by Rabbi Yoseph Kahanov Shliach to Jacksonville, FL
In the early 1900’s, the tenements of Manhattan’s Lower East Side were populated with Jewish immigrants. A Rabbi, who resided in the ghetto-like community, once attended an ecumenical function at which a notoriously anti-Semitic Episcopalian Minister was in attendance.
“What a coincidence!” remarked the minister upon encountering the Rabbi: “It was just last night that I dreamt I was in Jewish Heaven.”
“Jewish Heaven?” mused the Rabbi. “What is it like in Jewish Heaven?”
“Oh!” replied the minister, “in Jewish Heaven children with unclean faces, shirts un-tucked and clothes un-pressed, play in the dirt. Women haggle with fruit-vendors, as panhandlers rudely interrupt. Wash hangs from a maze of clotheslines, the dripping water adding to an already muddy surface. And of course,” continued the minister with a wry grin, “There are plenty of Rabbis running to and fro, with large tomes tucked under their arms!”