Comedy Showcase: "Men vs. Women" From Rita Rudner's New TV Special

We've been big fans of Rita Rudner ever since she started to appear on late night TV in the 1980s.

One of the hallmarks of her comedy is that it's clean, free from the vulgarity and shouting that many stand-up comics find necessary.  Her delivery is demure, tasteful, full of wry observations, and very funny.

Rudner started her career as a dancer, then switched to stand-up comedy about her dating experiences.  She married British producer Martin Bergman about 30 years ago and they have a daughter.  She is fond of Jewish humor but generally reserves it for when she performs for Jewish audiences.

Rita just released a TV special called A Tale of Two Dresses. Last week we shared a clip form the show called Border Control.  Today we're posting another clip called Men and women

Enjoy!

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Brewing Tea the Yiddish Way, and in Yiddish (With English Subtitles)

So you think you know how to make a glezele tay (a glass of tea)? Do you think all it takes is to dip a tea bag into a glass of hot water? That's not the authentic Yiddish Way.

It takes Rukhl Schaechter and Eve Jochnowitz from Der Forverts (Yiddish version of The Jewish Daily Forward) to show you how to prepare tea the old־fashioned way and how East-European Jews used to drink it (hint: you need a sugar cube). In Yiddish with English subtitles.

The only thing that would make this "recipe" more authentic would be to serve it in a Yahrzeit glass.

Enjoy!

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A Joke to Start the Week - "Competitive Shoe Stores"

It's Monday again. Time for another joke to start the week. Today we're bringing you a joke from the Old Jews Telling Jokes touring company. The Off-Broadway show has been touring the USA after its successful two year run on West 43rd Street in New York City.

Standup comedian Bob Greenberg was a member of the cast in New Brunswick, New Jersey and other locations. Here's the setup for one of his jokes:

Riggio, Walsh, and Saperstein have been friends since childhood, but they've been rivals since about the age of eight. They've competed over everything --- grades, girls, jobs. They're so competitive that when they decided to go into business, they each opened a shoe store right next door to each other. And then...

Enjoy!

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Jewish Education: Quiz is Proof That We Still Have a Long Way to Go

OK, so this is a video post by BuzzFeed that's meant to be funny, like all of their posts. Still, it's an eye opener. A group of young Jews were asked some very basic questions about Judaism in a game show format. Their responses show that either they were asleep in Hebrew school or their teachers weren't very effective.

Even worse, if you scroll down in the YouTube link to see the comments, some of them say that they live in Israel and didn't know many of the answers to these basic and somewhat superficial questions.

So, is this really funny? Probably not, but it's a wake-up call to Jewish parents that Jewish education should be a high priority in school and at home.

Enjoy!

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Havdalah Service by B'nai B'rith Youth Organization with Guitar Chords

On Fridays we usually post a musical welcome to Shabbat with a version of Shalom Aleichem, Lecha Dodi, or Adon Olam. But this week we're skipping to the end of Shabbat and continuing the series of Havdalah services that we started a year ago.

There's a rich lode of musical endings to Shabbat, and Havdalah ceremonies around the world reflect the traditional and local musical tastes of each location.

Any one interested in leading the Havdalah ceremony can use this video to help make the experience as moving and enriching as possible. Included are Havdalah chords and choreography; the Hebrew, English and transliteration of the Havdalah Blessings; and a beautiful rendition of the ceremony performed by BBYO song leaders Eric Hunker, Happie Hoffman, Stephen Brickman, Deb Winter, Josh Cohen and Rachel Wolman.

Shabbat Shalom and Shavua Tov. Enjoy!

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Throwback Thursday Comedy Special: Groucho Marx and Dinah Shore Sing "Peasy Weasy"

It's Throwback Thursday -- Time to set the clock back 59 years to 1959, when Groucho Marx appeared on The Dinah Shore Chevy Show to sing a duet with Dinah.

Groucho said that he first sang the song, Peasy Weasy, on the vaudeville stage when he was 15 years old. It looks like they had fun bringing this old song back to life on Dinah's TV show.

