The Great Jewish Comedians: Jerry Lewis as a Five-Year-Old Kid

Jerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, singer and recording artist, film producer, screenwriter and film director and is known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. 

Lewis, who will celebrate his 90th birthday in March, was born Joseph Levitch (some sources say Jerome Levitch) in Newark, New Jersey, to Russian Jewish parents. His father, Daniel Levitch, was a master of ceremonies and vaudeville entertainer who used the professional name Danny Lewis. His mother, Rachel ("Rae") Levitch, was a piano player for a radio station.

His career began in 1946, with an act together with Dean Martin, forming the team of Martin and Lewis, which performed in live nightclubs, television programs, radio shows and movies before 1956, when the two men parted ways, after ten years as a duo. 

Then since 1957, as a solo, Lewis went on to star in many more films, such as The Delicate Delinquent (his debut as film producer), The Bellboy (his debut as film director and screenwriter) and The Nutty Professor as well as many television shows and appearances, music albums, live concerts and more. 

From 1966 to 2010, Lewis hosted the annual Labor Day Telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association for over forty years and served as national chairman of the organization.

In this video clip from a Comic Relief stand-up show in the 1980s, Lewis comes on stage to great applause and appears as a 5-year-old kid named Norman.

Enjoy!

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Non-Observant Jews Try Going Kosher for a Week

The funny folks at Buzzfeed found six non-observant Jews who have never tried to follow kosher rules and challenged them to eat only kosher foods for a week.

They gave them the basic laws of kashrut and followed them as they tried to stay within the kosher guidelines. Here are their reactions as they went through the week.

Were they successful? Watch the video and see.

Enjoy!

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Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places: National Taiwan University Chorus Performs "Fiddler on the Roof"

This has been quite a year for Fiddler on the Roof. After celebrating its 50th anniversary in June 2014, a major revival was launched last week at the Broadway Theatre in New York City.

The new production, highly acclaimed in reviews in The New York Times and other publications, is stimulating new interest around the world in what has become a classic and universal story.

Another 50th anniversary was celebrated just a year earlier in Taiwan, where the National Taiwan University Chorus marked 50 years on campus. The chorus consists of around 100 avid choral singers, none of whom are music majors. 

Bright and youthful, with promising potential and remarkably adaptable talent, singers of NTU Chorus delight in performing works from a wide range of choral repertoire, including canonic Western choral works, spirituals and gospel music, Chinese art songs, Taiwanese folksongs, operatic choral numbers, musical medleys, and commissioned works by Taiwan's own emerging talented composers. 

Last week they performed a 25 minute long concert version of Fiddler on the Roof that we hope you will enjoy.

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A Joke to Start the Week - "A Very Unusual Disease"

It's the last Monday of 2015, so it's time for the last Joke to Start the Week. In 2015, that is. 

Next Monday we'll be back with the first Joke to Start the Week of 2016. When we started the weekly Monday joke back in August of 2012, we didn't think we could keep finding enough jokes to keep the series going. 

Thanks to the Old Jews Telling Jokes website and a group of our friends and readers who were recruited or volunteered, we've been able to give you a joke every week.

If you're a joke teller who'd like to appear on Jewish Humor Central with a Monday joke, send us a video clip (family-friendly only, please) for our review. Or catch up with us at one of our Florida lectures in February and we'll try to record your joke on the spot.

Today we're sharing another joke from Bob Hertzendorf, our favorite certified hypnosis counselor. (How many certified hypnosis counselors do you know?)

Here's the setup: Mr Goldberg goes to the doctor. The doctor gives him a thorough physical -- blood work and everything, and then...

Enjoy!

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Jerry Seinfeld Gets Personal in His Israel Show

We got so many positive reactions to the video clip of Jerry Seinfeld's standup comedy in Tel Aviv last week that we're posting another part of his sold-out show. And there's more to come.

In this segment, Jerry talks about his personal life, age, and marriage. As Allison Kaplan Sommer wrote in Haaretz,

Seinfeld didn’t address the security situation, though the comedian who opened for him, Mark Schiff said in his set that he had been asked if he was nervous about travelling to Israel and said “I’ve been married for 25 years. Nothing scares me.”

Like Schiff, Seinfeld, who said he felt “warmly received” in Israel, spent a great deal of his act on men, women, and married life, a universal source of humor, which Seinfeld compared to underwear. An ideal marriage, he said “offers a little bit of support and a little bit of freedom.” 

Enjoy!

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(A tip of the kippah to Yifat Cohen for posting this video on YouTube.)

