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!
Shavuot is the most important Jewish holiday most people have never
heard of. One of the three pilgrimage festivals, it doesn't get the attention given to Passover and Sukkot. But it does celebrate the giving and receiving of the Torah. So where are all the songs, jokes, comedy skits and music videos that we share on the other holidays?
They're mostly not there with a few exceptions, including one of our favorites, Mel Brooks as Moses showing us why we have only ten commandments and not fifteen. From all night lectures and study sessions to mountains of cheese and cheesecake, from Jewish film screenings, decorating our homes with greenery, reading the Book of Ruth, and yoga at dawn, Shavuot
finds incredible ways to celebrate receiving the Torah.
Here's a concise and entertaining explanation with everything you wanted to know about Shavuot but were afraid to ask. It's by BimBam (formerly G-dcast), a nonprofit new media company whose goal is to make Jewish literacy accessible to everyone interested learning, and to create positive attitudes about Jewish values and behaviors.
[Speaking
of Mel Brooks' extra five commandments, all-night study sessions,
cheesecake, and Jewish humor, here's a fun way to tie them all together. This morning after posting our Shavuot post we received an email from
Nino Loss, a foodnik blogger in Vienna, building on the Brooks shtick.
It includes a link to his post
-- a treatise on cheesecake's origins, interpretations of the "lost
five commandments" and a connection between them and the graham cracker
crumbs that are part of most cheesecakes. We think it's fitting to take a
break from serious study to read and discuss Nino's observations and
theories while we consume the traditional high-calorie treat that fuels
the night of learning.] The Shavuot holiday will be celebrated in Israel for one day, tomorrow, and in the rest of the world for two days, tomorrow and Thursday. We'll be celebrating with family both days, and we'll be back with our usual mix on Friday. Enjoy, and Chag Sameach! A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:
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Today is Memorial Day, but it's also Monday, and that means that it's time for another joke to start the week. Today's
jokester is Ronnie Haber, a retiree from a career in
textile sales. The joke, like many of our Monday jokes, is from the
website collection of Old Jews Telling Jokes.
Here's the setup: A priest and a rabbi are traveling in opposite directions on the Long Island Expressway. And then...
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Jews are known to have an affinity for Chinese food, but how do the Chinese feel about Israeli food? On the occasion of 25 years of diplomatic relations between Israel and
China, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs was curious to know what the Chinese think about Israeli
food, so they asked some Chinese people in a restaurant in the port of Jaffa to sample and comment on Israeli foods.
Watch to find out what they had to say: A
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Nava Tehila is a Jerusalem-based prayer community that gathers for a big musical
Kabbalat Shabbat once a month in Jerusalem's Baka neighborhood. They create musical and engaging prayer spaces where people feel comfortable to come as they are. All
are welcomed.
Their prayer service is innovative, egalitarian and
accompanied by acoustic instruments. It flows between ecstatic chanting
and dancing and contemplative, and is uses mostly their own beautiful original melodies written by their members.
Nava Tehila’s musical spiritual leaders generate new prayer modalities,
compose new music for prayer, and train Jewish leaders, including
rabbis, cantors and students, in the art of musical and innovative
prayer leading.
The Nava Tehila leaders travel to Reform, Conservative and other
communities in Israel, the US and Europe to share the ideas that have
proven so successful in drawing in not only nonaffiliated Jews, but also
speaking to long term members of these communities.
They have produced two albums of music for Shabbat and High Holiday
prayers, and run a resource website that offers prayer leaders free
access to sheet music and recordings of their material.
Today we welcome Shabbat with Nava Tehila's own version of Lecha Dodi.
Enjoy and Shabbat shalom!
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We thought that we had run out of Buddy Hackett videos and were pleasantly surprised to find a mother lode of Buddy's appearances on the Johnny Carson Tonight Show. It's rare to find a Hackett video these days, especially one that's clean. So go back with us 44 years to 1973 when Buddy made one of his visits to Carson's late night show.
