Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places: Indonesian Muslim Choir Sings Hava Nagila

Islam is the dominant religion in Indonesia, which also has a larger Muslim population than any other country in the world, with approximately 202.9 million identified as Muslim (88.2% of Indonesia's total population of 237 million). So what are the odds that the Indonesian Student Choir at Padjadjaran University would post a video on YouTube of them singing a rousing version of Hava Nagila? 

Not very high, you'd say? Well, take a look at this video of the students adding their voices to the many around the world who have sung Hava Nagila (love it or hate it, you can't deny that it's the most recognized Jewish song). We've already posted more than 30 versions and we don't expect to run out of them any time soon.

Enjoy!

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(A tip of the kippah to Aviva Weinberg for bringing the choir to our attention.)

A Joke to Start the Week - "Everything Hurts"

This week's Joke to Start the Week is coming to you on Tuesday instead of the usual Monday because Monday was Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. 

Today's Jokester is Larry Zicklin, a 78-year-old NYU Law Professor and member of the Old Jews Telling Jokes family. Here's the setup:

A red-headed beautiful lady walks into the doctor's office and says "Doctor, you've got to help me. I'm in terrible pain. Everything in my body hurts" And then...

Enjoy!

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Hatikva and Game of Thrones - a Musical Mashup by Michael Greilsammer

Yes, we know it's Monday and you're expecting a Joke to Start the Week, but today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, so we're deferring our joke of the week to tomorrow, Tuesday.

But we can't let a day go without posting something relevant to the day that will be uplifting. Hatikva, Israel's national anthem, is a fixture in Holocaust remembrance ceremonies today in Israel and around the world. 

There aren't many different versions of Hatikva, but Israeli-born violinist, singer/songwriter Michael Greilsammer has come up with a unique version that blends the traditional melody with the main theme of the award-winning HBO fantasy series. Game of Thrones.

Greilsammer has been called a revolutionary musical phenomenon by the world press. 

The child of French immigrant parents and named a child prodigy at the age of five, Michael’s unique music blends Irish, Reggae and Rock flavors to create a magical sound. 

We'll be back tomorrow with a Joke to Start the week. 

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(A tip of the kippah to Esther Kustanowitz for bringing this video to our attention.)

A Quick Lesson in Daily Yiddish - A Funny Conversation in the Park

Do you use Yiddish words in everyday conversation? These two guys do, while enjoying a game of chess in a park. 

They manage to include 16 words that should be in everyone's basic vocabulary, including shvitz, schmutz, schmatte, tuches, nosh, plotz, and ten others. 

The conversation flows easily, and the Yiddish words are integrated with English while a pretty accurate English translation appears on the bottom of the screen.

Enjoy!

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Comedian Seth Front Explains the Jewish Deli Zodiac

Were you born in the Year of the Blintz? Latke? Schmear? Bagel? Egg Cream? The Chinese have their zodiac with animals representing the twelve months of the year, but comedian Seth Front has come up with a Jewish Deli version of the zodiac. 

He even created place mats describing the twelve delicacies that Jews clamor for and their representation in the annual calendar.

In this video, Seth explains the workings of the Jewish Deli zodiac in a stand-up comedy routine at Flappers Comedy Club in Burbank, California.
 
Enjoy!

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Introducing Dalia, Your Favorite Israeli Character in a New Satiric Web Series

You've heard about the Jewish American Princess, but you haven't seen anything until you've met Dalia, the (we hope not typical) Israeli) character who has her own ideas about politeness and acceptable behavior in public. 

Dalia may not be the typical Israeli, but if you've spent any time there, it's likely that you've met her or someone very much like her. Dalia is the creation of Deb Kaye, one of the principal performers in the Jerusalem-based HaHafuch comedy and improv troupe that we've featured many times on Jewish Humor Central.

This time Deb has gone out on her own to produce a series of skits called Rega Israel. Rega is the most popular saying in Israel, literally meaning "Just a minute." It's now a new comedy web series offering a taste of funny happenings in Israel, viewed through the perspective of satire and parody. 

This skit takes place in an Israeli coffee shop where Dalia doesn't hesitate to sample other people's food or comment and complain about virtually everything.

Enjoy!