Enjoy!


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#Throwback Thursday   #TBT

Comedy Showcase: "Border Control" From Rita Rudner's New TV Special

We've been big fans of Rita Rudner ever since she started to appear on late night TV in the 1980s. 

One of the hallmarks of her comedy is that it's clean, free from the vulgarity and shouting that many stand-up comics find necessary.  Her delivery is demure, tasteful, full of wry observations, and very funny.

Rudner started her career as a dancer, then switched to stand-up comedy about her dating experiences.  She married British producer Martin Bergman about 30 years ago and they have a daughter.  She is fond of Jewish humor but generally reserves it for when she performs for Jewish audiences.

Rita just released a TV special called A Tale of Two Dresses. We're happy to be able to share some clips from the show, starting with today's clip called Border Control

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.

Twitteleh - Twitter for Your Jewish Mother

We've been posting more than 2600 video clips since October 2009, and we've spent more than many hours surfing the Internet to find them. But there was an Internet before 2009, and we're sometimes surprised that there were funny Jewish videos before then.

Today we came upon a video clip that's just as funny and relevant today as it was when it was posted back in September 2009 by Reg Tigerman. It's an announcement for a new app called Twitteleh -- Twitter for Your Jewish Mother.

Any time you want to update your Jewish mother, just answer these three questions:
1. Where are you?
2. What have you eaten?
3. Are you wearing a sweater?

Enjoy!

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A Joke to Start the Week: "Another Type of Headache"

It's another Monday and time for another Joke to Start the Week.

For the last two weeks we've been posting some classic Yiddish jokes presented anew in Yiddish by Leana Jelen, a young Yiddish-speaking sign-language interpreter.  These jokes come from the Forverts, the Yiddish edition of The Jewish Daily Forward.

This week we have another of her jokes in Yiddish. If you don't understand Yiddish, just read the subtitles in English. If you play it a few times, maybe you'll start learning the language.

Here's the setup: An old woman used to buy headache medicine. One day, she went to the pharmacy to buy pills for birth control. And then...

Enjoy!

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Hava Nagila Around the World: Iosif Kobzon Sings in Moscow Concert

Last September, a concert  in Moscow's State Kremlin Palace was dedicated to the 80th anniversary of People's Artist of the USSR Iosif Kobzon. 

Kobzon appeared on the stage for almost 60 of his 80 years, not including his participation in student amateur performances. During these years he sang an incredible number of songs - more than three thousand!

And of course one of them was Hava Nagila, a song that has been performed all around the world in many countries. And since we started Jewish Humor Central in 2009, we have posted 70 of them.

To see them all, scroll down the Keywords list in the left column and click on Hava Nagila.

Iosif (Joseph) Davydovich Kobzon was born to Jewish parents in the mining town of Chasiv Yar, in the Donbass region of Ukraine.

In 1983, Kobzon was expelled from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and reprimanded for "political short sightedness," after he performed Jewish songs during an international friendship concert, which resulted in the Arab delegations leaving in protest. 

However, the following year, (1984) his reputation was restored, as he was honored with the USSR State Prize.

He claimed that his promotion of Jewish culture in the USSR contributed to the establishment of diplomatic ties between USSR and Israel.

Enjoy!

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Welcoming Shabbat with Adon Olam by Tulane University's Jewish a Cappella Group NJBeats

Shabbat is almost here and we're ready to welcome it with our 44th posting of Adon Olam. This version is by NJBeats, the Jewish a cappella group from Tulane University in New Orleans.

The Hebrew lyrics and traditional Jewish basis of NJBeats’ songs provide a refreshing twist to a cappella music. The group, however, does not limit itself to only slow, traditional songs. NJBeats plans to sing pop songs with a unique Hebrew twist in future performances. With its recent performances and plan to include more pop music, the group is becoming more fully engrained in Tulane’s culture.

Enjoy, and Shabbat shalom!

