(WARNING: This column contains what people call, “leitzanus d’avoda zara,” not that the avoda zara needs my help making fun of it. It sort of takes care of itself. If you are for whatever reason sensitive to such jokes, this might be the wrong newspaper for you.)
Most of us don’t take a whole lot of time to learn about Greece, for whatever reason. All we know is that at some point they used to be this major world power, and now they’re a funny little country that nobody really talks about anymore, and their chief export is yogurt.
(Insert your Greek culture joke here.)
What happened?
But any non-Jew will tell you that the Greeks invented numerous things like writing, musical instruments, and taking credit for things that other cultures invented. Not to mention Mathematics, Science, Language Arts, History, Gym, and Free Periods.
So here’s a bunch of fun facts about Greece, some of which are considerably more fun than others:
- Almost no one alive today can locate Greece on a map.
- Okay, you know how Italy is shaped like a boot? Greece is shaped like a hill that the boot is about to step on and go sliding down into Libya. And between them is the Ionian Sea, named after Yavan, or possibly one of his descendants named Yavan.
- 80% of Greece is mountains, their coastline is 9,000 miles long, and you’re never more than 85 miles from the sea. Basically, most of one’s time in Greece is spent trying not fall into the Mediterranean.
- One of the great strengths of Greek architecture is their columns. This is because one of the great weaknesses of Greek architecture is their roofs. Go to any Greek historic site, and you’ll see columns, but you’ll rarely see roofs.
- The most famous temple in Greece was the Parthenon, which served first as a place to worship Greek gods, and then later as a storehouse for treasure, a church, a mosque and finally a storage building for gunpowder by the Ottomans (of Turkey) who had taken over Athens. And then, in 1687, during a battle in which the Greeks were trying to retake the city, the Greeks accidentally blew it up with a single hit from a cannonball. Oops. This is why there’s no roof.
- The Greeks invented bedsheets, but they were unsure of what to do with them.
- The Greeks, culturally, put no importance in being on time, and are known for being late to everything. Basically, they claim to have invented Jewish time. In fact, Chanukah was supposed to happen before Purim, but the Greeks got there late.
- Waving at someone in Greece is considered an insult. Instead, you give a casual nod from across the way. Or you do the zero-negiah kiss-on-both-cheeks thing.
- According to Greek promotional materials, Greece is the third largest producer of olives in the world, after Spain and Italy. But they still had to touch ours.
- The Greeks may have invented lying down while eating. But they did not invent the Heimlich.
- The Greeks may have invented shaking hands, just like the Yidden may have invented faking a cold. They probably invented it to avoid waving.
- The ancient Greeks invented the yo-yo, which is said to be the second oldest toy in the world. (The oldest toy is mentchies.) In fact, a Greek vase dating from 440 BCE shows a boy playing with a wooden spool and string with a mother nearby yelling, “Not near my new vase!”
- The Greeks invented the marathon during the Greek-Persian Wars, when, after the Battle of Marathon, which took place in the town of Marathon, a man named Pheidippides ran 26 miles all the way to Athens to announce the victory. As soon as he got to Athens, he breathed, “Victory!” and then he collapsed and died on the spot. And people took one look and said, “We should do that too!”
- The one other famous battle of the Greek-Persian Wars, besides the Battle of Marathon, was the Battle of Salamis. That probably would have been a hoot to watch. Were people just hitting each other with sausages, or was it more like a cook-off, or what?
- There is a famous Greek story about how they conquered the city of Troy, which had a huge wall that they could not penetrate. The Greeks pretended to give up and sail home, but they left an enormous fake horse outside the wall as a hostess gift. So the Trojans peeked outside, and they said, “Hey! Free horse!” And they brought it inside the city with no thought as to whether they actually needed a giant fake horse or where their wives would let them store such a thing. Unbeknownst to them, there were Greek soldiers inside the horse waiting to sneak out in middle of the night and open the gates.
- According to most accounts, there were about 40 soldiers in the horse, which leads to a lot of questions, namely: They needed 40 people to open the gates? How complicated were these gates? Wouldn’t more people increase the risk of discovery? And how bad did that horse smell?
- But they did win, and sure enough today, the city that is thought to be Troy is now part of Turkey! Because other stuff has no doubt happened since then. Possibly something involving a giant bird. Full of explosives.
- The Ancient Greeks believed in literally hundreds of gods, so you can imagine how many mitzvos they had.
- Milah was not one of them.
- The largest mountain in Greece is Mount Olympus, which has several peaks, and which is where their 12 main gods lived, they heard. This location made it harder for the gods to bring in groceries. But their homes were more protected from flood damage.
- Ancient Greeks believed that Mount Olympus was home to the gods. They later learned that they had misheard, and it was actually home to the goats.
- According to the story, the gods started living on Mount Olympus after they defeated their predecessors. Predecessors. Apparently, I don’t know how gods work.
- Every god had his or her own little job, because they couldn’t do everything. They’re only human. So for example, there was one god who was called “the messenger of the gods” because he ran really fast. Because the gods couldn’t just appear to each other or invent some supernatural form of texting. They needed a guy to run back and forth up and down the mountains. Until he died, and they said, “Let’s make an Olympics or something!”
- And there were hundreds of side gods, such as Tartarus, the god of that sauce that you put on fish; Eupraxia, the god of unknown medications you have to recommend to your doctor; Lampades, the god of living room decor; and Acheron, who is everyone’s favorite.
- The old statues in Greece were originally painted in many colors, experts say. They’ve become white over the years because of pigeons.
- In Greece, finding a coin baked into your slice of the New Year’s cake is believed to bring good luck. Not finding the coin is bad luck.
- There is an old Greek custom to break plates at weddings (but not just one), while at the same time yelling, “Opa!”, which means “German grandfather.”
- This custom has been discontinued, because the caterers were getting upset.
- Mount Olympus was first climbed (by humans) in 1913, and the climbers found no gods. But they did find plenty of goats, including a goat of war, a messenger goat, and a goat of living rom décor.
- The Greeks invented the instruments used for trepanning, which is the medical process of cutting a hole in the skull to release the evil spirits that cause migraines. Because the evil spirits are like flies, who could not figure out to use the five holes that already exist in your head. Remarkably, trepanning resulted in fewer deaths than one might expect.
- During checkups, doctors would taste the patient’s earwax. Bitter earwax was a sign of good health, and sweet earwax was a sign of illness. Doctors were super dedicated in those days, though they were often sick with stomach issues. Nowadays, doctors just send stuff to a lab, where the lab techs taste it.
- Hippocrates also gave doctors the Hippocratic oath, which states, “Do no evil, see no evil, but yeah, occasionally taste evil.”
- The Greeks made several major contributions to mathematics. For example, Pythagoras came up with the Pythagorean theorem, which allows you to figure out the length of a side of a right triangle if you don’t have a ruler but still somehow know the length of the other two sides.
- Another famous Greek mathematician was Archimedes, who derived an accurate approximation of pi, without which countless corny jokes would be impossible.
- Potatoes are very popular in Greece, but they weren’t introduced until 1828, when the governor at the time, Ioannis Kapodistrias, brought in a shipment for people to try, but no one would take them. “They’re what part of the plant?” everyone wanted to know.
- So instead, he ordered that the sacks of potatoes be unloaded on public display and left them in a field with some guards who were told to watch the potatoes, but not well. Over the course of the night, various townspeople broke in and stole every single potato, and now the Greeks love potatoes, and their lifespan is just a little bit shorter.
- To this day, my wife has a friend who does something similar with trash in Amazon boxes on her front porch.
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia, a monthly humor columnist, and has written six books, all published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
