Thy tongue – thine enemy

Grigory Pasko, journalist

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For starters, a joke. A man comes to a rabbi:
“Rebbe, I’m a Jew, but I don’t know the language or the customs or the history of my people. Where should I start in order to become a real Jew?”
The rabbi replies:
“On Friday evening, drink a glass of good wine.”
“That’s all?”
“For starters… that’s enough.”

And now, a story. This happened not so long ago. At the start of the winter I was changing the rubber on the car. Also standing in the queue for the tire shop was the «zhigul» [a «Zhiguli», the ubiquitous Russian car known as a «Lada» abroad–Trans.] of a young person – a typical Muscovite: insolent, with a beer belly, a blabbermouth…He, looking at the Tadjiks, or maybe it was Moldovans, toiling in the tire shop, produced a monologue of approximately such a content: