine's still alive.

Presented as a Service to those Foolish enough to try Driving in Israel

Rule #1 - When waiting for a parking spot, stop in the middle of the road, don't signal, and orient your car diagonally to prevent others from passing.

Rule #2 - Always park on the lines, taking up as many spots as possible. Diagonal parking is preferred.

Rule #3 - In a crowded parking lot, if you find a spot and have the opportunity to pull through to an adjacent one, drive up half way and stop on the line, taking both.

Rule #4 - As you pull into a spot, if you see that the space ahead of you is empty and you see another driver signaling to take it, pull though and take it from him.

Rule #5 - Always park close enough to the adjacent car so that the other driver must grease up with Vaseline to squeeze into his/her car.

Rule #6 - When getting out of your car, hit the adjacent vehicle with your door really hard. If you leave a dent, wait for a car, which is painted the same color as yours, to drive down the aisle looking for a place to park. Then back out, giving up your spot like "Mr. Good Guy" and park somewhere else.

Rule #7 - When driving through the parking lot, ignore the painted lanes and drive diagonally from one end to another at a high rate of speed.

Rule #8 - When stopped in front of a store and waiting for a friend/relative to make a purchase, make sure that you are stopped in the middle of the road. The same rule applies to picking-up and discharging passengers.

Rule #9 - When a vehicle from the opposite direction is signaling and waiting for a parking space, position your car so that you are in his way and let the car behind you take it.

Rule #10 - If you don't see a speed limit sign posted in the malls parking lot, there isn't any!

Rule #11 - When walking back to your car, if you notice other shoppers walking past your car to get to theirs, press the buttons on your key chain remote so that your car's alarm makes a sudden loud "BLOOP BLEEP" that scares the mess out of them.

Rule #12 - If the vehicle in front of you stops to let a pedestrian cross or another vehicle turn, pull into the lane of opposite traffic and attempt to pass him.

Rule #13 - Deleted... for those who are superstitious

Rule #14 - When exiting a shopping center into a busy road, exit through the narrow "ENTER ONLY" driveway, stick the nose of the car into traffic, and wait.

Rule #15 - When driving through a parking lot with alternating one-way aisles and angled parking spots, drive the wrong way. Then when you see a parking space, take 20 minutes to do a 12-point turn to pull into it.

Rule #16 - Always leave your shopping cart behind or tightly between parked vehicles.

Rule #17 - Empty your ashtrays on the ground in shopping center parking lots. While you're at it, dump out all the garbage too including that McDovid's bag sitting in the back seat from breakfast.

Rule #18 - If you are forced to change an infant's diaper in a parking lot, leave the soiled diaper under the car next to you.

Rule #19 - When another vehicle is waiting for you to pull out of a spot in a crowded parking lot, take your time. Adjust the mirrors, your seat, and the radio. Roll down your window, light a cigarette, and eat your lunch. Feel free to go through your shopping bags and look at what you just bought.

Rule #20 - When pulling into a parking spot, if there is a shopping cart in the way, lightly tap it with your bumper and send it rolling into an adjacent car. Then, when you step out, if the cart is still too close, push it down the parking lot aisle and let it go. While the cart is flying solo, turn around and walk toward the stores.

Rule #21 - When walking back to your car in a busy shopping center, gesture to other drivers waiting for a spot to make them think that you are getting in the car and leaving. Then walk between the cars to the next aisle and do it again.

Rule #22 - When Erev Shabbat shopping at the mall, which requires you to load your bags into the car and go back in to do more shopping, do NOT tell the driver who is sitting patiently watching you load your car and signaling for your spot.

You've sat at the same desk for 4 years and worked for three different companies.

Your company welcome sign is attached with Velcro.

Your resume is on a diskette in your pocket.

Your company logo on your badge is applied with stick-um.

When someone asks about what you do for a living, you lie.

You get really excited about a 2% pay raise.

You learn about your layoff on CNN.

Your biggest loss from a system crash is that you lose your best jokes.

Your supervisor doesn't have the ability to do your job.

You sit in a cubicle smaller than your bedroom closet.

