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!
Hava Nagila continues to crop up in locations around the globe. Whenever we find a new performance anywhere in the world we try to share it with you. Chemical Klezmer is a new group of a dozen amateurs in Paris who specialize in performances of music from Eastern Europe. This week they lit up the Paris night playing Hava Nagila at Le Gibus, a popular nightclub and concert hall that usually features Hip Hop and Rock music. But Hava Nagila always works its magic and in no time had the audience joining in with clapping and shouting to the classic Jewish song. We're taking the next two days off to celebrate the last days of Passover and we'll be back with more Jewish humor and Yiddishe nachas from Jerusalem on Wednesday. Chag Sameach! (A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:
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Earlier this month forty students from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance took a
classical approach to the flash mob as they flashwaltzed Tchaikovsky's
Waltz of the Flowers at the new Sarah Wetsman Davidson Hospital Tower in
Jerusalem. Doctors, patients and passers-by joined in the fun.
The
surprise concert was part of Good Deeds Day, an annual event that
originated in Israel in 2007 and now takes place in over 50 countries
worldwide. On this day volunteers reach out to the less fortunate and
the vulnerable.
The Academy students enjoyed the day so much that
they have decided to schedule regular concerts at the hospital.
Hadassah Medical Organization treats over one million patients annually,
without regard to race, religion or national origin.
Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem. Enjoy!
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With the Passover Seder(s) behind us, we think we've all had enough of Pesach music videos, satire, and silliness. So while we're still enjoying more days of chametz-free cusine, we're moving ahead with our usual mix of jokes, humor, music, and funny happenings. A few years ago, Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg of Baltimore's Congregation Beth Tfiloh won second place in the competition for Funniest Celebrity in Baltimore. We found a video of his performance and thought you'd like to see it.
It's not often that a prominent rabbi, in this case the spiritual leader of the largest Modern Orthodox congregation in the USA, delivers an eight minute long standup comedy set. Beth Tfiloh is also home to the day school whose "Don't Sit on the Afikomen" song we posted yesterday. We can't promise that the jokes are new, because they never are. But it's fun to hear these old Jewish jokes retold with the zest and poise that only an accomplished speaker can deliver. Enjoy!
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Tonight we celebrate the first Seder of Passover, for which preparations have been in process in many households since well before Purim. In Israel there is only one Seder, while everywhere else, tomorrow night presents a second opportunity to extend the festivities. The faculty and students of Beth Tfiloh, an Orthodox Day School in Pikesville, Maryland, are sharing their holiday spirit this year with a rousing rendition of Don't Sit on the Afikomen, a funny song that can be sung by everyone around the Seder table just for laughs, and as a reminder of how late the Seder could run if the hidden half matzah is not found in time for dessert. We wish all of our readers a happy and a kosher Pesach. Enjoy your family and friends, sing the traditional songs and new ones like this, and feast on the specialties of this season, some of which we shared recipes for in recent days. We'll be celebrating this Passover in Jerusalem, and we'll be back with our usual mix of jokes, humor, music, and funny happenings on Thursday. The lyrics for Don't Sit on the Afikomen are shown below the video. You can print a colorful copy of the lyrics by linking to the pdf at this address.
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Don’t sit on the Afikomen
Don’t sit on the Afikomen; Don’t sit on the Afikomen,
Don’t sit on the Afikomen or the Seder will last all night!
The leader at the Seder breaks a Matzah piece in two.
And hides the Afikomen half, a game for me and you.
Everyone must have a bite, the Seder isn’t through,
Till you find the Afikomen!
Don’t sit on the Afikomen; Don’t sit on the Afikomen,
Don’t sit on the Afikomen or the Seder will last all night!
One year someone hid it beneath a pillow on a chair
But just as I raced over, my Aunt Sophie sat down there.
She sat herself down upon it, awful crunching filled the air
And crumbs flew all around!
Don’t sit on the Afikomen; Don’t sit on the Afikomen,
Don’t sit on the Afikomen or the Seder will last all night!
There were Matzah crumbs all over, oh it was a messy sight.
We swept up all the pieces, though it took us half the night.
So if you want your Seder ending sooner than dawn’s light
Don’t sit on the Afikomen!
Don’t sit on the Afikomen; Don’t sit on the Afikomen,
Don’t sit on the Afikomen or the Seder will last all night!