In this episode, Buddy tells of his scouting days when he raised rabbits for a merit badge in animal husbandry, how his father converted a would-be robber into an upholsterer, his antics as a cook in the army, and how he met his wife Sherrine duBois, daughter of Esther Cohen, at the Concord Hotel. Enjoy! A SPECIAL NOTE FOR
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We have featured the Chicago-based wedding band before, performing a flash mob version of Hashem
Melech and and a mashup of Passover songs in downtown Chicago, with the Kol Ish a cappella singers in a
bluegrass version of Yigdal,
in an Israeli salsa number in Miami, and in a Chicago mashup
of Chanukah songs old and new.
In March they released a new music video that was filmed in some of the most iconic locations in Tel Aviv. Now they're back just in time for Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day) wiith
a talented team of dancers performing stunning choreography to a
variety of musical styles in familiar sites around Jerusalem.
Enjoy!
(A
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The songs included in the mashup are:
Yerushalayim Shel Zahav - Naomi Shemer Im Eshkachech Yerushalayim - Yaakov Shwekey Jerusalem, If I Forget You - Matisyahu Al Chomotayich Yerushalayim Sisu Et Yerushalayim - Akiva Nof Lach Yerushalayim - A. Rubinstein & Amos Etinger Yerushalayim Oro Shel Olam - Avraham Fried L'Shana Habah B'Yerushalayim - Reb Shlomo Carlebach
משאפ שירי ירושלים:
ירושלים של זהב - נעמי שמר אים אשכחך ירושלים - יעקב שוואקי מתיסיהו - Jerusalem, If I Forget You על חומותיך ירושלים שישו את ירושלים - עקיבא נוף לך ירושלים - א. רובינשטיין & עמוס אטינגר ירושלים אורו של עולם - אברהם פריד לשנה הבאה בירושלים - ר׳ שלמה קרליבך
Jerusalem couldn't wait to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its unification. The week-long Jerusalem Day celebrations started three days early on Sunday night with a
fantastic light and sound show projected against the old city walls
outside of the Jaffa Gate.
The evening, which was attended by tens of
thousands, including President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu, told the story of the history of Jerusalem. Beginning with
the binding of Isaac on Mount Moriah and continuing through Jacob's
dream, the history of the city played out including King David, the Temple of Solomon, the Babylonian exile, the
return to Zion and rebuilding of the Holy Temple, the Maccabees and the
refurbished Temple of Herod and its destruction in the year 70 CE by the
Romans.
The story resumed in the 16th century as entire
Jewish communities began to resettle inside Jerusalem's walls, to the
first Jewish settlements outside the walls, the division of the city
during Israel's 1948 War of Independence, and climaxed with the
liberation and reunification of Jerusalem during the 1967 Six Day War.
The
presentation included the voice of Mota Gur, who commanded the Israeli
paratroopers who stormed the Temple Mount, taken directly from the
two-way radio with which he was commanding his troops.
Jerusalem's
old city was liberated on the 28th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar,
(tomorrow), which was on June 7, 1967. Israel will be celebrating
50 years since the liberation of Jerusalem throughout the entire week. A SPECIAL NOTE FOR
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It's another Monday. Time to get back to work, time for another Joke to Start the Week and time to start the day with a laugh. Today Joyce Fama is joining us again with a joke about a synagogue's gift to their rabbi.
When
she's not telling jokes, Joyce is an award winning Connecticut
sculptor. Her medium is fired clay that is inished with custom patinas. Here's the setup for today's joke: The rabbi of a Reform congregation is so appreciated by his congregation that they pay for an all expense paid trip for him to Hawaii. And then... Enjoy! A SPECIAL NOTE FOR
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David Kilimnick, known as Jerusalem's
comedian and dubbed Israel's father of Anglo comedy by the Jerusalem Post, has
been telling his jokes and stories about the joys and perils of making aliyah
since moving from Rochester, New York to Israel in 2003.
David owns and operates the Off the Wall Comedy Basement at the intersection of
King George and Ben Yehuda Streets in the center of Jerusalem.
He was recently the subject of With the Help of Laughter, a five-minute
video feature in which he reflects on his life as a stand-up comic in Israel.