Israeli Dance Flash Mob Breaks Out at Chicago Festival

The Greater Chicago Jewish Festival is the longest running ongoing Jewish Festival in America and the largest Jewish event in the Chicago area.

Created in 1980, it celebrates Jewish music, dance, art and of course food. Attracting over 20,000 people, the Festival is the heart and soul of Jewish Chicago and was last held on June 8, 2014.

At the festival a group of dancers emerged in the middle of the crowd and spontaneously started a sequence of Israeli folk dances, many of which should be recognizable to our readers.

Israeli folk dances are a unique phenomenon of contemporary folklore. In spite of the many changes in the values, dreams, and ways of life of the , they still dance the old dances of the 1940s and 1950s—the years during which more new dances were created than in any other culture in the world.

Today there are some three thousand Israeli folk dances, according to folk-dance instructors. However, some of these dances are no longer danced. It is hard to specify which of the dances aren’t practiced but the Hora is still practiced. Many more modern dances incorporate folk inspired dance moves into their dances. 

Today there are groups in Israel whose jobs are to conserve the heritage of Israeli folk dance. About one hundred thousand people dance on a regular basis at least once a week and an additional one hundred thousand dance several times a year.

There are regular dance groups meeting in 30 countries and more than 30 states in the USA. There is an Israeli dance website that lets you search for a group in your city and find the words to many songs in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino.

Enjoy!

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"Old Jews Telling Jokes" Comes to New Brunswick, New Jersey

The popular off-Broadway show Old Jews Telling Jokes, which played in New York, Chicago, Palm Beach, Coral Springs and other venues, is now playing at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey through Sunday, January 3.

The show is based on the Old Jews Telling Jokes website created in 2008 by Sam Hoffman and Eric Spiegelman. The website and subsequent book, CD, and DVD are the result of their renting a storefront in Highland Park, New Jersey, and videotaping the old jokes told by their parents and friends.

In this video interview from NJTV News, Hoffman and his father, professor and retired judge Barnett Hoffman, reflect on the experience of creating the website and watching it come to life on the stage.

If you're anywhere near New Brunswick, Old Jews Telling Jokes will have you laughing long after you leave the theater. Tickets are available online at the George Street Playhouse website.

Enjoy!

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The Great Jewish Comedians: George Jessel Tells a Joke to Make the Pope Laugh

George Jessel (1898-1981), sometimes called "Georgie" Jessel, was an American actor, singer, songwriter, and Academy Award-winning movie producer. He was famous in his lifetime as a multi-talented comedic entertainer, achieving a level of recognition that transcended his limited roles in movies.

He was widely known by his nickname, the "Toastmaster General of the United States," for his frequent role as the master of ceremonies at political and entertainment gatherings. Jessel originated the title role in the stage production of The Jazz Singer in 1925.

Jessel was a big supporter of Israel. He headlined many Israel Bond and UJA dinners and made promotional films of his visit to Israel with his young daughter in 1953.

Here he tells a joke that he was given by Cardinal Cushing who suggested that he retell it to the pope when he was traveling to Rome for an audience.

Enjoy!

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Jerry Seinfeld Brings His Standup Comedy to Tel Aviv

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld brought his stand-up routine to Israel for the first time, as part of his world tour. Last weekend he performed four shows in Tel Aviv. 

As David Brinn wrote in The Jerusalem Post,

The 61-year-old multi-millionaire entertainer, whose nine-season sitcom became a cultural touchstone unmatched in TV history, went back to his roots on Saturday night in Tel Aviv and proved that he was master of his domain – the field of stand-up comedy.

Dressed in a stylish suit that showed off only a little more bulk than in his TV heyday, Seinfeld soldiered on through some hoarseness with a slick, well-rehearsed set that had the appreciative audience frequently breaking into applause.

An hilarious opening focused on the audience’s decision to attend the show and all the details it entailed, offered in Seinfeld’s trademark earnest outrage, which is more staccato and manic that the TV monologues of old.

He localized his bits a few times, mentioning the vast array at Israeli hotel breakfasts and how it brings out the worst elements in people.

Here's a video clip from his performance in which he talked about our dependence on cell phones and the wide technology gap between email and the U.S. Postal Service.

Enjoy!

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A Joke to Start the Week - "Texan on a Kibbutz"

It's Monday, another joke day, and to start this week off with a laugh, it's Mel Bleemer, our retired CPA from New Jersey once again.

This time, Mel tells a joke about Israel.

Here's the setup: This tour is going to Israel, and in the tour group is a big Texan. On this particular day, they're visiting a kibbutz. And then...

Enjoy!

