Jewish Humor Central is a daily publication to start your day with news of the Jewish world that's likely to produce a knowing smile and some Yiddishe nachas. It's also a collection of sources of Jewish humor--anything that brings a grin, chuckle, laugh, guffaw, or just a warm feeling to readers.
Our posts include jokes, satire, books, music, films, videos, food, Unbelievable But True, and In the News. Some are new, and some are classics. We post every morning, Sunday through Friday. Enjoy!
Thanks to our loyal subscribers and casual readers in 160 countries who have joined us during the year. We started this blog on October 5, 2009 and it's been going strong with more than 600 blog entries over the last two years. We appreciate your loyalty and we hope to keep bringing you a daily mix of Jewish humor in all of its forms -- traditional, eclectic, unbelievable but true, and just funny, tempered with touches of nostalgia and Yiddishe nachas.
We'll be attending Rosh Hashanah and Shabbat services for the next three days, and we'll be back posting again on Sunday. Here's wishing you and your families a happy, healthy, joyous, prosperous and funny New Year!
The Kustanowitz Kronikle is our Rosh Hashanah Greeting Card.
Among the films featured at the 2011 Rutgers Jewish Film Festival in New Brunswick, New Jersey next month will be the Israeli hit TV show Srugim, now in its third season, that depicts the singles life in Jerusalem's Katamon neighborhood. The show has become popular with both religious and secular Israelis.
As Sandy Chertok wrote in JewCentral.com during Srugim's first season,
Just when you thought you’ve seen it all, Laizy Shapiro created a TV show in Israel about single religious modern orthodox singles who live in Jerusalem called “Srugim.” “Srugim” is one of the top rated TV shows airing in Israel.
“Srugim” resembles “Friends” in the manner that it revolves around a young group of friends who are trying to establish themselves in the workplace while searching for love. This group of friends includes a graphic designer, an accountant, a biblical studies major, a grammar teacher, and a doctor. What makes the show unique is the fact that all of these friends are observant modern orthodox Jews. Many episodes feature Shabbat meals, men and women davening, and men wearing kippot. The show features the struggles that some of the characters have being religious while trying to date or make a living.
Srugim is also being shown this month on The Jewish Channel, a $5 per month offering on Cablevision. The Jewish Channel is showing all fourteen episodes of the first season, in Hebrew with English subtitles.
The Rutgers showings will feature the first three episodes on Sunday, October 30 at 7:30 p.m. and the next three episodes on Sunday, November 6 at 7:30 pm. Tickets for each showing cost $12, with Seniors paying $10 and Students paying $6. The October 30 session will include a talk by Shayna Weiss, of New York University and co-creator of the blog "Srugim Recap."
The following trailer should give you a good idea of what the show is like. Enjoy!
Orthodox Jewish women have traditionally shied away from wearing clothing that shows too much skin. But according to an article in the current issue of The Jewish Daily Forward, a growing number of women living in Brooklyn are showing interest in pushing the limits of tznius (modesty) and choosing outfits that reveal a bit more than usual.
Here are some excerpts from Paul Berger's article in the Forward:
Around her in the Frock Swap, an Orthodox clothing business celebrating its first anniversary, were women pushing the boundaries of modesty: an exposed elbow here, a bare collarbone there, a skirt that ended at just the wrong side of a pair of knees. Many were on the lookout for unique outfits for the coming High Holy Days. Some were engaged in angst-ridden mental calculations about whether an item was tznius — modest according to Jewish law — and if not, how it could be altered.
For some women, what other members of the community think is of little importance so long as their husbands, and perhaps their rabbis, approve. But they must also pay attention if they want their child to attend the right yeshiva. Chaya Chanin, a mother of two who co-founded the Frock Swap with her sister, Simi Polonsky, and lives in Crown Heights, said, “There are schools in the neighborhood who will only accept [students of] parents if they dress in a certain way.”
