The synagoge and the Catholic church stood just across the street from each other. The two congregations had fine relations, except there was a good deal of rivalry. If the parish planted a hedge around the church, the Jewish community painted the synagogue, so the parish put a new roof on the church, so.... (and on and on).

It was the priest's birthday. The parish chipped together to buy the priest a new Buick to go around and visit the poor and sick. So it wouldn't be lost on their friends across the street, they had a ceremony on the front lawn, and christened the car with holy water.

Indeed, the occasion was not lost on the Jewish community. Luckily it was soon the rabbi's birthday. They bought him a Cadillac. At THEIR front-yard ceremony they cut two inches off the tailpipe!

What is privately most funny about that story to me is that it was told to me by an orthodox Jew in his wife's presence. She looked blank. She didn't get the joke, and her husband had to explain it to her!

Dave Oesterreich