Hava Nagila Around the World: The Avalon's Electric Interpretation of a Classic Melody

We never seem to run out of new interpretations of Hava Nagila. It's played all over the world in every vocal, instrumental, and dance version you can imagine. 

When you take three violinists and combine them with a trumpet and a set of drums, and throw in a trio of colorful dancers, you can predict that the results will be spectacular.

We're not exactly certain where this sequence was filmed, but we found clues that show a Portuguese influence. So we think this Avalon production came from either Portugal or Brazil, but that's about as close as we can get. If you find any other clues that will help to pinpoint the location, please add them to the comments below the video.

With Sunday being Rosh Chodesh Adar Sheni, we're heading into a Purim state of mind and will be sharing lots of Purim videos and skits during the next two weeks. So enjoy this Hava Nagila interpretation in the meantime. Monday will bring the usual Joke to Start the Week, and our Purim celebration will start Tuesday and run through Purim on Sunday, March 16.

Shabbat shalom!

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Comedy Showcase: Comedian Mark Schiff Visits the 99 Cent Store

Comedian/Actor/Writer Mark Schiff has headlined in all the major casinos and clubs across the country and has appeared many times on both The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with David Letterman.

He has had both HBO and Showtime specials, and has been the featured act at the Montreal Comedy Festival. He has written for and guest starred on Mad About You, as well appearing on Empty Nest and serving as a writer on The Roseanne Show.

Over the last four years we have featured Mark on Jewish Humor Central as a stand-up comedian and in his roles as interviewer of Jewish day school children and asking UCLA students questions about Israel.

We lost track of him for awhile but rediscovered him in a YouTube stand-up routine that he performed at The Laugh Factory in Hollywood.

Enjoy!

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Remembering Harold Ramis as Dr. Egon Spengler of Ghostbusters

Lovers of funny movies were saddened this week to learn of the passing of Harold Ramis, the actor, director, and writer. 

Ramis tickled our funnybone with film comedies that included Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2, Groundhog Day, Caddyshack, Stripes, National Lampoon's Vacation and Animal House, Analyze This and Analyze That.

Although he was responsible for writing, producing, and directing all of these films, he only appeared in a few of them, notably the Ghostbusters series and Stripes.

We remember Ramis most as the bespectacled scientist Dr. Egon Spengler, one of the members of the Ghostbusters team that also included Bill Murray, Dan Ayckroyd, and Ernie Hudson. Here is the climactic scene from the film where Ramis, as Spengler, comes up with the solution of crossing streams to get rid of the ghostly menace threatening to destroy New York City.

In case you're wondering, yes, there is a Jewish angle to Ramis' work. (And a tip of the kippah to Yonina Rosenbluth for sharing this with us). Back in 2009 Ramis gave a talk to the Hudson Union Society where he reflected on the enduring quality of Groundhog Day, in which he played a minor role as a neurologist while directing it. It seems that religious groups of every denomination have adopted the story as a metaphor for their take on repeating the same actions day after day, which is the central point of the film.

In a video clip which we can't embed in this blog but can give you the YouTube link here, he comments on how a group of Hasidim outside the theatre picketed the theatre in which the film was being shown, not protesting, but holding signs asking "Are you living the same day over and over again?" He also compares the film with the Torah being read repeatedly year after year. The Torah doesn't change, but we are different each time we read it.

Enjoy!

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Drake, Canadian Black Jewish Singer and Actor, Replays His Bar Mitzvah on Saturday Night Live

Aubrey Drake Graham, the singer, rapper, and actor who goes by the name Drake, hosted the first Saturday Night Live show of 2014 and opened with a monologue that recalled his Bar Mitzvah in Toronto in 1999, where he attended a Jewish day school.

The skit includes SNL regulars, with Vanessa Bayer, who usually plays Jacob the Bar Mitzvah boy on the show, in the role of his Jewish mother.

The skit, which is mostly a succession of predictable Jewish references, includes a funny line by Bayer that was probably missed by most of the audience. At 2:45 into the skit, he announces that from now on he will be called Drake. Bayer corrects him, telling him that he should be called Dracob. Or is it Draykop?

