Thursday, June 7, 2012

Sholem Aleichem Variety Show: Five Minutes of Smiles


Here's a bit of Jewish humor that we find hard to characterize, except to say that we think it's funny and it will keep you laughing or at least smiling for five minutes.

The editors of Jewish Currents, a printed and online magazine that labels itself "A Progressive, Secular Voice" have come up with a collection of quotations from the famous Jewish storyteller, Sholem Aleichem, interwoven with an eclectic group of cartoons, mock baseball cards, and graphic comments and observations on Jewish life. The slide show is set to music with a distincive Jewish feel.

While we would never consider ourselves progressive or secular, and we don't agree with some of the political views expressed in this video, we're always delighted to see any segment of the Jewish community, wherever they are on the scale of observance or belief, devoting resources to creating and sharing Jewish humor in any form.

The cartoons are from Richard Codor's funny collection of illustrations, Babushkin's Catalog of Jewish Inventions, edited by Lawrence Bush. The baseball cards are fanciful imaginings of Biblical scenes featuring real baseball players with names like Tom Edens, Curt Flood, Les Cain, and Gerry Moses.

Enjoy!

(A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  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.)

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