Sheldon wrote:

>Jewish funerals are the best... no food except maybe plain sponge cake,
>but everyone gets plastered to the gills on Fleishman's rye whiskey and
>Slivavitz.
>
>
>
I think you'd need to get plastered. I've only ever been to one Jewish
funeral, and I didn't go to anything afterwards (actually it was all
terribly complicated, the deceased was *** and his parents wouldn't
acknowledge his partner), but the funeral was just the bleakest I've
ever been to, cold and comfortless both physically and ceremonially.

By way of cheerng us up I am reminded of an allegedly Jewish joke that
actually has universal application.

The rabbi is on holiday and his locum has to do a funeral for a chap
he's never met. Before the ceremony he approaches members of the
congregation for information about the deceased so that he can run up a
eulogy. Every comment is negative. Time's getting on so he has to
proceed. Comes the appropriate moment and he asks the mourners "Does
nobody have anything positive to say about this man?" After a minute an
old guy in the back row raises his hand and says "His brother was worse!"

Christine