It includes excerpts from his comedy nights in English and in Hebrew.
Enjoy!
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Beit T'shuvah is a Los Angeles based synagogue community with a mission to guide individuals and families towards a path of
living well, so that wrestling souls can recover from addiction and
learn how to properly heal.
They
also have a band, and in 2015 they recorded a Beatles
Shabbat service with all the familiar songs in the Friday night liturgy
sung to some of the most popular Beatles songs.
We previously posted their version of Lecha Dodi set to Let it Be. Here's another excerpt from the service with the shul band welcoming Shabbat with V'Shamru set to Hey Jude. Beit T'shuvah is led by Rabbi Mark Borovitz, described on the synagogue website as "spiritual leader, author, Senior Rabbi, ex-con, recovering alcoholic, and overall anomaly."
Officially ordained in 2000 at the University of Judaism with a Master's
in Rabbinic Literature, Rabbi Borovitz combined his knowledge of
Torah and street smarts to shape his calling: helping recovering addicts
find their way in the world.
After being released from prison in 1988 he began
his work at Beit T'Shuvah. Over the past
twenty-eight years, he has co-created one of the most exceptional
approaches to addiction treatment and criminal rehabilitation and
reintegration in the world.
The lead singer in this video is Cantor Shira Fox, the daughter of two Los Angeles cantors -- Herschel Fox, the Yiddish stand-up comedian we profiled in 2011 and his wife Judy, the cantor in the Synagogue for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles (where Joseph Telushkin is the rabbi), Enjoy and Shabbat shalom! (A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:
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It's been awhile since we've posted a collection of Henny Youngman jokes, so we think Throwback Thursday is a good opportunity to share another bunch with you.
Youngman, a British-American Jewish
comedian and violinist, was very popular in the 1950s and 1960s, with
many appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and on Laugh-in.
His stand-up comedy stood out from that of his fellow comedians in that he only told simple one-liner jokes, a format that was picked up years later by Rodney Dangerfield.
Henny explained the origin of his classic line "Take my wife, please"
as a misinterpretation: in the mid-1930s he took his wife to a show and
asked the usher to escort his wife to a seat. But his request was taken
as a joke, and Youngman used the line countless times ever after.
This video clip goes back 62 years to 1955. The jokes come so fast that it's easy to miss some of the punch lines. We had trouble understanding his opening joke about losing two dollars betting on a horse named Nashua to place until we did some research and found this explanation: The day before Nashua lost a match race to
the equally great Native Dancer. Obviously there can't be a place bet
when there only two horses racing.
Enjoy!
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Last week JTA profiled Bob Mankoff, retiring cartoon editor at The New Yorker, and asked him to pick his favorite Jewish-themed cartoons from over the years, and he was happy to oblige.
Bob Mankoff has been the cartoon editor at The New Yorker for 20 years. But he’s been a Jew for 72.
The celebrated cartoonist, who is stepping down from his prestigious
perch in May, has therefore had a long time to formulate his thoughts on
Judaism and Jewish humor. For example, he once wrote an essay about how Jews have become the “People of the Joke,” as opposed to the “People of the Book.”
“The Jews of the Bible aren’t funny,” he told JTA. “[Judaism] is a
decent first draft of how to behave. It’s a really good try for 4,000
years ago.”
In this video clip from a Moment magazine symposium, Mankoff shares his observations on Jewish humor. His seven favorite Jewish cartoons appear below the video. Enjoy! A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:
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What accent do single men think is the sexiest? You might guess French or Italian, but you'd be wrong according to the latest poll. Surprise! It's Israeli. As Benyamin Cohen wrote on the website From the Grapevine,
One thing most men can agree upon is that there's just something
special about a woman with an accent. Indeed, a new survey of 1,164
American men ranked the world's sexiest accents. “Accents have a
tendency of taking our minds to unknown, and exotic places, adding a
touch of mystery and intrigue to the speaker,” explained Brandon Wade,
founder of MissTravel.com, the dating website behind the survey.
Israel came in at No. 1 on the list. "Israeli accents conjure up images of the Mediterranean,” Wade added about the region.