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The Star Wars Hanukkah Song

OK, we know that Chanukah is over, and we said we wouldn't post any more Chanukah music videos and parodies this year.

But then STAR WARS: The Force Awakens opened worldwide to great acclaim, and you can't open a website or newspaper today without being flooded with Star Wars reviews, reports, and references.
 
So when we came across a 2011 video parody of Adam Sandler's The Chanukah Song that was built around Jewish references in the first six Star Wars films, we just couldn't resist sharing it with you.

Here's The Star Wars Hanukkah Song, by Luke Sienkowski, a composer of many parody songs under the name The Great Luke Ski. You'll find the lyrics just below the video.

Enjoy!

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The Star Wars Hanukkah Song
A parody of "The Hanukkah Song" by Adam Sandler, about the Jewish actors of the Star Wars films (also, an addendum to the earlier version done in the first "It's A Fanboy Christmas", 2000).
Parody lyrics by the great Luke Ski
© 2011 Luke Sienkowski

Lyrics:

Star Wars is a serial of thrills.
Instead of one sci-fi classic, we get six crazy films (and an animated series).
Some actors of the Jewish faith are in these tales of Jedi,
And if Adam Sandler can amend his song, then why the Hell can't I?

Natalie Portman, sure isn't a shiksa.
She was elected Queen of Naboo just before her Bot Mitzfah.
Gave birth to a Jewish Princess, she was Carrie Fisher's Momma.
Mark Hamill's not a jew,
but he was the voice of the Hanukkah Zombie on "Futurama".
Some people thought Watto was, with his raspy voice and schnozzes.
Well he's not, and neither is Yoda, but it turns out that Frank Oz is!
Yoda: Jew or Jew not, there is no try! Hoo hoo hoo hoo!
Mel Brooks gave us "Spaceballs", made us laugh until we burst.
Harrison Ford is a quarter Jewish, and he shot Greedo first! (SFX: blaster fire)

Get on your Taun-Taun-nukkah.
It's Star Wars Hanukkah.
You can hang out with Qui-Gon-nukkah.
On the Millenium Falcon-nukkah.
With a Wookie named Chewba-nukkah.
Everybody: Please help me Obi-Wan-nukkah.
So go see Episode One-nukkah.
And have a happy Han Solo!
[Han: Laugh it up, fuzzball!]
Just kidding! Happy Star Wars Hanukkah!

May the force be with you, everybody!

Jerusalem Street Comes Alive With Street Performers

We're spending a month in Jerusalem and wanted to share some of the atmosphere with you. 

Today was a rainy day, but it didn't stop us from getting on a bus and going to the Ben Yehuda Street outdoor shopping mall and walking on Jaffa Road, where the intersection has always attracted a wide range of street musicians.

Today was no exception, and strollers in the on again-off again rain were treated to a violinist and Chassidic dancer expressing themselves musically.
 
We've been here for a week and observe that nothing much has changed. Despite the negative portrayals in the mass media, life goes on here as before. Restaurants are busy, both inside and outside, and nightlife includes theatrical productions, concerts by symphony orchestras, and dance festivals. Today, we joined a large group of movie-goers at the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Just yesterday, the UN's Human Development index ranked Israel in 18th place for its list of the best countries in the world to live, putting it ahead of Japan, Italy, France and Austria. Norway came first, as it has done in 13 out of the last 15 years, and the US took 8th place.
 
May the force be with you, and Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem!

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The Great Jewish Comedians - Totie Fields on The Ed Sullivan Show

Totie Fields was born Sophie Feldman in Hartford, Connecticut. According to Wikipedia, she started singing in Boston clubs while still in high school, taking the stage name of Totie Fields. The name "Totie" was a childhood nickname, a baby-talk pronunciation of the name "Sophie"

Fields gained fame during the 1960s and 1970s. Ed Sullivan gave Fields her first big break when he booked her on his show after seeing her perform at the Copacabana in New York. She made multiple appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, and The Merv Griffin Show, as well as a fifth season episode of Here's Lucy starring Lucille Ball.

Here's a video clip of one of her standup comedy appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Enjoy!

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Funniest Jewish Film Moments: Heimish and Amish from The Frisco Kid

The Frisco Kid starring Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford is one of our all-time favorite funny movies. 

It has a few great Jewish film moments, and today we're sharing one of the best.

In the film Wilder plays Rabbi Avram Belinski, an underachiever in his rabbinical school in Poland. He is dispatched to America to become the new rabbi of a congregation in San Francisco. He has with him a Torah scroll for the San Francisco synagogue. 

