[From the web....]
I recently happened to be reminded of an epigram attributed to William Norman Ewer (1885-1975), a British journalist and occasional poet. His interests and enthusiasms included foreign affairs and guild socialism, followed by Communism and then anti-Communism, and he seems to have been a Soviet spy for a while in the 1920s. But I had heard of him only as the (alleged) coiner of this little doggerel:
How odd of God/
To choose the Jews.
The Wikipedia entry on Ewer, from which I quoted that, observes that "This is often taken, with some justification, to be anti-Semitic in intent, though it would have passed at the time as wit."
But be that as it may ... Wikipedia then goes on to collect some variants and rejoinders:
It provoked at least three capping replies.
is attributed to Leo Rosten.
- Not odd of God. / Goyim annoy 'im
is given as Cecil Brown's or Ogden Nash's.
- But not so odd
- As those who choose
- A Jewish god
- Yet spurn the Jews
Another runs, "Not so odd / The Jews chose God."
Even more effective is the anonymous
- How strange of man
- To change the plan