The usual answers to Ma Nishtanah (Why is this night different from all other nights?) are that we eat matzah and maror and we dip and lean at the Passover Seder. But at the home of the Pearlmans (we don't know them, but from the video below they seem to have a very large house and invite lots of people to their Seder) last year there was another answer to the question. What was different was that the many guests attending the Seder got a big surprise when nine members of a church choir descended the stairs to the dining room, started singing "Let My People Go," and launched into a medley of Passover and other familiar Jewish songsas the guests whipped out cellphone cameras to capture the scene.
The video captures the Seder, including candle lighting, washing hands, and the search for the afikomen in the fully equipped exercise room. If you're wondering why the evening begins with the lighting of a Yahrzeit candle, so are we. Enjoy! (A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:
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VIDEO.) (A tip of the kippah and a copy of our e-book, Jewish Humor on Your Desktop, Volume 6: Jewish Holiday Hilarity to Eli Ajzenman for bringing this video to our attention.)
On Passover most of the emphasis, foodwise, is on the Seder. But with eight days to account for, and seven days in Israel, breakfast is literally on the table more often than the full course seder feast. The Yiddish speaking chefs from the Jewish Daily Forward are at it again, with a timely tutorial on two popular Passover breakfast dishes, a spinach omelette and matzah brei. As usual with these videos, we get a bonus lesson in Yiddish. Here are some terms that we're hearing for the first time as Rukhl Schaechter and Eve Yochnowitz banter while they mix it up in the kitchen. Breakfast = Frishshtick Spinach Omelet = Feinkuchen fun Shpinat Matzah Brei = Gefrishte Matzos Bunch = Bintle Dirt and Bugs = Shmutz un Shrotzimlach Recipe = Retzep Sticks to the leaves = Klept zich tzi tzum der bletter Sieve - Zippeleh
The recipes for both dishes appear just below the video. Enjoy and Est Gezunterheit! (A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:
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How would today's mainstream media have reported the dramatic daily occurrences from the time that the first plague broke out until the Israelites received the Ten Commandments? In a brilliant piece of satire and technical graphic design, Aish.com has created a video suggesting the way that CNN, FOX NEWS, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, People, and The Huffington Post, among others, might have reported each of the Ten Plagues as they occurred. Aish.com, the internet arm of Aish HaTorah, the orthodox yeshiva and outreach program that encourages Jews of all backgrounds to discover their heritage, is a 3-time winner of USA Today's Hot Site award, and has been
heralded for its technical sophistication and sleek graphic design. Each of the headline pages is meticulously crafted, duplicating the publication's layout, graphic design, and choice of typeface. We list most of the headlines below because the two minutes it takes to see the video doesn't give enough time to fully appreciate the cleverness of the titles, subtitles, and in some cases, a paragraph or more of news text. In fact, we recommend that you watch the video multiple times and pause it on each page to read as much detail as possible. CNN: Plot Uncovered: Jewish Lobby Orchestrating Plagues Drudge Report: Economist: Brick Quota Protests Huffington Post: Frog Invasion! Egypt Overrun by Swarming Amphibians WIRED: Israelite Startup Invents Frog-Powered Chariot Rolling Stone:Go Down Moses - Let My People Go! is Chart Topper, Song of the Year Snopes.com: CLAIM: Egyptian Lice Grew From Dust. TRUE. TV GUIDE: Pharaoh's Apprentice: You're Fired! TMZ: Scandal in Pharaoh's Palace: Moses Close Ties to Pharaoh's Daughter FOX NEWS: Gun Rights Activists Call For Open Hunting Season to Stem Wild Beasts Al Jazeera: UN Condemns Hebrew Slave Violence People: Pharaoh in Danger of Hardening Heart, Says Cardiologist People: Pharaoh's Amazing Mediterranean Vacation: "Crisis? What Crisis?" The New England Journal of Medicine: Egypt Surgeon General Declares Boils Outbreak "Untreatable Epidemic" BBC: Locust Plague: Jewish-Egyptian Cycle of Violence Continues allrecipes.com: Chocolate-Covered Locusts, Banana-Locust Power Drink, Prime Rib in Locust Sauce, Sweet and Sour Locust, Cajun Fried Locust ESPN: Blackout at Super Chariot Race Forbes: Stocks Soar in Israelite-Owned Flashlight Company; PETA Protests Slaughter of Paschal Lamb The New York Times: Divine Smiting of First-Borns Expected at Midnight Conde Nast Traveler: Traveling Light: How to Tour the Desert on Matzah Alone Bloomberg News: Bookings for Red Sea Getaways at All-Time High with 3 Million in One Day EPIC FAIL: Pharaoh's Chariot Sea-Crossing Fail TED TALKS: God: The Ten Commandments
Enjoy! (A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:
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Passover just isn't Passover without Matzo Ball Soup. As we saw earlier this week with the Los Angeles Jewish Home residents offering their opinions, the discussions and arguments about whether to use seltzer, water, or chicken broth, and how big, how round, and how fluffy they should be could go on all night, just as long as the discussions about the Haggadah.