We suspect that fascination with the Israeli accent is partly due to the prominence of Israeli actress Gal Gadot, who stars in the new Wonder Woman movie, to be released on June 2. Here is an interview with her, in which her Israeli accent is unmistakeable.
Enjoy!
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Today we welcome back Rabbi Bob Alper -- rabbi, stand-up comic, and author, for another Joke to Start the Week. We've been posting video clips from Bob's stand-up comedy sessions on Jewish Humor Central since November 2009. The
funny reform rabbi recently performed in a synagogue in Connecticut and
graciously gave us permission to share some of his jokes with you.
We're sharing three short ones today. So what makes them Gentile Jokes, as differentiated from Jewish Jokes? If you've been telling and hearing Jewish jokes for as long as we have, the answer is obvious. But just in case you don't get it immediately, we'll point out that these jokes by themselves are not funny. In fact, they're not even jokes. They're just simple narratives. What makes them funny is imagining how different they would be if the protagonists were Members of the Tribe.
The Jewish version of each would be filled with angst. The mother would not accept her son's excuse without pushback. The shopper for a new sportcoat would have plenty to say about the price quoted by the salesman. And he new business owner would regale his friend with tales of woe.
So we thank Bob not only for his jokes, but for his insights into the intricacies of ethnic humor.
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Lag B’Omer is one of
those little-known Jewish holidays, the kind that passes unnoticed among
most American Jews. Perhaps they would be more interested if they knew
it involved barbecue — and a couple of really good stories. Widely
celebrated in Israel, it’s known as a family-focused celebration filled
with grilled meats and carob cakes and bows and arrows.Read more: http://forward.com/food/371566/what-the-heck-is-lag-bomer-hint-it-involves-barbecue/
Lag B’Omer is one of
those little-known Jewish holidays, the kind that passes unnoticed among
most American Jews. Perhaps they would be more interested if they knew
it involved barbecue — and a couple of really good stories. Widely
celebrated in Israel, it’s known as a family-focused celebration filled
with grilled meats and carob cakes and bows and arrows.Read more: http://forward.com/food/371566/what-the-heck-is-lag-bomer-hint-it-involves-barbecue/
Today is Lag B'Omer,
the 33rd day of the period between Pesach and Shavuot. Around the
world, the day is celebrated mainly in Jewish schools with children
going on picnics and hikes and playing with toy bows and arrows in the
field. In Israel, schools are closed for two days.
In
Meron, in northern Israel, about 500,000 chasidim make an annual pilgrimage to
the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (Rashbi) to sing, dance, and light
bonfires. Rashbi's tomb is the epicenter of the Lag B'Omer celebrations
because he was one of the students of Rabbi Akiva who survived a
terrible plague that killed thousands of them, and he went on to write
the Zohar, the book of Kabbalah.
The
bonfires are meant to commemorate the immense light that Rabbi Shimon
bar Yochai introduced into the world via his mystical teachings.
For the last few years on Lag B'omer we've been posting videos of the bonfires and dancing in Israel on Mount Meron. This year we're taking a break from the bonfire videos (you can see them here and here) and posting a new video from Ari Lesser, the American Orthodox Jewish rapper, singer, songwriter, and spoken word artist.
In the video, Lesser tells the whole Lag B'omer story in his unique rapping style, getting the message across in an unusual but effective way.
Lesser grew up in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. After graduation from the University of Oregon, he worked as a musician in Los Angeles, where he became known in the "hippie jam band" scene. While working on his first album there, his financer, a Rastafarian selling Medical Marijuana, gave him a copy of Psalms. Lesser found that he related to King David as a songwriter and started rhyming the psalms.
This ultimately led him to a deeper interest in Torah and his Jewish roots, and he became a baal teshuva. He visited Israel on a Taglit-Birthright trip that he ended up extending to ten months, during which he studied at Yeshiva Temimei Darech in Safed and Mayanot in Jerusalem.
Happy Lag B'omer. Enjoy!