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Yeshiva Bochur Makes Royal Guard Laugh in London

The Queen's Guard are known for their ability to stand motionless and expressionless at attention outside royal residences in London. 

Their discipline is challenged daily by tourists visiting the sites, and it appears one may have finally succeeded in breaching their strict protocol and getting the guard to crack a smile.

The culprit, identified only as Yankel, begins his offensive by taking up a position next to the soldier outside the Horse Guards Parade.

“We were together in school, me and him. He went his own way,” Yankel says as his friends record the encounter.

The soldier remains impassive as Yankel continues to elaborate on their friendship: “I remember in school, he used to sit by himself and read books. I was the guy fooling around,” Yankel says.

Although the title on the YouTube clips says this happened at Buckingham Palace, it actually occurred a mile away at the Horse Guards building in Whitehall. The Buckingham Palace guards, wearing bearskin hats, are more skilled at maintaining a stiff upper lip and remaining impervious to tourists determined to make them laugh.

Enjoy!

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The Ninth Man - A Country and Western Passover/Baseball Story/Song

Back in the 1990s Abie Rotenberg, a prolific Orthodox Jewish musician, composer, and entertainer from Toronto wrote a song with a Country and Western flavor about a baseball team from a Brooklyn yeshiva. 

The team had some bad luck and was about to lose an important game when a surprise pinch hitter came in to save the day.

The song was played on Jewish radio stations along with some of his other songs from a series of albums called Journeys. But the song developed a life of its own when YouTube came along and offered opportunities for schools and camps to create their own video versions. 

One version that we're sharing with you today is from a Chabad camp in Montreal called Camp Gan Yisroel in Ville Saint-Laurent and Town Mount Royal. 

Wishing you happy last days of Pesach. We'll be back on Wednesday with more of our mix of fun, nostalgia and Yiddishe nachas.

Enjoy!

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Raise Your Hand - Julie Geller Sings a New Song for Passover

We can always count on singer and songwriter Julie Geller to come up with a new music video whenever a Jewish holiday comes along. We previously featured her songs for Rosh Hashanah and Chanukah.
 
Julie, raised in Colorado where she now lives with her family, also spent time in Boston, San Diego, and Israel. She has taken on a mission to bring love and healing into the world through her music. 

Her new song for Passover, Raise Your Hand, brings to life the requirement that each of us must feel as if we ourselves went out of Egypt by recounting the history of the Jewish people through the generations.

Julie is a graduate of Harvard University and the New England Conservatory of Music. She studied at Bar Ilan University and Midreshet Lindenbaum in Israel. 

Enjoy!

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Passover: What's the Word on the Street?

Man-in-the-street interviews can always be counted on to produce some unexpected and funny answers to questions posed to passers-by. The technique was perfected by Jay Leno in his Jaywalking episodes, but has been used to good effect by other reporters with a microphone.

Over the years we've posted some "Jew Walking" episodes with questions about Passover and Chanukah by comedian Simmy Kay and Rabbi Zvi Drizin.

A reporter for Torah Cafe asked random New Yorkers passing by Columbus Circle in New York City what they know about Passover. The results are unpredictable and entertaining.

Enjoy!

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Jokes to Start the Week of Passover With Rabbi Yitzchak Wyne

Why is this Monday different from all other Mondays? Because it's erev Pesach, and you're all probably overloaded with cleaning and cooking for the seder tonight. But that's no excuse for us to skip our Joke to Start the Week. Today it's also a Joke to Start the Week of Passover.

Today's joke teller is Rabbi Yitz Wyne, founder and spiritual leader of the Young Israel Aish of Las Vegas. He's usually busy as the rabbi of his congregation and as a talk show host with a weekly half-hour show on Jewish values called Life Is Great.

But humor is also part of his repertoire. After hours at the shul, Rabbi Wyne tests a few Passover jokes on an ambivalent audience. His topics include a drunk at the seder and two classic oldies -- the Jew at the queen's knighting ceremony and the great horseradish shortage. OK, so you've probably heard them, but how many times have you also heard the Haggadah?

Enjoy the jokes, the sedarim, and have a happy and kosher Pesach. We're taking two days off to enjoy Passover in Jerusalem with our family and we'll be back with our usual mix on Thursday.

