Yiddish and Laughter

The Talmud tells us that a certain Rabbi would begin his class  with a joke, to relax his students, and make them more receptive to the  lesson that followed. It also tells us that Elijah, when asked who  deserved the ultimate reward of Heaven, pointed to two jokesters who  were making people smile and laugh. Jewish people have great experience  in laughing and joking to get through difficult times. We are living in  difficult times. Rabbi Schechter will help us!

“Laughter is healthy. Doctors prescribe laughter” Sholom Aleichem-

Barry Schechter is Rabbi of Congregation Kol Emeth in Skokie. Born  and raised in London, England, he studied Talmud at Gateshead Yeshivah,  and economics at Cambridge, Essex, and Northwestern Universities.

After working as an economist in Washington D.C., he moved to Chicago and joined Kol Emeth.

He has taught classes and given lectures on Yiddish (the language  he heard at home that gives him the greatest joy) and Hebrew, as well as  Eastern European Jewish History, and Jewish Humor, at libraries,  universities, Jewish institutions in the U.S. and overseas, and, of  course, for YIVO.

All his talks at his own synagogue and and elsewhere have been  infused with the humor that earned him the title “Chicago’s Funniest  Rabbi” in the Chicago Jewish News.