This Pesach we thought we'd make it easy for anyone who is preparing matzo balls from scratch, as opposed to using a mix, opening a can or jar, or ordering them from a take-out store or from a caterer.
Who better to demonstrate the art of making light and fluffy matzo balls than Jamie Geller, the "kosher Rachael Ray." Geller is the author of kosher cookbooks and hosts The Joy of Kosher website, videos, and magazine. Enjoy! (A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:
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Where should President Obama go when he visits Jerusalem on March 20? HaHafuch, the Israeli Improv Comedy Troupe, sent Molly Livingstone, their intrepid reporter, to the Mahane Yehuda market (shuk) and the streets of the city center to ask vendors and passers-by which tourist stops he should hit when he is in the city. The questions and answers, as usual, are unpredictable and funny. Enjoy!
Yesterday we launched our week of special Passover content, but even Passover isn't an excuse for not posting jokes. So, it's Monday, and time for our joke to start the week. Today's jokester is Richard Levine, an 80-year-old clinical drug survey printer, a regular on Old Jews Telling Jokes.
Here's the setup: Murray, a professional waiter all his life, passes away and is mourned by his widow, Becky.A friend suggests that she attends a seance, where she may be able to communicate with him. And then...
Enjoy!
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Today we're starting our Passover countdown at Jewish Humor Central. We're not abandoning the jokes (there will be one tomorrow) but this week we're focusing on recipes and music videos for Pesach, which starts next Monday evening, March 25.
Matzah ball soup. It's nutritious, it's delicious, it's on almost every Passover menu. There are about
as many opinions on how to make them as there are seder tables.
This Passover, the folks at the Jewish Home in Los Angeles made a special video about their thoughts
on matzah ball soup. We hope you enjoy watching it as much as we did
making it! Later this week we'll bring you a recipe video from Jamie Geller with easy directions for making light and fluffy matzo balls. In the meantime, enjoy this video with opinions from experts who have been tasting and commenting on matzo balls for many years. (A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:
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The
Shabbat Song Project is an Israeli effort to spread the light of
Shabbat, with popular singers performing traditional Shabbat melodies
with new and eclectic arrangements. The arrangers and singers deserve a
lot of credit for their creativity and use of a wide range of
instruments and musical styles to present in a new light songs that we
usually hear only inside a synagogue. We're bringing you a few of their beautiful renditions on Fridays,
when we prepare to welcome Shabbat. Last week we posted Yedid Nefesh, a piyyut (poem) usually sung on Friday night just before the Kabbalat Shabbat (Welcoming Shabbat) service begins.
Today we continue the series with a very unusual version of Lecha Dodi, an integral part of the Kabbalat Shabbat service.
According to Wikipedia, Lecha Dodi means "come my beloved," and is a request of a mysterious "beloved" that could mean either God or one's friend(s) to join together in welcoming Shabbat that is referred to as the "bride": likrat kallah ("to greet the [Shabbat] bride"). During the singing of the last verse, the entire congregation rises and turns to the open door, to greet "Queen Shabbat" as she arrives.
It was composed in the 16th century Ottoman Empire city of Edirne by Rabbi Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz, a Safed Kabbalist. As was common at the time, the song is also an acrostic, with the first letter of the first eight stanzas spelling the author's name. The author draws much of his phraseology from Isaiah's prophecy of Israel's restoration, and six of his verses are full of the thoughts to which his vision of Israel as the bride on that great Shabbat of Messianic
deliverance gives rise. It is one of the latest of the Hebrew poems
regularly accepted into the liturgy, both in the southern use, which the
author followed, and in the more distant northern rite. The lyrics, in Hebrew, with English translation and transliteration, appear below the video:
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