Chag Sameach!

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Jackie Mason's Passover Seder - A Different Kind of Stand-Up

It's almost time for the Passover seder. Tomorrow night Jews all over the world will sit down for the first (and in Israel the only) seder. 

We don't know how many sedarim comedian Jackie Mason will attend, but if this video clip is a sample, it looks like it will be a stand-up affair. But surprisingly, not stand-up comedy.

Jackie shows that he can conduct a seder standing up, even though he moves the afikoman up from its place at the end of the seder to an earlier appearance. There are a few other missteps, but for the most part, he follows the traditional sequence as outlined in the Haggadah.

We were surprised to see that he went through the basics of the seder without cracking a joke or even a smile. To to his credit, he showed a basic knowledge that he acquired in Sheboygan, Wisconsin and on the Lower East Side of Manhattan when as Yacov Moshe Maza he followed his brothers into the rabbinate.

This may well be the only serious video of Jackie Mason. We'll be back in future posts with funny ones. Be sure to watch for tomorrow's Joke to Start the week, even though it's Erev Pesach.

Enjoy!

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Dayenu in the Desert - By the Boys of Boys Town Jerusalem

With the first night of Passover rapidly approaching, we still have a few new videos to share that relate directly to the Pesach seder. 

Here's a rendition of Dayenu that just came in from the boys of Boys Town Jerusalem. Produced in the Judean hills outside Jerusalem, it features the boys dressed in appropriate attire and a cast of camels to complete the picture.

Established in 1948 to provide a home and education for young immigrants to the newly-created State of Israel, Boys Town Jerusalem has become one of the country's largest and most respected educational institutions. 

Boys Town was founded by Alexander S. Linchner, a Brooklyn-born rabbi who, after the Holocaust, devoted his life to building a school for the children of immigrants who poured into Israel from countries around the world. His goal: providing them with a quality education that would prepare them to build the State of Israel with technological skill and traditional Jewish idealism.
 
Today, the beautiful 18-acre Boys Town campus in the Bayit Vegan neighborhood of Jerusalem is one of Israel’s major technological training centers. Approximately 800 students, ranging in age from 12 to 20, live on the campus, with a capacity to house up to 1,000. 
The children and grandchildren of immigrants from 45 countries on six continents, they mirror the ethnic diversity of the Israeli population. More than 75% come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and require substantial scholarship assistance. No student is ever turned away from Boys Town due to inability to pay tuition.

In addition to receiving a fine technological and academic education, Boys Town students are deeply imbued with traditional Jewish values and ideals, and pride in their Jewish heritage. As a result, Boys Town graduates are proud to serve in the Israel Defense Forces and then go on to build fine Jewish homes and families, while making important contributions to their communities and the State of Israel. Among Boys Town’s more than 6,200 graduates are many engineers, technicians, educators, fine craftsmen and professionals.

Enjoy the video,and Shabbat shalom from Yerushalayim.

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The Forward Chefs Make Gluten-Free Chicken Matzo Ball Soup For Your Seder

Gluten-free matzo balls? Rukhl Schaechter and Eve Jochnowitz, the Yiddish speaking chefs from the Jewish Daily Forward, found a way for gluten-restricted seder participants to enjoy chicken matzo ball soup with ground nuts substituting for matzo meal. Of course, if anyone is allergic to nuts, oh well...

According to the chefs, the resulting product is not going to be as fluffy as traditional matzo balls, but it will be very tasty (geshmack, in Yiddish).

We're posting this a few days before seder night to give you time to incorporate this recipe into your cooking plans.

As usual with our Yiddish recipe sessions (we've posted 20 in the last four years -- see "Est Gezunterheit" in the list of keywords in the left column) we're including a few funny-sounding Yiddish words that are used in this episode. If you're a follower of this series, you've heard most of them already.

Chicken soup = Hindel yoich
Oil = Boimel
Drumsticks = Pulkelach
Vegetables = Grintzen
Parsley = Pasternak
Garlic = Knubble
Parsley = Petrusshka

Enjoy!