Dracob would be a simple and obvious reference to Bayer's role as the shy Bar Mitzvah boy that she has depicted. But Draykop is much funnier, if that was the SNL writers' intent. The Yiddish term is usually defined as a scatterbrain, or someone whose head is turned from talking so much or who turns your head around from listening to them. So which is it -- Dracob or Draykop? We'll let you decide.

Enjoy!

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A Joke to Start the Week - "85th Birthday"

It's another Monday morning, and time for another joke to start the week. Once again we dip into the archives of Old Jews Telling Jokes for an oldie but goodie. 

This one is told by Al Leiderman, the 97-year-old retiree from the wholesale laundry business whose jokes we've featured here before.

Here's the setup: This young fellow calls up his father and says "Dad, next week you're going to be 85 years old and we're going to have a big party for you. So what I want to do tomorrow is take you out and get you a suit, shirt, pants -- get you the whole outfit. And then...

Enjoy!

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A Sid Caesar Classic Skit from 1964: The German General Gets Dressed

It's hard to believe that this classic skit from Caesar's Hour is almost 60 years old, but here it is again in our series of remembrances of the great comedian. 

In this skit, Howard Morris as the valet dresses Sid Caesar in his German general's uniform, following orders barked at him in German (with a little Yiddish and English mixed in.) 

Caesar doesn't miss a detail in his instructions to button the tunic, polish the buttons, dust the epaulettes and medals, and attach the collar, the belt, the sword, and the braids.

It takes almost seven minutes for Morris to pay attention to every detail and get Caesar ready -- but ready for what? To go out to battle? To lead his troops? Well, not exactly. Don't miss the last minute when we learn what all the preparations are for.

Enjoy!

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Musical Showcase: Kol Ish Singers and Key Tov Orchestra Team Up In Bluegrass Yigdal

Here's another in our series of showcasing Jewish singing and instrumental groups that are relatively new on the scene. 

We think this video offers a melodic and fresh way of welcoming Shabbat with an unusual twist -- a bluegrass version of Yigdal, the song that ends the Friday night Shabbat service.

We're calling attention to two groups here, Kol Ish, an otherwise a cappella group that got its start at the University of Maryland, and Key Tov, a Chicago-based wedding band that takes Kol Ish out of its usual instrument-free mode and enriches their sound with a solid bluegrass beat.

In this music video, a Kol Ish singer stops on his way to synagogue to pick up a tiny yellow flower, which he takes with him. Nodding off during the service, thoughts of the flower transport him to a farm, where he strolls among the flowers and animals and is joined by the other Kol Ish singers.

As the song (and the service) ends, his colleagues wake him and he leaves the shul wearing a straw cowboy hat. Was it a dream? We'll let you decide.

Enjoy, and Shabbat shalom.

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90-Year-Old Boston Woman Tries Her Hand as "Sit-Down Comedian"

A few months ago, an 89-year-old woman, using a walker, arrived at a class for aspiring stand-up comedians in Boston. But Anita Garlick was not there because she was chasing a career as a stand-up; she was there because she had a plan. 

After a life of being told she was funny, she was going to try her hand at stand-up, but just once: at her 90th birthday party. She finished the class a few months ago, has been working on her set ever since, and at her recent birthday party, she made her long-awaited world premiere. 

As Billy Baker reported in the Boston Globe,

Garlick wasn’t a complete stranger to comedy. In high school in Brooklyn, N.Y., she had written a humor column for her school newspaper, “Corridor Capers,” and after moving to the Catskills to raise her family, she spent years watching the great Borscht Belt comedians during their heyday at the famous Catskills resort hotels.

“I’ve always loved comedy, and I’ve always loved to make people laugh,” she said. “There are people who appreciate comedy, and there are joke-makers.” She was definitely a joke-maker.

But the stand-up class, a gift from her son, Jonathan, was the encouragement she needed to enter the craft of comedy, to sit down and think and write and try to pull it all together into a 10-minute set.

As she prepared, she had a lot to choose from, because, as she likes to say, “I’ve had three lives.”