Salaries of the members on the Executive Board are higher than all the Third World countries' annual budgets combined.

You think lunch is just a meeting to which you drive.

It's dark when you drive to and from work.

Fun is when issues are assigned to someone else.

Communication is something your group is having problems with.

You see a good-looking person and know it is a visitor.

Free food left over from meetings is your main staple.

Weekends are those days your spouse makes you stay home.

Being sick is defined as can't walk or you're in the hospital.

Art involves a white board.

You're already late on the assignment you just got.

When 100% of your time means 20 hours.

You work 200 hours for the $100 bonus check and jubilantly say "Oh wow, thanks!"

Dilbert cartoons hang outside every cube.

Your boss' favorite lines are "when you get a few minutes." "in your spare time," "when you're freed up," and "I have an opportunity for you."

Vacation is something you roll over to next year or a check you get every January.

Your relatives and family describe your job as "works with computers."

Change is the norm.

Nepotism is encouraged.

The only reason you recognize your kids is because their pictures are hanging in your cube.

You only have makeup for fluorescent lighting.

You read this entire list and understood it.

Five surgeons are discussing who makes the best patients to operate on.

The first surgeon says, "I like to see accountants on my operating table, because when you open them up, everything inside is numbered."

The second responds, "Yeah, but you should try electricians! Everything inside them is color coded."

The third surgeon says, "No, I really think librarians are the best; everything inside them is in alphabetical order."

The fourth surgeon chimes in: "You know, I like construction workers... those guys always understand when you have a few parts left over at the end, and when the job takes longer than you said it would."

But the fifth surgeon shut them all up when he observed: "You're all wrong. Politicians are the easiest to operate on. There's no guts, no heart, and no spine, and their head and butt are interchangeable, too.

A cruise ship sinks and three men make it to an uninhabited island. The first man, a Christian, tears two branches from a palm tree, creates a cross, and prays to the Lord to be saved from the island.

The second man, a Muslim, pulls several fronds from the palm tree, creates a mat, kneels facing Mecca, and prays to Allah to save him.

The third man, a Jew, falls asleep under the palm tree. The other two can't understand how this man could remain so calm and serene - and ask him how he could be so at ease.

He answers: "Two years ago I gave $1,000,000 to the Jewish Federation.
Last year I gave $2,000,000.
This year I pledged $3,000,000.
Don't worry, they'll find me.

Q. If a doctor carries a black bag and a plumber carries a tool box, what does a mohel carry?
A. A Bris-kit.

**********

Q. What is the technical term for an uncircumcised Jew who is more than 8 days old?
A. A girl.

**********

Q. What do you call steaks ordered by 10 Jews?
A. Filet minyan.

A sister and brother are talking to each other when the little boy gets up and walks over to his Grandpa and says, "Grandpa, please make a frog noise."

The Grandpa says, "No."

The little boy goes on, "Please...please make a frog noise."

The Grandpa says, "No, now go play."

The little boy then says to his sister, "Go tell Grandpa to make a frog noise." So the little girl goes to her Grandpa and says, "Please make a frog noise."

The Grandpa says, "I just told your brother no and I'm telling you no."

The little girl says, "Please...please Grandpa make a frog noise."

The Grandpa says, "Why do you want me to make a frog noise?"

The little girl replied, "Because mommy said when you croak we can go to Disney World!"

A Jewish patron was walking on Regent Street in London and stopped in to a posh gourmet food shoppe. An impressive salesperson in morning coat with tails approached him and politely asked, "Can I help you, Sir?"

"Yes," replied the customer, "I would like to buy a pound of lox."

"No No," responded the dignified salesperson, "You mean smoked salmon."

"Okay, a pound of smoked salmon."

"Anything else?" "Yes, a dozen blintzes."

"No. No. You mean crepes."

"Okay, a dozen crepes."

"Anything else?"

"Yes, A pound of chopped liver."

"No. No. You mean pate."

"Okay," said the Jewish patron, "A pound of pate. And," he added, "I'd like you to deliver this to my house next Saturday."

"Look," retorted the indignant salesperson, "We don't schlep on Shabbos!"

from the January 2000 Edition of the Jewish Magazine