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South Africa Synagogue Choir in Passover Supermarket Flash Mob

It's not often that we get to post a Jewish flash mob from Johannesburg, South Africa, but so far the Jewish community there is the only one we've seen that takes parts of the Haggadah into the public sphere. 

In this case Rabbi Dovid Hazdan of the Great Park Synagogue South Africa arranged a flash mob at Pick 'n Pay, a major supermarket to draw attention to the display of Kosher for Pesach products that are available.

The flash mob performed a rendition of Vehi She'amdah, a portion of the Pesach Haggaddah, to the surprise and delight of shoppers.It generated Jewish pride and positive happy energy as it added to the community’s awareness and preparation for Pesach.

Enjoy!

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(A tip of the kippah to Sheila Zucker for bringing this video to our attention.)

"All Other Nights" - A Hip Hop Passover Parody

What can you do with All Of the Lights, a pop song by Kanye West that has 96 million views on YouTube? 

Well, if you're 26-year-old Rebecca Adelson, you make it into a Passover parody, of course. Rebecca heard the words as All Other Nights, as in the words from Mah Nishtanah, On all other nights, we eat etc.....

So she turned to her crew from the hip hop sketch comedy show The People of Channel 38 and, along with her brother Matt, turned the flashy, and in our opinion tasteless song into a meaningful review of what happens on the seder night.

The music video was shot on location at two venerable Washington, DC synagogues, Adas Israel and the Historic Sixth and I.

Enjoy!

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Jokes to Start the Week - One-Liners on Getting Old From the Los Angeles Jewish Home

Yep, it's another Monday and time to start the week with a joke -- make that two, no, make that three or more. Ellis Simon, an 87-year-old resident of the Los Angeles Jewish Home enjoys telling old jokes to his fellow residents, and we have a bunch of his one-liners to share with you today.

We give a tip of the kippah to the Los Angeles Jewish Home for creating a Comedy Corner where residents can tell jokes and have them viewed around the world on YouTube and sites like Jewish Humor Central. We hope they will continue this program and give us more material to use on future Mondays.

Today's one-liners all have a common theme -- getting old. So what else would you expect? They come in rapid succession -- so fast that there's no time to set up each one. You'll just have to listen fast and carefully. Enjoy!

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Ein Prat Fountainheads Release New Interactive Musical Video of the Exodus From Egypt

And now for something completely different. The Fountainheads, a group of graduates and students from Midreshet Ein Prat in the Judean desert, have released Escape From Egypt, a new Passover video with interactive features. 

The very talented Fountainheads, whose music videos we have shared in previous years for Passover, Sukkot, Hanukkah, Purim, Rosh Hashanah, and Israel Independence Day, are breaking ground with an internet video that lets you choose the direction of the action.

In the style of the Choose Your Own Adventure series of children's books, the action stops at six points and you're asked to choose what happens next. It's a lot of fun, and it's the most elaborate Passover video we've seen so far. The singing, acting, choreography, and costumes make this a winner.

Through their videos and live performances, the Fountainheads' work is enjoyed by millions of people all over the world. The Fountainheads perform at special events, trips, concerts, weddings, and simchas in Israel, and also tour overseas a few times a year. 

Because this is an interactive video, we can't embed it in Jewish Humor Central like the videos that we share every day. You'll have to take an extra step to see it, but trust us, it will be worth the effort.

All you have to do to see it is click on the words Escape From Egypt, and you'll be at the Fountainheads' website where clicking on the arrow in the center of the page will start the action. (PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU WANT TO WATCH THIS VIDEO FROM AN IPAD OR IPHONE YOU WILL HAVE TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE INTERLUDE PLAYER APP FROM THE APPLE APPSTORE.) Enjoy!

ESCAPE FROM EGYPT

Throwing Candy at a Bar or Bat Mitzvah? Why Not at Other Occasions? A HaHafuch Comedy Skit

Israel's HaHafuch comedy troupe has been featured many times here at Jewish Humor Central. They do improv and sketch comedy in their periodic shows in Jerusalem. We try to see their performances whenever we're in Jerusalem. 

This year they're performing in mid-June and we're visiting now and in December. So we'll have to manage with viewing the funny video clips that they post on YouTube. And they're really funny. 