Polonsky, Chanin and a few helpers were dressed in snug black T-shirts emblazoned with the Frock Swap name on the front, and slogans on the back that ranged from the innocent “Dare To Be a Frock Star” to the more provocative “Like I Give a Frock.” At the front of the store, a speaker blasted out a range of music from Aretha Franklin to Eminem. By midday the store was alive with about a dozen women — some with strollers, others carrying babies under their arms. Even some girls from a local yeshiva stopped by in their uniforms to flick through the racks of clothing.
“It’s very personal for each woman,” Silverberg said of the mental calculations that went into a decision about what to wear. “I feel that what Halacha gives us is a gift of laws that can outline how to be self-dignified.” But she added, “There’s no law against looking beautiful.” Avigayil Waxman, 19, who looked striking in a baggy orange shirt and a black-and-white pencil skirt that ended above the knee, said it was a battle for every girl trying to be fashionable and tznius. “Everyone defines it differently,” she said.
Check out the video below and see what sexy tznius will look like this Rosh Hashanah. Enjoy!
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Planning to dip apples and challah in honey on Rosh Hashanah? How about dipping a piece of challah stuffed with apple chunks covered with cinnamon? Yum!
Montreal Mom, a website by Tanya Toledano that offers valuable tips, tools, guides, recipes, and jmuch more to moms, posted a recipe this week for a new twist on challah for Rosh Hashanah. It's an apple cinnamon pull-apart challah that's so easy to make, it's a fun activity to share with the kids and grandkids. And though making challah can be a time-consuming and messy process, the video that Tanya posted shows how easy it can be, especially if you start with frozen challah dough that you don't have to make from scratch.
We decided to give it a try and bought a box of Kinneret frozen round challah dough (15 oz.) and followed the instructions on the box. We also followed Tanya's instructions, but doubled the cinnamon to accommodate the size of the challah (her video uses 8 oz. of dough). We let the frozen challah defrost for 6 hours and then flattened it, made a pouch, and stuffed it with a Macintosh apple cut into small chunks and rolled in cinnamon with a touch of sugar. All we had to do then was twist off five balls of dough, each with some apples in them, position them in a round aluminum pan, and bake for about 45 minutes in a 350 degree oven. The result: You can see it in the photo above. It was delicious! Give it a try for a sweet New Year!
(A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS: THE VIDEO IS NOT VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY. YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.)
When we dip an apple in honey on Rosh Hashana to symbolize our hope for a sweet New Year, we usually take the conventional route of slicing an apple and either dipping the slice in a container of honey or dipping a spoon in the honey and putting it on the apple slice.
But anything goes on the internet, and we found a new variation on this traditional practice, thanks to Mendy Pellin. Mendy is a Chabad Chasidic comic whom we profiled in March 2010 and again in December 2010.
When it comes to doing a mitzvah, or even just a custom, some Jews go out of their way to use the most beautiful and expensive objects to show their love for the ritual. Buying a perfect etrog for Sukkot and the most expensive Shmura matzah for Pesach are examples of this hiddur mitzvah.
In this short video, Mendy takes this practice to a new level. Enjoy!
The New York Film Festival is coming to Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall from September 30 through October 16. One of the featured films is a wry comedy called Footnote, in Hebrew with English subtitles, which won the Best Screenplay prize at Cannes this year for filmmaker Joseph Cedar. Footnote will be shown Monday night, October 11 at 9 pm and Tuesday, October 12 at 6 pm. We're planning to attend the Monday showing. If you're in New York, why not join us?
Here's a synopsis of the plot, followed by a video trailer for the film. Enjoy!
Thanks to a clerical error, Eliezer Shkolnik, a respected if little-known Talmudic scholar, is informed that he’s won the coveted Israel Prize; in truth, the prize was meant for his son, Uriel, a much more flamboyant, widely-read Talmudist. The authorities ask Uriel to help them rectify the situation, but Uriel argues the case for his father’s deserving the honor; meanwhile, Eliezer plans to use the occasion as an opportunity to intellectually take down his son and the whole generation of a la mode Talmudists. Cedar has here created the wryest of Jewish comedies, a emotional competition that pits father against son, built around the understanding of sacred texts. Rarely has the weight of a culture’s intellectual past been depicted so forecefully, nor shown to be as vibrant.