The first was her childhood during the Great Depression and her young adult years during World War II, when she worked in a personnel office in New York handling paperwork for the scientists who were developing the atomic bomb. (She did not know what the scientists were working on until she read their names in The New York Times after a bomb was dropped. She also didn’t know that her husband, who was in the Air Force, was secretly on the island in the Pacific where the plane carrying that bomb took off.)

Her second life was in the Catskills after the war, where her family owned, and lived above, a Jewish funeral home for 40 years. “There’s a lot of black humor there,” she said. “We called it the ‘Fun Home.’ ”

Then there was the time when she learned what a “contact high” was because her husband, Joseph, happened to be the mayor of Monticello, N.Y., in 1969 when nearly a half-million young people showed up at a farm in nearby Bethel for a music festival called Woodstock.

And then there is her third life, in Boston, where she moved in 1998 to be close to her sons, and where she continues to lead an active social life while living independently in her own apartment. On the day a Globe reporter visited, she was finishing up “The Great Gatsby” for a book club that would be coming over that night.

So turn up the volume on your computer and sit back for a few laughs. If you miss some of the jokes, just read the rest of the Boston Globe article, where many of them appear.

Happy Birthday Anita, and thanks for your support as a subscriber to Jewish Humor Central. We hope you've enjoyed our jokes and thanks for sharing your jokes with our other readers.

Enjoy!

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The Yiddish Chefs Are Back With Babka (Three Kinds) and Banter

Over the past four years we have posted 19 episodes of Est Gezunterheit, the Yiddish cooking show by Rukhl Schaechter and Eve Jochnowitz, the chefs of The Jewish Daily Forward. 

We find the attraction not only the heimishe recipes for traditional Jewish foods, but also the back and forth conversation between the two chefs in Yiddish that gives us a few new (and sometimes funny sounding) Yiddish words for everyday foods and utensils that we encounter in the kitchen.

Today's episode brings us recipes for three varieties of Babka, the traditional Eastern European coffee cake that appears on the table on Shabbat in many homes. Rukhl and Eve prepare Apricot Butter Babka, Cinnamon Babka, and Chocolate Babka. So watch the preparation, listen to the banter, and learn a few new Yiddish words and phrases at no extra charge.

Here are some words and phrases that are new to us:

Apricosenshmear = Apricot butter
Sloy = Jar
Shoim = Foam
Shoim shlugger = Whisk
Raketke = Paddle
Heiven = Yeast
Opgeknoden = Kneaded
Katchet Ois = Rolled out
Kleipik = Sticky
Tzimering = Cinnamon
Gefluchten = Woven
Freerke = Freezer
Geshmack = Tasty

Enjoy, and tell us in your comments how the babka enhanced your Shabbat!

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Live Long and Prosper: Leonard Nimoy Reveals the Jewish Story Behind Spock's Vulcan Salute

Leonard Nimoy played the role of the half Vulcan, half human Spock in the Star Trek series on TV from 1966 to 1969. Nimoy felt that the role needed a special greeting to set the Vulcan residents apart, so he dug into his childhood in Boston where he attended a synagogue with his Orthodox immigrant parents from the Soviet Union.

He remembered seeing the Kohanim reciting the priestly blessing (Duchaning) at the conclusion of the Musaf service on Shabbat and holidays, and peeking out from behind a tallit to see them part their fingers as they prayed. He was told not to look because he might see the awesome presence of the Shechina that was summoned by the Kohanim. But he looked anyway and it made a deep impression on him.

Years later when he was developing the role of Spock, he suggested using that hand motion as the basis of a Vulcan greeting. In an interview for the Wexler Oral History Project at the Yiddish Book Center, the 82-year-old actor offers a personal recollection of his boyhood experience in Boston and the circumstances surrounding the choice of the priestly blessing as the basis for the Vulcan salute, "Live Long and Prosper."

Here's Nimoy's interview followed by a clip of him giving the salute in a Star Trek episode.

Enjoy!

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Two Jokes to Start the Week - "Mom's Routine" and "The Affair"

Two Jokes? Well, when we sorted through potential jokes to start this week off with a laugh, we found a couple from the same jokester, but we thought each one was too short to give you a long enough laugh. 