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Lag B’Omer is one of
those little-known Jewish holidays, the kind that passes unnoticed among
most American Jews. Perhaps they would be more interested if they knew
it involved barbecue — and a couple of really good stories. Widely
celebrated in Israel, it’s known as a family-focused celebration filled
with grilled meats and carob cakes and bows and arrows.Read more: http://forward.com/food/371566/what-the-heck-is-lag-bomer-hint-it-involves-barbecue/
Lag B’Omer is one of
those little-known Jewish holidays, the kind that passes unnoticed among
most American Jews. Perhaps they would be more interested if they knew
it involved barbecue — and a couple of really good stories. Widely
celebrated in Israel, it’s known as a family-focused celebration filled
with grilled meats and carob cakes and bows and arrows.Read more: http://forward.com/food/371566/what-the-heck-is-lag-bomer-hint-it-involves-barbecue/
Lag B’Omer is one of
those little-known Jewish holidays, the kind that passes unnoticed among
most American Jews. Perhaps they would be more interested if they knew
it involved barbecue — and a couple of really good stories. Widely
celebrated in Israel, it’s known as a family-focused celebration filled
with grilled meats and carob cakes and bows and arrows.Read more: http://forward.com/food/371566/what-the-heck-is-lag-bomer-hint-it-involves-barbecue/
Lag B’Omer is one of
those little-known Jewish holidays, the kind that passes unnoticed among
most American Jews. Perhaps they would be more interested if they knew
it involved barbecue — and a couple of really good stories. Widely
celebrated in Israel, it’s known as a family-focused celebration filled
with grilled meats and carob cakes and bows and arrows.Read more: http://forward.com/food/371566/what-the-heck-is-lag-bomer-hint-it-involves-barbecue/
Lag B’Omer is one of
those little-known Jewish holidays, the kind that passes unnoticed among
most American Jews. Perhaps they would be more interested if they knew
it involved barbecue — and a couple of really good stories. Widely
celebrated in Israel, it’s known as a family-focused celebration filled
with grilled meats and carob cakes and bows and arrows.Read more: http://forward.com/food/371566/what-the-heck-is-lag-bomer-hint-it-involves-barbecue/
Lag B’Omer is one of
those little-known Jewish holidays, the kind that passes unnoticed among
most American Jews. Perhaps they would be more interested if they knew
it involved barbecue — and a couple of really good stories. Widely
celebrated in Israel, it’s known as a family-focused celebration filled
with grilled meats and carob cakes and bows and arrows.Read more: http://forward.com/food/371566/what-the-heck-is-lag-bomer-hint-it-involves-barbecue/
There are many versions of Lecha Dodi, one of the most popular liturgical songs in the Friday evening Kabbalat Shabbat service, and the cantor/chazzan/prayer leader is the one who chooses the melody. Tonight we welcome Shabbat with the song stylings of Cantor Ale Edelstein of the Israelita Paulista Congregation of Sao Paolo, Brazil. In this two minute rendition he manages to include four different versions of Lecha Dodi.
Edelstein has pop artist status in the Jewish community; he does two weddings and one bar mitzvah per week.He studied at the Tel Aviv Cantor Institute, a school run by the renowned Chazan Naftali Herstik.
Enjoy and Shabbat shalom!
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We never get tired of watching the mischievous piano comedy antics of the great Victor Borge, the Danish comedian, conductor and pianist who
achieved great popularity in radio and television in the United States
and Europe.
His blend of music and comedy earned him the nickname "The
Clown Prince of Denmark","The Unmelancholy Dane", and "The Great Dane."
He
was born as Borge Rosenbaum to a Jewish family in Copenhagen. His
parents were both musicians. He began piano lessons at the age of two,
and it
was soon apparent that he was a prodigy.