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In 2006, cartoonist Drew Friedman, son of author and satirist Bruce Jay Friedman, published the first of what would be a series of three books, Old Jewish Comedians. The books are collections of portraits of famous and forgotten Jewish comics of film and TV in their old age, about which Steven Heller, in the New York Times Book Review, wrote: "A festival of drawing virtuosity and fabulous craggy faces... Friedman might very well be the Vermeer of the Borscht Belt."
Last Thursday, some of the old comics and many of their fans got together at a book-warming party at the Friars' Club in New York City to celebrate the publication of Friedman's third and newest volume, Even More Old Jewish Comedians.
Some of the old-timers who showed up were Stewie Stone, Larry Storch, Bobby Ramsen, and Abe Vigoda. When his turn came at the podium, Storch told a few old jokes and recalled some incidents involving Myron Cohen, Buddy Hackett, Jerry Lewis, Mickey Freeman, and Freddie Roman.
Here's a seven minute video showing some highlights of the evening. Enjoy!
Spencer Tunick, the photographer who has made a name for himself by photographing large numbers of nude men and women at photogenic locations around the world, invited hundreds of Israelis and tourists to take off all their clothes and pose in the nude at the Dead Sea last Shabbat for his "Naked Sea" project. About 1,200 between the ages of 18 and 77 participated in the event.
Most of the nude participants were men, and a separate photo shoot was arranged for women, mostly covered with Dead Sea mud. It's not clear if this was for artistic reasons or because of protests from religious members of the Knesset. Right wing MK Zevulun Orlev (Habayit Hayehudi ) even called it "Sodom and Gomorrah" and an offense to public decency.
Tunick has been doing his nude photography shtick for years and explains that he's doing it for the artistic value but also to promote social causes. In the case of Israel and the Dead Sea, he says that he's trying to raise awareness for the disappearing body of water and the need to preserve it.
The quiet of the photo shoot was interrupted by Peeping Toms who hovered above the models in powered parachutes. Some of them were equipped with large photographic lenses, which was against all preceding promises and customary rules. In addition, some of the photographers who came to document the event broke the rules and used larger lenses than were allowed.
After two years of raising funds and sponsorships, with great difficulty, a major donor canceled his contribution at the last moment, putting the entire project at risk. "It's nerve-racking," admits Gottesmann. "It won't stop us, but it was a major setback at this advanced stage."
Despite all the obstacles, the project was confirmed and went ahead.
Here's a video of one of many TV reports of the event. Enjoy!
Shofar blowers around the world gathered yesterday for a planned global blow-in (or is it blow-out?).
Organized by Art Kibbutz NYC, the event was designed as a worldwide art performance that takes the Jewish tradition of sounding the Shofar daily during the Hebrew month of Elul (which precedes the Jewish High Holidays) and gives it a 21st century, postmodern twist.
A large group of artists and creative volunteers assembled on Sunday, September 18th in New York City, Jerusalem, Budapest, Kiev, Tbilisi, Belarus, Tulsa, St. Louis, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Chicago, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Oakland. The plan was for all participants to blow the Shofar together at designated public spaces around the world for two minutes as a call for teshuvah (spiritual return). This is the first-ever FlashMob utilizing a Shofar. Each participating location was to be synchronized with other FlashMob locations, globally.
This spiritual public art event will be documented and incorporated into a Rosh Hashana electronic greeting card, orchestrated by a composer. At press time, world-class musicians and artists are starting to join the project, so check the website for new developments daily.
We suspect that flashmob purists won't accept these gatherings as true flashmobs because they don't share the fundamental characteristic of a flash mob -- seemingly random individuals suddenly coming together, performing their number, and then just as suddenly disappearing into the crowd. But hey, let's give them the benefit of the doubt.
We can't wait until the 15 or more videos are edited and combined into a single video greeting, so we're giving you a sneak preview of two of the Shofar blowing sessions, outside of Wrigley Field in Chicago, and at Alamo Square in San Francisco. Enjoy!
Eleanor Reissa has sung all over the world in solo shows, with bands and orchestras, in English and in Yiddish, in small private venues and in thousand seat theatres.