So we're sharing both of them today. Together they run less than a minute, so listen quickly.

Both jokes, from the archives of Old Jews Telling Jokes, are told by Nancy Shaw, a 64-year-old elementary school computer teacher.

Here are the setups, followed by the videos:
 
Mom's Routine: My mother started walking five miles a day when she turned 60.....and then...

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The Affair: Essie and Moish are celebrating their 50th anniversary and she says to him "Moishe darling..." And then...

Flashback to 2003: Red Buttons Toasts Sid Caesar at His 80th Birthday Party

Our tribute to Sid Caesar yesterday was one of the most viewed posts since Jewish Humor Central started in 2009. We had requests for more about Sid and we're glad to share some more videos today and in the days to come.

On Sept 20th, 2003 The Friars Club celebrated Sid Caesar's 80th birthday by throwing him a party at their Beverly Hills headquarters. 

One of the many celebrities honoring Sid was Red Buttons, and the audience never stopped laughing. Sid doesn't actually appear in this video, but the love and affection for him are evident in Red Buttons' remarks and in the audience reaction.

Comedians appearing in Friars Club and other industry toasts let us see them in a different light, as themselves rather than the characters they play in front of audiences. Here's a look at the comedy of Red Buttons from a different angle.

Buttons tosses in a few Yiddishisms, Jewish references, and a few off-color jokes. But that's par for the course at these Friars Club roasts and toasts for comedians, where most of the roasters, their subjects, and the audience are members of the Tribe. 

He is introduced by Norm Crosby, another Jewish comedian known as the master of malapropisms. Buttons tells Crosby "Your father was my idol when I was growing up," making a funny reference to Bing Crosby who of course was not related to Norm. Then he hums a few bars of what we would expect to be one of Bing Crosby's songs. But what he actually hums is the beginning of the Yiddish classic Mein Shtetele Belz.


Enjoy!

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Remembering Sid Caesar: a TV Skit, a Blog Post, a Daughter, a Friend, and a Seder

I usually write these blog posts in the first person plural, the "editorial we." But today's remembrance of Sid Caesar, who died on Wednesday, has a personal connection that requires "I" instead of "we."

I never had the privilege of meeting Sid Caesar, who was my inspiration for a growing interest in intelligent comedy. I watched every episode of Your Show of Shows, and saw Caesar act in the madcap adventure It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World many times.

As Sid approached his 90th birthday, I dug into the YouTube archives to share a few video clips of his funniest performances with you, my readers. These included  the Big Business sketch from Your Show of Shows, clips from a DVD of a reunion with his writers from the show, a visit of Caesar and Imogene Coca to a vegetarian restaurant, an appearance on a Chabad telethon where he performed his doubletalk language skit, and a skit in which Caesar and Nanette Fabray pantomime an argument between a married couple to the cadences of Beethoven's 5th Symphony.

When I included this latter skit in a Jewish Humor Central blog post last July 18, I expected it to reach my thousands of readers, but not Sid Caesar himself. Enter my daughter, Esther Kustanowitz, an acclaimed author, blogger, and social media consultant in Los Angeles. A friend of Esther's, Rena Strober, a singer and actress, and also an L.A. resident, had befriended Sid through a Friars' Club connection and was invited to a Passover seder at Sid's house last April. Also attending were Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. The seder led to a friendship that saw Rena visit Sid many times, listening to his stories and show business advice.

A few months later, Esther told Rena about Jewish Humor Central and the Caesar-Fabray pantomime clip, which she showed to Caesar, sparking a discussion about it and whether it was improvised or rehearsed.

As Esther wrote in an article published yesterday in the Jewish Journal,

They talked about the clip, whether it was improvised or rehearsed (the former, she remembers him saying), and how brilliant it was, and Rena told him that the clip had appeared on a friend’s father’s Jewish humor blog. This was a story born decades ago in one comedy sketch that has resonated through the years and across technology, crossing from virtual into reality. I connected to Rena through blogging. I connected Rena to my dad’s blog. And she was able to bring my dad’s virtual connection to and deep appreciation for a legendary comedian to that comedian himself.

