The Unorthodox Book of Jewish Records & Lists

Description

It takes more than two warped minds to put together a book such as this. Any Ph.D. candidate would be proud of the methods used: hundreds of interviews with Jews from the Malagasy Republic to Taiwan to Pittsburgh: telephone calls that have set a new record (“The Highest Private Phone Bill by a Pair of Jews Working on a Book of Jewish Records and Lists”): long, arduous hours spent in the great Jewish and secular libraries of the world (The Jewish Theological Seminary, Hebrew University, YIVO, Harvard University, and the Bathurst Heights Library, five blocks from one of our houses): and consultations with the leading scholars in such diverse fields as Yiddish Culture, Hebrew Grammar, Archaeology, Talmud, Medieval Jewish History, Ethnomusicology, and Orthodontia, as if they all had nothing better to do. Hundreds upon hundreds of records and lists came to our attention: “The Most Tuna Fish Sandwiches Eaten by a Kosher-eating Jew on a Road Trip”; “Slowest Hebrew Typist”: “Longest Surviving Close Jewish Friend of Joseph Stalin” — these are just some of the lists that ended up on the cutting room floor as we were forced to reduce the selection to a bare minimum in accordance with the ancient Jewish doctrine against causing unnecessary suffering to other human beings. We have tried to be honest and accurate, often to no avail. Some of the manuscripts examined were blurred with age or spilt coffee, so dates may be off by a year or two. Some of the interviewees were blurred with age as well, so some spelling and names might also be off. Don’t be so picky. Look, we have tried our best. And that’s a lot more than a lot of political leaders have done, you’ve got to admit.