Two Jews on a Train: Stories from the Old Country and the New

""All Eastern European Jewish jokes start this way, or almost."" So says French/Hungarian novelist Adam Biro of Two Jews on a Train (trans. by Catherine Tihanyi) of his collection of 22 anecdotes, many of which were told to him by his father and grandfather. From ""Fish Heads"" (two men trick a Hungarian officer into believing these are the secret to Jewish intelligence) to ""Golf"" (a rabbi goes golfing alone on the Sabbath and makes all holes-in-one God's punishment: no one will believe him), these good-natured shorts are more likely to elicit smiles than laughs.