A Good Joke

This is a joke heard from Itzhak Perlman, violinist:

A Russian teacher told his pupils that he would quiz them on history by giving them a year, and they should then tell what important thing happened in that year. He started with “1799”. No response from the students. Finally he shouted that they were idiots and complete dunderheads because 1799 was the birth year of the great Russian poet Pushkin. He then said that he would give another date, that was so easy that even they could get it - “1812”. Still silence, until finally, Moishe, a young Jewish lad, spoke up and said “Pushkin’s bar mitzvah?”