Her solo show, Hip, Heymish, and Hot, garnered rave reviews off-Broadway and in Florida’s Parker Playhouse.
Besides singing solo, she has sung with Theo Bikel, Mike Burstyn, Bruce Adler, Claire Barry, Neil Sedaka, the Klezmer Conservatory Band, Frank London and the Klezmatics and many many others.
Last October, Reissa performed in concert at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in downtown New York. In this video clip, she sings the yiddish song Freylakh Zayn (Be Happy). But in a comedic introduction to the song for non-Yiddish speakers, she launches into a description of Jewish life in Brooklyn and why it's OK to be happy, but not too happy. Enjoy!
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We're big fans of Rabbi Bob Alper, standup comedian. In 2009 and 2010 we profiled the 66-year-old Reform rabbi who enthralls audiences with clean jokes in nightclubs, synagogues, community centers, and at private parties.
Now, Rabbi Bob has come up with a new standup set, recorded recently before a live audience at the University of Michigan. We thought you'd welcome a few good laughs as we head into the weekend.
Pulpit rabbis all over the world are busy this week writing and rehearsing their sermons for the largest audiences they are likely to have all year -- on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Because most of them are delivering their sermons live, they'll only have one chance to get their message across. But some rabbis will be creating video sermons, which will likely go through multiple takes to produce an acceptable final version.
Chabad Multimedia takes a funny look at what might happen if Rabbi Itche Kadoozy stood before the video camera and needed 255 takes to end up with a winning video. Enjoy!
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In 1986, twenty people constructed and burned an 8 foot tall effigy of a man on a beach in San Francisco to celebrate the summer solstice in September. Admission was free.
By 2011, the event, now called Burning Man, had migrated to a dry lake bed in northern Nevada, with more than 53,000 people in attendance, ticket prices up to $360, and ending with the burning of a wooden effigy 120 feet tall.
Why would so many people come to a forsaken desert without accommodations and facilities and pay for the privilege? And is there anything particularly Jewish about Burning Man?
For the past few years, there has been a noticeable Jewish presence at the festival, but not one that appears to be sponsored by the likes of UJA, Federation, or Hadassah. Counterculture-minded Jews, mostly with an artistic bent, have carved out some uniquely Jewish space, and filled it with their interpretations of Shabbat and Jewish life.
On a Friday night in early September, more than 150 people gathered under a domelike open structure built in the desert to sing, pray, light candles and share in the traditions of the Sabbath. The open-air design, decorated with colorful scarves and an illuminated Star of David, is not the typical place you might imagine celebrating the Sabbath.
In the middle of the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, more than 53,000 participants came to experience the 25th year of Burning Man, a counterculture city that comes to life for eight days each year. Based on 10 principles, including radical self-expression, self-reliance, leaving no trace and communal effort, Burning Man is the extreme sport of summer festivals. Facing dry, sizzling summer days, cold nights and 70-mile-an-hour dust storms, participants are pushed to their limits.
At first glance it may look like an idyllic scene from a Disney fantasy, but the reality is far less sanitized. Starting at sunrise, but not ending at sunset, there is a constant flow of booze at themed bars scattered around the playa. For those who avail them, there are also substances to help people enjoy Burning Man from an altered state of mind.
Refuge can easily be taken at one of the many themed camps at Burning Man. Sukkat Shalom, meaning “shelter of peace,” is a Jewish-themed camp that attracts about 80 people (Jews and non-Jews) who camp and take part in the community, sharing in the responsibilities of cooking and programming. While there are many camps at Burning Man, the majority of them are jocular and few are overtly religious. If any belief is mentioned, it is usually spirituality.
Sukkat Shalom hosted the Friday night meal, along with some of the services, and had the largest turnout since the camp was started. Josh Finn, who had flown in from Massachusetts, reflected on the large showing of people, saying, “There is something very Burning Man about Shabbat: being together with the community, looking inward and getting away from the day to day.”
The people who attended Sabbath services at Sukkat Shalom came from a wide variety of Jewish backgrounds. Though the lack of tznius, or modesty, probably limited the more Orthodox, observant Jews, all were welcomed in the space, including Israelis and even those without a Jewish upbringing. Some dressed in eye-catching costumes, others were scantily clad, while many donned yarmulkes and dressed in a more conservative style.