The virtual, with the intercession of real people having real conversations, enabled an ill man to understand that what he had produced in this world had resonance beyond the point that he could have imagined. I believe that this connection, midwifed by the Internet, was a gift for all of us.

In the video clip below, Caesar explains and demonstrates his proficiency in speaking doubletalk in four languages in an interview with Dean Ward.

We will miss you, Sid. And as Esther wrote at the end of her article,

May Sid’s memory — and the memories that people have of Sid, at seders or otherwise — be for a blessing, an inspiration, and more than occasionally, a guffaw.

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Ray (93) Meets Jerri (88): A Valentine's Day Love Story From The Los Angeles Jewish Home

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Yes, we know, we know, it's not supposed to be a Jewish holiday. But when we researched the subject a couple of years ago, we discovered that celebrating love can be very Jewish. 

The Los Angeles Jewish Home has been providing a fertile environment for love to grow for many years. As long as they keep reporting on love matches at their facility, we'll keep sharing them with you, especially on Valentine's Day.

Today's love story is about Ray, 93 years old and a resident of The Jewish Home, meeting Jerri, another 88-year-old resident, and how they went throught the phases of (these are the words of The Jewish Home, not ours) Courtship, Intimacy, Shacking Up, Meeting the Children, and Happily Ever After.

Our readership has doubled since we last visited the Los Angeles Jewish Home on Valentine's Day. So for the benefit of our newer readers, here is what we found then with regard to Jewish observance of this day.

There always have been mixed feelings in the Jewish world about celebrating this day which originally was named in honor of Valentine, a Christian saint. And today, you can find opinions from rabbis of all Jewish denominations that approve and disapprove of its observance.

We did some searching and found that despite some views that the holiday is foreign to Judaism and should be avoided, there are a growing number of opinions, even in the Orthodox world, that not only should the holiday be observed, but that it should be embraced.

As Rabbi Benjamin Blech, professsor of Talmud at Yeshiva University, has written about Valentine's Day on the aish.com website, 

As Jews, we may not be sure whether it's proper for us to join the party. After all, for the longest time the full name of this holiday was “St. Valentine's Day” because of its legendary link with the apocryphal story of one of the earliest Christian saints. Yet academics aren't the only ones who have recognized the dubious historical basis of this connection. Vatican II, the landmark set of reforms adopted by the Catholic Church in 1969, removed Valentine's Day from the Catholic church's calendar, asserting that "though the memorial of St. Valentine is ancient… apart from his name nothing is known… except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on 14 February."

What's left for this day, as proponents of its universal celebration declare, is something that people of all faiths may in good conscience observe: A day in which to acknowledge the power of love to make us fully human.

When I am asked as a rabbi if I think it's a good idea for Jews to celebrate Valentine's Day, my standard answer is, "Yes, we should celebrate love… every day of the year."

Enjoy!

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"When Comedy Went to School" Hits Florida Theaters This Weekend

DELRAY BEACH, FLORIDA, Feb. 12 --We've been following the 77 minute documentary When Comedy Went to School from the time its first showing was announced, and we attended the premiere in New York last July 30. 

Now, as we're finishing up a ten-day tour doing Jewish humor shows and lectures in South Florida we found notices in the Sun-Sentinel, the local newspaper, that the limited release film is finally coming this weekend to Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Lake Worth, and Aventura.

We recommend the film, narrated by comedian Robert Klein, and feauring interviews with Jerry Lewis, Sid Caesar, Jackie Mason, Mort Sahl, Dick Gregory, Jerry Stiller and others. It's a must see for anyone who treasures memories of the Catskills and its comedy lineups.

The Jewish population of South Florida has been growing rapidly, and according to an article in The Jewish Daily Forward, it's now America’s third-largest Jewish metro area behind only New York and Los Angeles. If you add in the smaller Jewish communities elsewhere in Florida, one of every 10 American Jews resides in the Sunshine State

Many Jewish Humor Central readers live in Broward, Palm Beach, and Dade counties and have been eagerly awaiting the film's release here. So Florida readers, here's your chance to see it. Following the trailer is a list of the theaters in the area and links to their websites.

Enjoy!

