Comedy Showcase: Orthodox Israeli Comedian Chava Darski Kovacs

Chava Darski Kovacs grew up in Canada and made Aliyah to Israel. She lives in the Haredi community of Tel Tzion with her husband and seven children. She is one of a new generation of religious women standup comics who perform at David Kilimnick's Off the Wall Comedy Theater at the King Solomon Hotel in Jerusalem.

Here is an excerpt from her standup routine. Not exactly an Israeli equivalent of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, she nevertheless gets laughs at a community talent night with funny observations about her life. 

Chava will be performing on Sunday January 5 along with two other religious Jewish standup comics at David's Comedy Theater in Jerusalem.

Enjoy!

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A Farewell to Chanukah 2019 with Honolulu High School Symphony

This year we've been celebrating Chanukah with 10 special postings, mostly parodies of pop songs with a Chanukah twist.

As we enjoy one last day of latkes, sufganiyot, and dreidels, let's sit back and listen to a symphonic medley of traditional Chanukah songs as performed by the Moanalua High School Symphony Orchestra of Honolulu, Hawaii.

High school orchestras and bands around the country have been playing Chanukah festival overtures like this for many years, bringing holiday joy to Jews throughout the USA. 

Enjoy, and Chag Chanukah Sameach!

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Chanukah Comedy: Special Nigunim for a December Night of Learning

In some Orthodox circles it's customary to have study sessions late into the night the last week of December. But how can you study without resorting to a few nigunim (Chasidic melodies) to brighten up the evening?

Here's one take on how to add joy to a night of Talmud study. Enjoy!

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Welcoming Shabbat with Shalom Aleichem by Avraham Fried and the Israel Symphony

We've been welcoming Shabbat each week with a song from the Kabbalat Shabbat liturgy. Shalom Aleichem has been the most frequently posted, and today we're adding a 35th version of this melody.

It's from a live performance this year by Avraham Fried and the Israel Symphony Orchestra at the Sultan's Pool in Jerusalem.

Enjoy, Shabbat Shalom, and Chag Chanukah Sameach to all.

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Throwback Thursday Hanukkah Classic: SNL Presents Hanukkah Version of "It's a Wonderful Life"

A few years ago Saturday Night Live took another look at the 1946 Classic film It's a Wonderful Life starring Jimmy Stewart, who receives a lesson in optimism from his fellow man at Christmas time.

But it wasn't always that way. The film was originally made as a Hanukkah movie titled This You Call a Wonderful Life? No footage of the Hanukkah version has ever been seen...until now.

Enjoy!

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#Throwback Thursday    #TBT

Chanukah Around the World: Jewish Day School Students Perform in Rostov, Russia

 

1200 people in Rostov, Russia were treated to a performance of Slava Bogu Charasho (Glory to God) this week by students of the Rostov Jewish Day School at the annual Chanukah concert. 

The Jewish community of Rostov-on-Don in Russia is planning a series of landmark events that will commemorate the 100th yartzeit of the Rebbe Rashab, the 5th Rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch. These events are set to be held around 2 Nissan 5780 (March 26-29, 2020), and bring together local Jews with Lubavitcher chassidim and students from around the world. 

Rostov is home to the Ohel resting place of the Rebbe Rashab, Rabbi Sholom DovBer Schneersohn (1860-1920) who has devoted himself to the future of the Jewish nation by involving himself in education on all levels.

Enjoy, and Happy Chanukah!

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Here Come the Chanukah Videos: A Chanukah Version of "The Gambler" from the Palo Alto JCC

Creativity flourishes every Hanukkah in the form of music videos, most of them take-offs on popular songs. But some entries are better than others, and we think we found some of the best this year.

Members of the Oshman Family JCC of Palo Alto, California worked together to produce original lyrics to fit The Gambler, the song made popular by Kenny Rogers in 1978.

In this version the dreidel takes the place of playing cards. The classic lines "You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to 'fold 'em, know when to walk away and know when to run" become "You gotta know when to spin 'em, know how to win 'em, know when it's gimmel and know when it's nun" and so forth.

Enjoy, and good luck gambling for Chanukah gelt!

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Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places: The World's Wildest Menorahs

From far off places across the earth to outer space, the Chanukah Menorah has reached some interesting spots. 

This world tour of menorahs in unexpected places includes Alaska, Iraq, the French Riviera, at sea, at the Eiffel Tower, and the Holland Tunnel.

In this video you can see a menorah on a soccer field in Buenos Aires, an all-chocolate menorah in Newport Beach, California, a menorah made of six feet of solid ice, and a menorah on top of an elephant in Bangkok, Thailand.

Enjoy, and Happy Hanukkah!

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Here Come the Chanukah Videos: James Corden and Zach Braff in Boyz II Menorah Parody

With the first Chanukah candle being lit tonight, we bring you A Week and a Day, another new video just released for this year's festival of lights.

This one's a parody of boy bands in general, and Boyz II Men in particular. The goofiness is led by late night TV host James Corden, with accompanying performances by Zach Braff, Charlie Puth, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Josh Peck. 

All except Corden are Jewish, and Corden has shown his familiarity with Jewish life in a funny episode that we posted in 2015 when he took over for a worker in a Jewish meat market who was taking a short break.

Enjoy!

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Welcoming Shabbat with Adon Olam by Mexican Cuarteto Latinoamericano

Today's Welcoming Shabbat video comes from Mexico, in a concert by Cuarteto Latinoamericano and soprano Sivan Rotem.

The string quartet is one of the world's most renowned classical music ensembles, for more than thirty years the leading proponent of Latin American music for string quartet. 