This story needs a video to let you really experience the festival, and Ben Harris, JTA's The Wandering Jew puts you right in the middle of the action in a video of the 2009 event. The video carries the following warning:
Breakdancing has become popular in Israel over the last few years. Dvir Rozen has been a major influence on this pop culture phenomenon, by directing the Israel Breakdancing Association, and starting his own company, Street Art Productions. Recently, his crew performed a breakdance version of West Side Story at the Zoa Theater in Tel Aviv.
With Rosh Hashanah only 16 days away, Rozen and his company have collaborated with the veteran outreach organization, Aish Hatorah, to produce a rousing Rosh Hashanah breakdance greeting.
Headquartered in Jerusalem near the Western Wall, Aish.com is a division of Aish HaTorah, an apolitical network of Jewish educational centers in 35 branches on five continents. This partnership enables Aish.com users to experience the richness of community at an Aish branch.
The name Aish HaTorah literally means "Fire of Torah." As Elie Weisel said: "Aish HaTorah means to me the passion of teaching, the passion of learning. The study of Torah, the source of Jewish values, is the way to Jewish survival."
The video starts out in a yeshiva study hall and quickly moves into the streets of the old city of Jerusalem. Our first reaction was "are these really yeshiva boys breakdancing with black hats, black velvet yarmulkes flying off and tzitzit flapping in the wind?" but we quickly realized that they were the professional breakdance group called Ariot Zion (Lions of Zion) led by Rozen himself, outfitted in yeshiva garb.
The breakdancing phenomenon was reported on by Israel21c in the video that follows what Aish.com calls its Rosh Hashanah Rock Anthem. Enjoy!
(A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS: THE VIDEO IS NOT VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY. YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.)
We've brought you renditions of Hava Nagila in more countries and provinces than we can name, but until now we haven't found one from British Columbia. This Canadian province, north of Seattle, Washington, is home to two musical genres that we wouldn't have put together, but they seem to have found each other.
The first is guitar, as exemplified by Colin Godbout, the Global Guitarist of Vancouver, and the second is the art of belly dancing, as performed by Asmira, who has been running a school of oriental bellydance for the past 24 years in Victoria, also in British Columbia.
Last month, Godbout joined Asmira in Victoria for a concert of music from countries along the route of the Orient Express, which ran between Paris and Istanbul. At the end of this performance, they joined in an encore of Hava Nagila, ending with a flourish of Miserlou, a popular Greek song about an Egyptian girl, usually played as a dance at Jewish weddings. Go figure, and enjoy!
On October 7, 2010, Mel Brooks and Dick Cavett got together for an hour-long conversation at the Saban Theater in Los Angeles. HBO is featuring this event this month, and we just finished watching the Friday night premiere that we recorded on our DVR. If you are a fan of Mel Brooks (and Carl Reiner), this is a must see.
Why Carl Reiner? Although he isn't on stage, about 10 minutes into the show, when a question comes up about the 2000 Year-Old-Man, an audience microphone is passed to him, and he just about steals the show with some very funny reminiscences about the origin of the famous sketch in 1950.
As Brian Lowery wrote in his review of the show in Variety,
Guffawing through "Mel Brooks and Dick Cavett Together Again" -- a joint stage appearance by the pair, selectively edited down to a little under an hour -- you wonder why they don't do things like this more often. After all, nothing could be cheaper than taping such an event; all you need is two raconteurs as skilled as Brooks and Cavett, plus a cameo by Carl Reiner from the audience. Sit back, relax and savor a genuine treat infused with Hollywood nostalgia, riotous storytelling and only a few easily forgiven drops of mutual admiration.
Brooks, 84 when the spec was shot last year, and Cavett, 11 years his junior, own the stage and the audience from the moment they sit down. Exhibiting an obvious rapport born from a long association, they simply swap stories about great luminaries from the past, from Brooks' hilarious dinner with Alfred Hitchcock (to whom he paid tribute with "High Anxiety") to Cavett's limousine ride with Fred Astaire.
