Humanising Language Teaching
Year 1; Issue 4; June 1999

Dear Editor,

A friend and professional colleague recently informed me about your site's "Jewish Joke", so I visited the site to see it for myself.

No doubt, the presence of this blatantly anti-Semitic lampoon is the result of what might be called an insensitive editorial oversight. The suggestion that it could be used as an educational instrument certainly does not support the concept of "humanising language teaching".

As a language teaching professional and an everyday mensch I kindly request that you remove this cruel obscenity from your site.

While I am normally not a one for ethnic humor, may I suggest the following joke as a possible alternative to the to the one currently displayed.:

Two Polish Jews meet in London.

"What are you doing here?" one of them asks the other.

"I came here to polish up my English."

"Believe me", replies the first, "your English is Polish enough!"

Warren Rosenzweig

(The editorial in Issue 3 discusses the matter raised here.)