Much of his comedy has been preserved in his concerts and TV specials that are available on DVD, VHS, and now on streaming media. We laughed our way through many of the video clips available on YouTube before settling on this one to share today. It's called The History of Pianos, and has Borge delivering a tongue in cheek history lesson about the origins of his favorite instrument. It includes his explanation of how Beethoven was inspired to compose his Minuet in G. Enjoy! A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:
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No, this is not another rabbi, priest, and minister joke. This is a true report of what happened when a group of Hasidic Jews led by 80-year-old Brooklyn Rabbi Edgar Gluck went to the Vatican after being invited by Pope Francis. On Monday the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported that Pope Francis danced with the group and discussed with
them issues including the protection of Jewish cemeteries in Europe and
combating child sex abuse. As JTA reported,
A video on the Yeshiva World News website and also posted to YouTube
shows the pope swaying to the music as members of the delegation dance
and serenade him with the song “Long years shall satiate him.” Born in Germany, Edgar Gluck, 80, divides his time between Brooklyn
and Poland, where he holds the title of chief rabbi of Galicia. In the
United States, where he has long been politically active, he was a
co-founder of Hatzolah, one of the largest volunteer ambulance corps. Gluck and Pope Francis met and discussed the plight of Jewish
cemeteries last year when the pontiff visited Krakow for Catholic World
Youth Day and, according to Yeshiva World News, the pope invited Gluck
to continue the discussion at the Vatican.
The Hebrew words of the song are "Orech yamim asbieihu v'areihu biyeshuati" Enjoy!
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Just Published: The Kustanowitz Kronikle - 35 Years of Purim Parody
Every Purim for the past 35 years we have published a Purim parody edition of The Kustanowitz Kronikle, covering virtually every aspect of Jewish life, and including parodies of hundreds of popular movies. This year we decided to retire the series and capture all the fun in a book that's just been published and is available at Amazon.com. It has every Purim issue of The Kustanowitz Kronikle from 1988 through 2022 in a full-color, full-size paperback book with hilarious headline stories and parody movie picks. Here are a few examples: TRUMP, NETANYAHU SWAP ROLES, COUNTRIES; NEW TALMUD VOLUME "VOTIN" FOUND IN IRAQ; JOINS "FRESSIN", "NAPPIN", TANTZEN","PATCHEN"; "JUDAICARE" PROGRAM PLANNED TO ENSURE THAT ALL JEWS HAVE SYNAGOGUE MEMBERSHIP; RABBIS CREATE TALMUD AMERICANI; NEW LAWS EXTEND HALACHA TO THANKSGIVING AND JULY 4; JEWISH ORGANIZATIONS WORLDWIDE UNITE TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING; FOCUS ON REDUCING HOT AIR; RABBIS TO REQUIRE SHECHITA FOR MANY FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
Jewish Humor Central Staff
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief:
Al Kustanowitz Food and Wine Editor:
Aviva Weinberg Israel Food and Wine Consultant Penina Kustanowitz Reporter and Photographer:
Meyer Berkowitz Reporter Phyllis Flancbaum
Now You Can Book Program and Lecture Dates for 2024 and 2025 in Person and Via ZOOM
Now is the time to book our Jewish humor programs and lectures for your 2024 and 2025 events in person and via ZOOM anywhere in the world. Book any of our 22 popular programs including "The Great Jewish Comedians", “Israel is a Funny Country”, and "Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places." Click above for details and videos. To book a program with Al, e-mail: dan@hudakonhollywood.com
"Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places" is now available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle editions
This book presents 150 anecdotes and associated video clips that reveal the myriad ways that Jewish culture, religion, humor, music, song, and dance have found expression in parts of the world that, at first glance, might not seem supportive of Jewish Life. It includes 50 videos of Hava Nagila being performed from Texas to Thailand, from India to Iran, and from Buenos Aires to British Columbia. Also highlighted are 34 international versions of Hevenu Shalom Aleichem, Adon Olam, Abanibi, and Tumbalalaika. Whether you’re reading the print version and typing in the video URLs or reading the e-book version and clicking on the links, you’ll have access to 150 video clips totaling more than 10 hours of video. Enjoy!