Throw in an anecdote about Chico Marx propositioning Tallulah Bankhead (punch line: "And so you shall, you old-fashioned boy"), George Burns insulting Jack Benny, a young Cavett seeing Bob Hope perform, Frank Sinatra refusing to croon "Springtime for Hitler," and you'll dine out on the stories for weeks.
Are they true or mostly apocryphal? Frankly, who cares?
The pair also devote considerable time -- with an assist from Reiner -- to recalling the genesis of "The 2,000 Year Old Man," the party joke/writers' room exercise Reiner and Brooks parlayed into one of the most famous comedy routines of all time. In that context, Brooks still displays a quickness and dexterity of wit that should instill men half his age with envy and which surpasses most of his films.
During the conversation, Brooks calls Cavett "an amazing gentile", and cracks up when Cavett calls "chopped up liver" a Jewish expression. When telling of the decision to go ahead with the 2000 Year-Old-Man CD, Reiner says that he took an early copy to London to give to the queen mother in Buckingham Palace. He says that he knew he had to proceed with the project when "the world's biggest shiksa" liked it.
Here are a few clips from the show, which will be repeated on HBO Cablevision tonight (Sunday) at 10 pm and Monday at 11 pm. Enjoy!
(A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS: THE VIDEO IS NOT VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY. YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.)
With the Jewish New Year only 19 days away, we're starting our countdown to Rosh Hashanah with a musical greeting from the Fountainheads of Midreshet Ein Prat.
The Fountainheads are a group of young Israeli dancers, singers, actors and artists, all graduates and students of the Ein Prat Academy for Leadership, who have have joined forces to create new Jewish artistic content for today's Jewish World. All members of the group have spent time living and studying at the Ein Prat Academy, working to create a new Israeli-Jewish identity and building a strong and diverse community that celebrates Jewish life. The Fountainheads' work has already been enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people all over the world.
Earlier this year we shared videos by the Fountainheads to celebrate Purim and Pesach. Now we bring you their latest video conveying Rosh Hashanah wishes for a Happy New Year. We think it's their most energetic, enthusiastic, exuberant production yet. Enjoy!
(A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS: THE VIDEO IS NOT VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY. YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.)
(A tip of the kippah to Sheila Zucker for bringing this video to our attention.)
We thought you'd enjoy another skit from the Israeli series, Ktzarim, or short skits. In this one, a man comes to see a doctor because his friend has a gender problem. His friend thinks he has a woman inside his body. The woman has a man inside her body.
The doctor suggests surgery to correct the problem but the patient won't consider it because the second man also has a woman in his body, and this woman doesn't get along with the first woman. What a mess.
The doctor asks the man who came to see her if perhaps he is the "friend" with the gender problem. Then comes the unexpected revelation and conclusion. Enjoy!
Take an evening of musical comedy and pair it with a three course traditional kosher Jewish meal and you've got a winning combination -- the first and only English Haredi Dinner Theater production. Especially when it's in Jerusalem.
As Hillel Fendel wrote in reviewing the show for Arutz Sheva, Israel International News,
Produced by Simcha Inc., the show, entitled Dinner with Simcha, is a dramatic comedy that provides an inside look into the seemingly mysterious world of Chassidim in Israel. Its producers say it is the only show in the world written by, directed by, and starring a full cast of haredi-religious Jews.
The show’s narrator, known as Simcha Kolzman (literally, Joy All the Time), mingled cheerfully with the audience/diners in-between acts of the play recounting his life history - in story, song, and flashbacks to joyous occasions.
The play is the story of a mischievous Chassidic boy who stumbles along his journey through life, abruptly finding himself – at the age of 20 – preparing, like his peers, for marriage, for which he isn't ready. He has also moved from New York to Israel in the meantime. With the help of his father, alter-ego, and desperate prayer, he finally undergoes the necessary growth helping him to overcome the obstacles in his life - mainly himself.
Simcha’s wife – not seen, of course, in accordance with haredi customs of modesty – is a strong behind-the-scenes force. In the end, her identity comes as a surprise to the audience.