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Movies of Lake Worth

Lake Worth

FL

starts 2/14 +

Movies of Delray

Delray Beach

FL

starts 2/14 +

Regal Shadowood

Boca Raton

FL

starts 2/14 +

Livingroom Theaters

Boca Raton

FL

starts 2/14 +

Gateway 4

Ft. Lauderdale

FL

starts 2/14 +

AMC Aventura

Aventura

FL

starts 2/14 +

"O" Cinema

Miami Shores

FL

starts 2/14 +

Comedy Showcase: Stand-up Comedy With Modi on How to Combat Terrorism

Modi (Mordechai Rosenfeld) is one funny guy. We've featured his stand-up routines and performances as a character actor a few times on Jewish Humor Central.

Born April 29th, 1970 in Tel Aviv, Israel, Modi Rosenfeld moved to New York City with his family when he was 7. Before entering comedy, he was a Wall Street international banker. He now goes solely by the name Modi and is known for creating accents and characters.

In this set, at the Comic Strip Live Club in New York, Modi starts out by making fun of his mother's overly cautious travel advice, and quickly segues into Mohammed jokes, anti-semitic cartoons, terrorist reaction, and the best Jewish alternatives to blowing up buildings in response to editorial insults.

Enjoy!

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A Joke to Start the Week - "Citronella"

We're in Florida this week doing six comedy shows and lectures, but even the sunny warm weather isn't preventing us from remembering that today is Monday, and that it's time to start off the week with another joke.

So whatever the weather is where you are, you can take a couple of minutes off to laugh with 97-year-old Al Liederman, who retired from the laundry business and is enjoying his joke telling for Old Jews Telling Jokes.

Here's the setup: Citronella lives in a poor part of town. She's a girl about 20. She hasn't eaten in two days. She has no roof over her head, and she's just beside herself. She doesn't know what to do. And then...

Enjoy!

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Comedy Flashback: Jackie Mason, 52 Years Ago - Encounter With a Psychiatrist

We've been laughing with Jackie Mason for a very long time, but can you recall an appearance the master comedian made on TV in 1961, when he carried on for seven minutes about a visit to a psychiatrist? By the time he was finished, the psychiatrist was looking for help from Mason.

A very funny bit, and a reminder of how Mason became so successful with his rapid-fire comedy. And a reminder that not all of his comedy was about being Jewish. 

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.)

Joe Lieberman on How He Strayed From Shabbat Observance and How He Returned

Former Senator Joe Lieberman has been a role model for many observant Jews in combining their observance with full participation in the greater society.

Before leaving office he sat down for an interview with Allison Josephs, founder and director of Jew in the City, a blog dedicated to to breaking down stereotypes about religious Jews and offering a humorous, meaningful outlook into Orthodox Judaism.

Jew in the City is reshaping the way society views Orthodox Jews and Judaism by publicizing the message that Orthodox Jews can be funny, approachable, educated, pro-women and open-minded—and that Orthodox Judaism links the Jewish people to a deep and beautiful heritage that is just as relevant today as it ever was.

We thought that you'd like to see Senator Lieberman talk openly about a religious crisis that he faced while a student at Yale University. In the interview he tells Josephs how he stopped observing Shabbat and the role of his grandmother in guiding him back to Shabbat observance.

The senator also discusses, with an engaging sense of humor, the changing roles of Jewish women and overcoming misconceptions about gender roles in Judaism.

Enjoy and Shabbat shalom!

(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.)

The Gat Brothers Perform Neil Young's "Heart of Gold" in Coconut Grove, Florida

In 1972, Canadian singer Neil Young composed and sang the song Heart of Gold. It's been covered by many singers in the ensuing 42 years, but one of the more interesting renditions is the one performed by the new Israeli singing sensations Gil and Arie Gat, variously known as the Gat Brothers and the Breslov Brothers. 

In the last year the two Breslov Hasidim have gone from street musicians on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem to second place winners in the Israeli popular TV show Rising Star, where they performed works by Simon and Garfunkel, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and The Eagles.

Last month they made their first appearance in the USA, performing at the Avenue J Music Festival in Coconut Grove, Florida, on January 14. Here's a video of their performance.

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.)