Belinski, an innocent, trusting, and inexperienced traveler, falls in with three con men who trick him into helping pay for a wagon and supplies to go west, then brutally rob him and leave him and most of his belongings scattered along a deserted road in Pennsylvania.

He makes his way across a field where he spots a group of farmers wearing black hats and black clothing, similar to the clothing worn in his Polish homeland. Assuming that he has come across a group of Jewish landsmen, he embraces them. Then the fun begins. He tries to speak to them in Yiddish, but they are Pennsylvania Amish. The realization that he has made a big mistake is one of the funniest Jewish film moments.

Enjoy!

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Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner and Other GI JEWS Tell Their World War II Stories

GI JEWS: Jewish Americans in World War II, a feature-length documentary for broadcast on national public television, will tell the profound and unique story of Jewish Americans in World War II.

These are the men and women who fought for their nation and their people, struggled privately with anti-Semitism, and emerged transformed, more powerfully American and more deeply Jewish.

The film will include interviews with Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, 104-year-old Bea Cohen and former Manhattan DA Robert M. Morgenthau.

We'll keep an eye out for the completion date of the film and let you know about its availability.

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A Joke to Start the Week - "Are You Jewish?"

It's another Monday, and it's the last day of Chanukah. So do we post another Chanukah music video or our traditional Joke to Start the Week? 

After much deliberation, we decided that ten music videos was enough for this year, and that we should give the nod to our joke lovers.

This week marks the return to this space of Freyda Kolinsky, the retired teacher who got such a great response to her "flucky" joke that we thought you deserved another one from her collection.

Here's the setup: A man was late to work. He rushed onto the train and took the only seat available, next to a lady. And then...

Enjoy!

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Israel Forever Website Features Jewish Humor Central in a Week of Chanukah Laughter

The Israel Forever Foundation is an engagement organization that develops and promotes experiential learning opportunities to celebrate and strengthen the personal connection to Israel as an integral part of Jewish life and identity.

 

 One of their projects is the Israel Forever Blog, a dynamic collection of personal perspectives, insights and stories that empower others to explore and strengthen their own personal connection to Israel.

 

With the Israel Forever blog focusing on Jewish humor during the eight days of Chanukah, we were invited to share our perspective on Jewish and Israeli humor. We included some of the funniest video clips that we've posted over the years. We thought that our Jewish Humor Central readers would enjoy revisiting them, so we're reproducing our Israel Forever blog post below.

 

Jewish Humor - Does Israel make it different?

 By Al Kustanowitz

In all the press coverage of Israel as a center of conflict in the Middle East, one very important characteristic of this colorful and friendly country that’s not often reported is the role of humor in everyday life.

 

This aspect is sorely lacking in the columns of newspapers around the world, but all it takes is a visit to Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, a reading of the local papers, or watching Israeli television to see the fun that Israelis are having in their activities. This is true among religious and secular communities. It may not be as readily apparent in the religious or Haredi worlds, but living among them will reveal that even in the most serious halls of study and prayer, smiles and laughter are often lurking just below the surface.

Since 2009 I have published a blog called Jewish Humor Central. In it I’ve posted more than 1,800 video clips relating to Jewish humor around the world in all of its forms. And there are many forms.

More than 350 of these posts are specifically related to humor that has a connection to the land and people of Israel. They include jokes, funny TV commercials, parody, satire, improv, standup comedy, music videos for Chanukah and other holidays, and unbelievable but true reports of funny and unusual happenings that could occur only in Israel.

 

Not all humor in Israel is laugh out loud funny, but that’s also the case everywhere else in the world. Some anecdotes, news items, and jokes are hilarious, and some bring a grin, chuckle, laugh, guffaw, or just a warm feeling that's likely to produce a knowing smile and some Yiddishe nachas.

I selected the best of the bunch, some 120 blog posts with associated video clips, and published a book about them called Israel is a Funny Country. With links to more than six hours of Internet video, it explores the multifaceted nature of humor in Israel, some of which is intentional and some of which is unintentional. Either way, the quirks of Israeli life contribute to making that life interesting and fulfilling.

 

In the pages of this volume, I take a look at humorous slices of Israeli life, unusual stories about food, simchas as they can only be celebrated in Israel, endearing aspects of Israeli culture, a look at the growing phenomenon of flash mobs, and a glimpse of a few unusual Israeli sports.

 

My objective in writing the book and sharing these anecdotes and video clips is to give readers and viewers a new and different insight into life in Israel, and encourage them to join in the fun by planning a visit to the land flowing with milk and honey.