Yerachmiel Weiss, a former New Yorker who moved to Israel as a yeshiva student with Aish HaTorah, is the man responsible for bringing playwright and director Daniel Rubin’s screenplay to the Israeli stage. He was asked by Israel National News to describe his target audience.
“Many tourists who come to Israel are not at all familiar with Chassidic Jews,” Weiss said, “and view them as stern, foreign characters. We would like to attract them to our stage and enable them to see how the Chassidim come to life! The play depicts them as full of happiness, even as they undergo some difficult, real-life situations together with the many joyous occasions of the Jewish life cycle.”
His words remained with me as I walked home afterwards; every time I passed a hareidi-religious Jew on the street – frequently enough, in that neighborhood – I found myself expecting him to break out in song and a broad smile!
Weiss expects that there will be a market for the show. Though tickets are not cheap by Israeli standards, “they are quite reasonable for Americans – especially as they include a three-course meal at the same time!”
“As naturally as music, food, drink, and dancing run throughout Jewish life-events,” the organizers say, "so too do these elements run thematically throughout the performance. In combination with the theater experience, Dinner with Simcha is a sensory journey: taste, smell, vision, touch, sound, and soul.”
Check out the preview of this show in the video clip below. It looks like a good way to spend an evening the next time you visit Jerusalem. Enjoy!
Today we're sharing a current ten minute segment of Israel TV's Latma Tribal Update, a mock news show in the spirit of Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update. The news anchors call it the most objective news on television, without bias. American viewers might find the political commentary a little rougher and the satire a little more edgy, but that what comes with living in a tough neighborhood.
Topics covered in this episode include a jihadist's dream, the tent city protests now going on in Israel on the cost of housing, the war in Libya, and even hurricane Irene. There's also a commercial parody in the middle of the report.
Latma was awarded the Israel Media Watch 2011 prize, given to "organizations that made courageous, meaningful, and quality contributions to the criticism of the media in Israel". It was chosen by an online poll involving over 4,000 voters. According to Israel Media Watch, Latma brings balance to the left-wing bias of mainstream Israeli satire.
So here goes. You may want to watch the show more than once because the dialogue moves fast. Very fast. And remember, it's a parody, not real news. Enjoy!
It's no secret or surprise that singer Billy Joel is a member of the tribe. One of the great musicians of our time, with 150 million records sold, his music has been covered and parodied by Jewish singers and musicians and college a cappella groups. But he doesn't often talk about his Jewishness and it's hard to find anything particularly Jewish about his music.
This week the Israeli web site Ynet News published an article about a video that has just been released showing an interview with Joel on a German concert stage in 1995, in which he relates some of the experiences he had when he first discovered he was Jewish.
In the September 3 edition of Ynet News, David Shear writes:
On the sixth question in the series, his brother Alex Joel accompanied Billy onstage at Meistersinger Hall and translated the question from German into English. In his answer, Billy looks back on his life as a young child growing up in Hicksville, Long Island, a predominantly Christian neighborhood.
Regarding his circumcision he said, "I had the snip and I had nothing to say about it. I'm still a little pissed off about that."
Later on as a child, when Billy found out he was Jewish, he broke the news to the girl across the street, who replied, "You're going to grow up and have horns on your head." For months afterwards Joel would obsessively check his temples for signs of horns coming in.
It's a funny and very open discussion that all fans of Billy Joel should watch.
If you haven't visited Jerusalem this year and you're planning a trip soon, you may be surprised by the new look of the city.
August 19 marked the start of operations of Jerusalem's new light rail system, which runs from Pisgat Ze'ev in the northeast, south along Road 1 (intercity) to Jaffa Road (Rehov Yaffo). From there, it runs along Jaffa Road westward to the Jerusalem Central Bus Station, and continues to the southwest, crossing the Chords Bridge along Herzl Boulevard to the Beit HaKerem neighborhood, finishing just beyond Mount Herzl below Bayit VeGan.
The light rail system took a long time to construct and become operational, and there are plans to expand it beyond the 23 stops on what is called Line 1, or the Red Line.
