Motke Chabad
Motke Chabad (Mordechai Chabad) (c.1820-c.1880) was a Jewish Lithuanian (litvak) joker (badchen) from Vilnius known from many Jewish jokes.[1][2][3]
- Moredchai complained: "Had God willed it, I could have made a hundred golden rubles yesterday". People asked: "How could that be?" He replied: "A rich matron said she would give me one hundred golden rubles to look upon me." They told him: "Mordechai, you fool, why did you refuse?" He answered: "I did not refuse. It was just that she was blind in both eyes".[4]
In many jokes he is an archetypal schlemiel, misfortunate in his endeavors.[3]
Some jokes of Motke Chabad are ascribed to Hershele Ostropoler and vice versa.[5]
References
- "Motke Habad", by Gershon Winer
- Arie Sover, Jewish Humor: An Outcome of Historical Experience, Survival and Wisdom p. 55
- Sanford Pinsker, The Schlemiel as Metaphor: Studies in Yiddish and American Jewish Fiction, pp. 11, 12
- From the collection Sefer ha-bdikha ve-ha-khidud [The book of Jokes and Wit] by Alter Druyanov, vol. 1, joke no. 2177, as cited by Arie Sover
- Haim Schwarzbaum, Studies in Jewish and World Folklore, pp. 200, 268
Further reading
- Der Velt Barimter Komiker Motke Habad
- M. Shtern Motke Chabad. Zayne aneḳdoten, ṿitsen, stsenes un shṭuḳes (free read and download, in Yiddish; reprinted by the National Yiddish Book Center)
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