Sunday, December 9, 2018

Back in the days when Ex-Lax was trying to corner the Yeshiva University market

In 1926, the Teachers Institute at Yeshivat Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan (Later known as Yeshiva University) published Nir ניר, being a collection of articles by members of the Institution on various subjects. On the back cover, appears an entertaining advertisement foe Ex-Lax, a popular cure for constipation. The advertisement encourages all to purchase for just 10c a small carton of Ex-Lax at your local pharmacy and by morning, you will know why Ex-Lax is the favored cure used by all that were created in the image of God.

This advertisement is a great example of the now forgotten art of crafting ads for the learned Jew, where the ads were written in a tongue-in-cheek Biblical Hebrew style, made to leave a lasting impression on it's reader. The advertisement reads:
מחר יהיה האות הזה
הלילה קחו לכם בבית המרקחת בעד עשרה סנטים
קופסא אחת של של 
עקס-לאקס
הרפואה היותר בדוקה לעצירות
מחר ותדעו מדוע חביב עקס-לאקס על כל הנברא בצלם בכל קצבי הארץ




I suspect that it is no coincidence, that Israel Matz, the founder and owner of Ex-lax, was a patron of many Jewish Institutions in New York, including the Yeshivat Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan.

1 comment:

  1. I can only imagine how the cook at the Yeshiva got offended after this advertisement was published.

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