As Oz Rosenberg wrote in Haaretz,
"There were a lot of difficulties along the way and we still haven't finished with all of them," said Transportation Ministry Director General Dan Harel, "but I promise that from this point, the improvement curve will be very rapid." Among the remaining matters to be dealt with, in addition to more efficient operation of the traffic signals, are air conditioning issues, electrical and communications problems and the operation of the ticketing system. The Jerusalem Municipality therefore announced this week that travel on the system for the first two weeks will be free of charge. Only part of the system will be operational at first, but those involved say the entire system will be up and running within about four months.
During that time, the frequency of the trains will increase and travel time will decrease. Once all the traffic lights are installed so that the trains are given the right of way over other traffic, travel over the entire 13.8 kilometer line is due to take 42 minutes from Pisgat Ze'ev at one end to Mount Herzl at the other. The system will operate from 5:30 A.M. to midnight on weekdays. The system will not operate on Shabbat but will resume half an hour after Shabbat ends. During rush hour, trains will arrive at the stations every four minutes. At off-peak times, there will be trains on average every 10 minutes.
Join us now for a video tour of the train on its first day of operation. Enjoy!
Four years after his death in Paris at the age of 84 and years after the peak of his popularity, Marcel Marceau, the greatest mime to grace the stage and screen, is being celebrated by the Jewish press as a new biography of the silent one reaches bookstores this week.
Marceau, who created an alter ego of Bip the Clown, was inspired by Charlie Chaplin and his alter ego, the Little Tramp, and comic actor Buster Keaton.
Yesterday the Jewniverse section of My Jewish Learning ran an article profiling Marceau. Here are some excerpts:
As a teenager in wartime France, Marcel Mangel helped fight Nazis in unusual ways--he doctored the passports of Jewish children, making them seem younger so they weren't sent to labor camps.
He also dressed up groups of children as boy scouts and led them on "hiking expeditions" along the French-Swiss border, smuggling them to safety. Even as his father, a kosher butcher, was deported to Auschwitz, Marcel joined the French Resistance and continued to fight the occupation. It was around this time that he changed his last name to "Marceau," taking the surname of one of the generals of the French Revolution.
Marcel Marceau became the world's most famous mime, appearing frequently on variety shows and performing for world leaders. He also had the only speaking part in Mel Brooks' film Silent Movie--asked whether he would audition, he said, "No!" A new picture book, Marcel Marceau: Master of Mime, tells about his life in a way that's sensitive to children but doesn't shirk from the seriousness of his story.
Here's the scene from Silent Movie, which also starred Sid Caesar, Marty Feldman, Dom DeLuise, and Bernadette Peters. Enjoy!
The Budapest Jewish Summer Festival, introducing Hungarian Jewish culture and traditions of many others, in the last week of the summer, is Hungary’s most important and biggest cultural-artistic event series. It attracts segments of the population which are otherwise less inclined to visit such events during the rest of the year.
Now in its 14th year, the festival started on August 27 and is running through September 5. The main venue of the internationally recognized Budapest Jewish Summer Festival is the exquisite Dohány Street Synagogue.
The brass section of the New York Metropolitan Orchestra, The Metropolitan Opera opened the festival last week. On their first concert in Europe they invited the French pianist, Francoise de Clossey, as a guest musician.
The concert held on August 29 in the Dohány Street Synagogue united the Eastern European stars of world music, Felix Lajko, Kalman Balogh Gipsy Cimbalom Band and Marko Markovic in concert together.
The headliner of this year’s festival will be the Idan Raichel Project on September 4. The leader and the musician the band is named after, Idan Raichel himself is one the most sophisticated and most exciting young Israeli performers showing equally high qualities as a composer and as pianist as well.
It will be the first time that the world famous world music band holds a concert in Hungary. Their musical style is characterized by the mesmerizing, harmonic unity of musical traditions of Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean region and Middle East.
Since most of our readers are unlikely to visit Budapest this week, let's take a video stroll through the streets of Budapest while the festival is in progress, and then watch a performance of one of the most popular songs by the Idan Raichel Project, Bo'ee. Enjoy!