 

FUNNY HAPPENINGS IN ISRAEL

---

 

Here are just a few examples of funny happenings in Israel that are not widely reported worldwide, but that appeared in Jewish Humor Central.

 

Mermaid Spotted Off Haifa Coast; $1 Million Reward Offered

A mermaid was reported in Kiryat Yam, a suburb of Haifa. A local resident insisted that it came ashore and touched him. The story was reported by Israel21c.

Kojak the Camel Gets Tied Up in Jerusalem Bureaucracy

 

Kojak, the kissing camel of Jerusalem, got tied up in Jerusalem bureaucracy when the municipality insisted that he apply for a business permit.

 

---

FUNNY ISRAELI TV COMMERCIALS

 

Israeli TV Commercials, whether for food and drink, or to encourage tourism, can also be funny with special appeal to the Jewish viewer.

 

Israel Ministry of Tourism: History is Everywhere

 

A tourist is shocked when David and Goliath make an appearance in modern Jerusalem.

 

Neviot Flavored Water: The real story of how Michelangelo sculpted David

---

ISRAELI HUMOR AND JEWISH HUMOR: ARE THEY THE SAME?

 

What we think of as Jewish humor in the USA and Israeli humor are quite different.

While most of the old great comedians in America were Jewish, there is very little Jewish content in their performances. Jack Benny, George Burns, Danny Kaye, Alan King, Shelley Berman, Victor Borge, Henny Youngman, Sid Caesar, and Milton Berle were obviously Jewish, but their jokes, sketches, and routines were largely devoid of any ethnic or religious content. Even Myron Cohen, with his strong Yiddish accent, told jokes that were more universal than sectarian.

Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks also projected a strong Jewishness but it did not dominate their work, even when they were writing sketches for Sid Caesar. Sure, their 2000 year old man skits were filled with Jewish sensibilities, and there were short recognizable (and funny) Jewish lines in some of their movies, but only Jackie Mason stands out as the quintessential Jewish stand-up comedian.

Younger comedians, such as Jerry Seinfeld and Billy Crystal, follow the same pattern of general humor with a faint Jewish inflection.

Israeli humor, however, is very, very Jewish through and through. And it’s different in many ways. Most American Jewish humor takes the form of jokes, and often racy ones, that are repeated endlessly wherever Jews gather, whether at social functions or in the synagogue. Much of Israeli humor is in the form of TV skits, and lots of parody of politicians and the political process. This may be funny to Israelis, but to visitors, and especially those not fluent in Hebrew and the day to day activities of these politicians, it has no impact.

The Israeli humor that makes non-Israelis laugh is generally presented by olim from America and other countries such as Benji Lovitt, Deb Kaye, Yisrael Campbell, and Molly Livingstone who recount their battles with the Israeli bureaucracy, their struggles to learn Hebrew and hold their own in a new culture where direct and sometimes rough talk and behavior is considered normal, and where political correctness is virtually unheard of.

Al Kustanowitz founded Jewish Humor Central in 2009, to bring a daily dose of fun and merriment to readers who would otherwise start the day reading news that is often drab, dreary, and depressing. A long-term devotee of Jewish humor, Al has been collecting it even before there was an Internet. For the last 25 years he has been editor and publisher of The Kustanowitz Kronikle, originally a family newsletter that went public when the Purim editions became too popular to keep private. Now they're all available as a book, The Kustanowitz Kronikle: 25 Years of Purim Parody. In 2012, Al wrote a series of seven interactive books with the series title Jewish Humor on Your Desktop. Israel is a Funny Country, now in an expanded second edition, is one of the books in the series. For more information visit www.jewishhumorprograms.com or send an email by clicking HERE.

In Jerusalem and Washington, Prime Minister and Presidents Celebrate Chanukah

The scenes were similar this week in Jerusalem and in Washington, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama presided over Chanukah Candle lighting ceremonies and special events to mark the occasion.

In Jerusalem, the prime minister lit the first Chanukah candle and delivered a stirring speech. He likened Israel being a candle in the darkness 2200 years ago when the Maccabees defeated the Seleucid Greeks to today's struggle against forces of darkness for our existence, independence, culture, and for all humanity.

At the White House in Washington, Israel's President Reuven Rivlin lit the fifth Chanukah candle on Wednesday evening as President Obama looked on. Before the lighting and singing of Chanukah songs, the two presidents delivered welcoming remarks to an invited audience of Jewish leaders including our Los Angeles bureau chief, Esther Kustanowitz.

For those of us who weren't invited, the video clip below provides a peek inside the White House and an insider's view of the celebration.

Enjoy and Shabbat shalom.

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