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Throwback Thursday Comedy Special: Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca in "The Sewing Machine Girl"

Silent film parodies were an important part of Your Show of Shows, the 90 minute weekly live TV show pioneered by Sid Caesar in the early 1950s. These parodies were also tributes to the acting skills needed to convey plot and emotion in the absence of spoken words.

Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, and Howard Morris all had a special talent to bring these early films to life in hilarious takeoffs. This video, The Sewing Machine Girl has the classic elements of this genre: The mean shop owner, the poor overworked, underpaid girl, and her beleaguered co-worker who emerges as her hero.

This is a rare sketch just made available to a mass audience as one of the "Ten from Your Show of Shows" now available as part of the five DVD set Sid Caesar: The Works.

Enjoy!

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#Throwback Thursday    #TBT

A Visual and Musical Celebration of Jewish Food

We love surfing the internet, we love Jewish food, and we love musical satires by Mickey Katz.

So when we found a Vimeo video posted by Harris Bookfor that combined all these three elements, we just couldn't resist sharing it with you.

This video includes three songs by Mickey Katz and one by The Barry Sisters. After watching it you'll want to make a quick trip to the nearest deli, if they still have them in your community.

Enjoy!

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You Know You Are Dating an Israeli Woman When...

There's a YouTube channel called Dating Beyond Borders that focuses on dating around the world. It has some funny insights into dating in different cultures.

The format is "You know you are dating an ____ man or woman when..." and then shows some stereotypical examples of dating situations.

One of the countries they profile is Israel and illustrate what it means to date an Israeli woman with video vignettes of dates in progress.

Are they exaggerating? You probably know the truth.

Enjoy!

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A Joke to Start the Week - "You're Smarter Already"

It's another Monday and time for another Joke to Start the Week.

The Forward is producing a series of classic Yiddish jokes presented in Yiddish by Leana Jelen, a young Yiddish-speaking sign-language interpreter. 

Last week we posted a joke that was reported to be the favorite of  Sigmund Freud, the founder of modern psychoanalysis who spent years collecting and studying Jewish jokes.
 
This week we have another joke in Yiddish by Leana Jelen, an oldie but goodie in our collection of favorite Jewish jokes. 

Here's the setup: A gentile notices a Jew eating a piece of herring and he asks him: "Why are Jews so smart?" He replies "Because they eat the head of the herring." And then...
If you don't understand Yiddish, watch the English subtitles while Leana tells the joke in Yiddish. Who knows, you might even learn the language!
Enjoy!

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A NOSH-talgic Look at Jewish Food: History of the Pastrami Sandwich

We've been collecting videos about the origins of classic Jewish foods that bring back mouth-watering memories of the Borscht Belt and the many Kosher delis that were present in Jewish neighborhoods everywhere. Today the Borscht Belt hotels are gone and so are many of the delis.

One of our more popular programs is A NOSH-talgic Look at Jewish Food, with videos and memories of bagels and lox, chicken soup with matzo balls, pickled herring, sour pickles, real seltzer, and even schmaltz. We presented it last month at a brunch in a senior community in New Jersey that got the attendees really hungry. 

Whenever we find a video that makes us hungry for nostalgic Jewish delicacies, we try to share it with you. If you're in the mood for a good pastrami sandwich, take a look at this new video from The Nosher website that reveals the origin of this staple of the Jewish diet.

Enjoy!

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Welcoming Shabbat with Shalom Aleichem at Temple B'nai Jeshurun in Short Hills, New Jersey

Every Friday we try to find a new version of one of the traditional songs that are sung in the synagogue or in the home to welcome Shabbat.  

Shalom Aleichem is the liturgical poem that signals the start of this special 25 hour weekly respite from the workaday world. 

We never know until Thursday what version of which song we'll be sharing with you on Friday. 
Sometimes it's Adon Olam, Yedid Nefesh, Eishet Chayil, Lechu Neranena, or Yigdal. This week we're sharing yet another version of Shalom Aleichem, as sung by Lucy Fishbein, Assistant Cantor at Congregation B'nai Jeshurun in Short Hills, New Jersey.

Enjoy, and Shabbat shalom!

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