"Israel is a Funny Country" is now available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle editions
This book 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, we take a look at humorous slices of Israeli life, Israeli comedy, satire and parody, funny TV commercials, unusual stories about food, surprising rabbinic bans on daily activities, simchas as they can only be celebrated in Israel, and endearing aspects of Israeli culture. There are more than 120 anecdotes and links to video clips totaling more than six hours of video. We hope that these anecdotes and video clips give you a new and different insight into life in Israel, and encourage you to join in the fun by planning a visit to the land flowing with milk and honey.
Now is the time to book our Jewish Humor Shows and Lectures in person or on ZOOM.
Bring Al's Jewish humor lectures and comedy programs with the funniest videos on the Internet to your community and your synagogue, club, JCC, organization or private event in person or via ZOOM. We're taking reservations now for 2024 and 2025 dates in your community. Click above for details. To book a program with Al, e-mail: dan@hudakonhollywood.com.
Now Open: The Jewish Humor Central Gift Shop
Jewish Humor Central logo merchandise is now available. Click on the image above to see the complete collection -- More than 100 items from tote bags, baseball caps, mugs, aprons, drinkware, T-shirts and sweatshirts, to pajamas and underwear.
The Best of Jewish Humor Central - Now Available in eBook and Paperback at Amazon.com
The Best of Jewish Humor Central - More than 400 video clips, including music and comedy videos for all the Jewish holidays. View them on Your PC, Mac, Kindle Fire, iPad, iPhone, iTouch, Android Tablet and Smartphone. Click on the image above to peek inside and download a free sample. And now, a paperback edition for anyone who prefers a traditional book and doesn't mind typing the URLs instead of clicking on them.
About the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief
A long-term devotee of Jewish humor, Al Kustanowitz has been collecting and sharing it even before there was an internet. In 2009, after a 36-year career at IBM managing new technology projects, he founded Jewish Humor Central (jewishhumorcentral.com. Through the blog he brings a daily dose of fun and positive energy to readers who would otherwise start the day reading news that is often drab, dreary, and depressing (subscribing is free). He has published 12 books on humor based on his more than 4,000 blog postings, each of which includes a video clip and his commentary.
He has presented more than 100 programs in South Florida and the Northeast on topics that include the great comedians and entertainers of the 20th century, funniest moments in film and television, flash mobs around the world, and composers and lyricists of the Great American Songbook.
He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from the City University of New York and taught computer science courses at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the International Association of Yiddish Clubs.
You can contact Al via email at akustan@gmail.com.
Israel’s Tenth Trial
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by R. Eliezer Simcha Weisz In this unprecedented hour of trial, Israel
stands at a historic crossroads facing a perilous moment, waging battle on
eight fr...
A Friend Indeed
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[image: Dry Bones cartoon, Trump, MAGA, President, Jerusalem, Embassy,
America, Huckabee,]
Welcome Ambassador Huckabee!
* * * And *IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO MAK...
Thoughts on the Haggadah by Rabbi Eli Teitelbaum
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[image: Story 375601404]
We just recently were able to find the latest version of my fathers, Rabbi
Eli Teitelbaum Z”L, thoughts on the Haggadah and conve...
Hamantaschen: The Symbolism behind Purim Cookies
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Purim is a celebration of masquerade, Mishloach Manot, Hamantaschen and
book of Esther reading. Every Jewish holiday focuses on a special dish and
the tria...
Taking the Shuk to the Next Level
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Anyone who has spent any time on my blog, or just getting to know me, knows
how much I love Jerusalem’s famous outdoor market, Shuk Machane Yehuda.
I’ve ...
Kettlebell Training Massachusetts
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In April 2006, legislation was passed requiring all residents in
Massachusetts specializes in assisting Massachusetts residents who have
been put on exhi...
A chat with some protesters…
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Originally posted on don of all trades:
Hi protesters, it’s me, Don. Do you remember me? No? I’m a police officer.
We’ve met before. Excuse me? Did you say...
Trayf of the Week: Bacon Jam
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Just when you thought it was safe to eat your bagels in mixed company,
comes this devilish concoction. Next time a Goyishe friend offers you a
shmear, mak...
[Speaking
of Mel Brooks' extra five commandments, all-night study sessions,
cheesecake, and Jewish humor, here's a fun way to tie them all together. 
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