true story

this true story was psoted on a joke thread in the YWN

Maurice, a young Jew comes to North London and applies for a job as caretaker at the Edgware Synagogue. The synagogue committee were just about to offer him the job when they discover that he is illiterate. They decide for many reasons that it would be inappropriate to have an illiterate caretaker. So Maurice leaves and decides to forge a career in another business. He chooses to sell plastic goods door to door. He does well and soon is able to buy a car and later, to open a store, and then a second. Finally he is ready to open 5 more stores and so applies to the bank for a loan. But when the bank manager asks him to sign the contract, it was obvious that he could not write. Shocked to discover that this successful young man had little education, the bank manager says, “Just think what you could have been if you had learned to read and write.”

“Yes,” says Maurice, “I would be caretaker at Edgware synagogue.

The yid was R’ Getzel Berger, although not illiterate eh couldn’t read or write the English alphabet

I heard that before the war he lived for a short time in Frankfurt. Unfortunately a well educated professional made fun of R’ Getael as an Ost -yid. As the situation worsened in Germany they both escaped to the East end in london. The professional was limited by lack of local qualifications, and lived out his life in dire poverty, while R’ Getzel had the innovative to peddle whatever he could from door to door, until he became fabulously wealthy.