Most of us are familiar with the custom of throwing candy, either as individual pieces or wrapped up in small bags at Bar Mitzvah boys and Bat Mitzvah girls when they complete their Torah reading in the synagogue. But the HaHafuch crew asked why should such a fun custom be limited to these occasions? Why not throw candy on other happy occasions?

The occasions they picked for this video should produce at least a chuckle, if not an outright LOL. How about throwing candy when a waiter brings your order immediately? On acceptance of an engagement ring? When a dog does what he's asked to do? Or when two JDaters realize that they both look exactly like their online photos? The possibilities are endless.

Enjoy, and Shabbat shalom from the City of Gold.

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Unexpected Traces in Jewish Places: Taiwanese Group Sings Hebrew Songs in Jerusalem

Today we're sharing a video of a group of Taiwanese thermal massage therapists singing Hebrew songs on their visit to Israel last year. But it's not just a group of Asian tourists visiting...there's a story behind it, and we think that with the Internet research we've done, we've only scratched the surface.

OK, here's what we found. In Taiwan there's a "Raphael Thermo Therapy Center" named in honor of Raphael Gamzou, former head of the Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei—and de facto ambassador to Taiwan. The center is run by a healer known only as Master Lin -- and he has a loyal following of dozens of thermal therapy practitioners. 

On the center's website, Ahavat Israel in Taiwan, Lin claims that his love for Israel and the Jewish people enables him to make an offer that many Jewish Israelis find hard to refuse -- and it's open only to Jewish residents of Israel.

With all expenses prepaid, Lin invites Israelis who are suffering from stress to fly to Taiwan and spend a few days in the specially equipped Raphael Thermo Therapy Center where they are given massages with a hand-held thermal device while the therapists sings Hebrew songs to them. The Center also provides a fully equipped apartment for each visitor to use while they spend time getting treatments in Taiwan. 

Groups of therapists visit Israeli kibbutzim and towns. Last year they visited Jerusalem and made this video of their singing on the trip. The inclusion of a Mashiach, Mashiach song in the mix and letters on their website from Israelis who made the trip to Taiwan for treatment with promises that they will pray for the coming of the Messiah make us naturally suspicious of what's going on behind the scenes. But the absence of any overt prosyletizing leads us to give the group the benefit of the doubt and thank them for their generosity in bringing Jews in Israel relief from their physical and mental stresses while entertaining them with well-known Jewish and Israeli songs.

Enjoy!

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Attraction Black Light Theatre Group Tells Passover Story With Shadow Dance

The Passover story has been retold many ways throughout the centuries, but we continue to be amazed at the creative ways used to enable each generation to discover the details of the story that we read in the Haggadah each year, and to bring home the meaning of the events in new ways.

A few years ago, a Hungarian dance troupe called the Attraction Black Light Theatre, put together a shadow dance performance in which they re-envisioned the events from the birth of Moses to the receiving of the Ten Commandments. The video below is of a performance in Cancun, Mexico, in 2011.

Using a sheet, their bodies, and lights, the 12 member dance troupe illustrates the toils of the enslaved Jews, Moses' encounter with the burning bush, the ten plagues in Egypt, Moses receiving the 10 commandments, and the eventual freedom of the children of Israel.

Among the objects they depicted in shadow by repositioning their bodies, we spotted pyramids, a palm tree, Pharaoh, the Burning Bush, the Ten Plagues, a bird's nest, a camel, a chariot, the splitting of the Red Sea, the Ten Commandments, the Ark of the Covenant, a Star of David, and a wine goblet.

Using dance and shadow, the troupe gives us a memorable way of reliving the Passover story as a reminder of the enduring value of history, homecoming, and freedom.

Enjoy!

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What Do Bentley Luxury Cars and Shmurah Matzah Have in Common?

What do Bentley luxury cars have in common with Shmurah Matzah? Well, they both cost a lot more than their machine-made competition. But the fact that they are both handmade is a distinguishing feature.

Check out this commercial. For the first 40 seconds it looks like an ordinary automobile commercial. But hold on -- don't be tempted to stop watching. The last 20 seconds get to the point with the same announcer bringing to life the parallels between the top of the line car and the top of the line matzah.

Handmade is always better. Commercial courtesy of Chabad.

Enjoy!

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