Founded in Mexico in 1982, the quartet has toured extensively throughout Europe, North and South America, Israel, China, Japan and New Zealand. They have premiered more than a hundred works written for them and they continue to introduce new and neglected composers to the genre. 

Winners of the 2012 and 2016 Latin Grammys for Best Classical Recordings, they have been recognized with the Mexican Music Critics Association Award and three times received Chamber Music America/ASCAP's "Most Adventurous Programming" Award.

The soloist in this version of Adon Olam is Sivan Rotem, an Argentinian-born Israeli whose burgeoning career in opera, concerts, recitals, radio, television, cabaret, commercial recordings and master classes has taken her across the Americas via the West Indies and many continental European countries to Egypt, South Africa, China and Australia.

Enjoy, and Shabbat shalom!

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Throwback Thursday Chanukah Special: SNL Commercial for Chanukah Hymns

As we count down the days until Chanukah (first candle is Sunday night) let's go back to Season 24 of Saturday Night Live in 1998. 

In this Saturday Night Live commercial parody, a spokesperson (Alec Baldwin) promotes Chanukah Hymns, a new Holiday CD collection of Chanukah songs, which all have a similar, not-very-festive, sound to them.

Enjoy!

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#Throwback Thursday    #TBT

The YidLife Crisis Guide to Chanukah - With Jamie and Eli and Rabbi Lisa Grushcow

We've been following and posting videos by Jamie Elman  and Eli Batalion for years, including their expanded version of the old Chinese Yiddish waiter joke two years ago.

Yesterday the Montreal-based comedy team known as The YidLife Crisis released their Chanukah video for this year. It's a tongue-in-cheek conversation with Reform Rabbi Lisa Grushcow of Temple Emanu-el Beth Shalom in Montreal.

Some of the questions are funny, some preposterous, and some even serious. But we think you'll like the answers, and even more, the interaction between the rabbi and YidLife Crisis.

Enjoy!

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Disney's First Jewish Princess Celebrates Hanukkah

Walt Disney's world has many princesses, but until now, none of them were Jewish. The Disney company recently announced that a Latina Jewish princess, yet to be named, will appear on the Disney Channel series Elena of Avalor.

The Hanukkah-themed episode will feature a visiting princess who is from a “Latino Jewish kingdom,” the Disney Channel announced. The princess will be voiced by Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who played Tony Soprano's daughter Meadow on The Sopranos.

As Arielle Kaplan wrote on Kveller,

Sigler is the perfect person to voice the character of an explicitly Jewish Disney princess. The Jewish mom — who shares sons Beau, 6, and Jack, 1 with her husband, baseball player Cutter Dykstra — strongly identifies with her Jewish roots. The 38-year-old went to Hebrew school, had a bat mitzvah, and called Israel “one of the most beautiful inspiring places [she’s] ever been to” after completing a Birthright trip.

Here is the Hanukkah episode. Enjoy!

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A Joke to Start the Week - "The Rabbi's Critic"

It's another Monday, and it's time for another joke to start the week. Here comes another one from Toronto's Jewish Folks Telling Jokes, a night of comedy to benefit Jewish Family and Child, one of the foremost Jewish service agencies in North America.

We previously posted a few jokes that were told at the event, a Canadian contribution to the world of Jewish humor, probably inspired by the off-Broadway show Old Jews Telling Jokes, still touring around the USA.
 
We'll be posting more of these jokes on upcoming Mondays. Here's another one, told by Rabbi Aaron Flanzreich.

Here's the setup: A rabbi is starting in his new pulpit. After he gives his sermon and the services are completed they have a beautiful kiddush. And a man comes over to him and says "Good Shabbos Rabbi. You spoke way too long."" And then...

Enjoy!
 
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Here Come the Chanukah Videos: Six13 and a Star Wars Chanukah

With only seven days until we light the first Chanukah candle, it's time to roll out the latest crop of Chanukah videos. Every year brings us new videos, and over the years we've posted dozens from all over the world.

This year we're starting off with a very special video produced by Six13 that makes a connectiion between Chanukah and Star Wars in a week that will see the release of the latest in the series of nine Star Wars movies.

Six13 is a six-man vocal band that brings an unprecedented style of Jewish music to the stage, with songs ranging from hip-hop dance tracks to rock anthems. The members of the New York City-based group sound like a full band – while using nothing but their voices.
 
Six13 has recorded five award-winning albums, whose songs have been played all over Jewish radio and been chosen to appear on nine different “best of” compilation albums. The group has over 20,000 CDs in circulation, and are among the top Jewish music artists on iTunes.

Enjoy!

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Welcoming Shabbat with Shalom Aleichem by Amelia Uzun, Wonder Girl from Moldova

Moldova is a land-locked country in Eastern Europe, north of the Balkans, surrounded by Romania to the southwest, across the Prut river, and Ukraine to the northeast. 

Moldova's population is occupied mainly in food production and processing. Moldova has also produced Amelia Uzun, known as the wonder girl from Moldova. 

Amelia has specialized in singing Hebrew songs since her father, a musician, encouraged her to sing Tzel Etz Tamar, a popular Hebrew song, at a Romania's Got Talent TV competition. 

Amelia learned to sing Shalom Aleichem, and her beautiful rendition is our choice to welcome Shabbat this week.

Enjoy, and Shabbat shalom!

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Throwback Thursday Comedy Special: Robert Klein on QVC Online Shopping Pitchmen

Today's Throwback Thursday comedy special features an old routine by Robert Klein in which he takes apart the pitchmen for jewelry knockoff products on the QVC shopping channel.

Starting with a pitch for Diamonique artificial diamonds, he extends the concept to include sapphires, rubies, and emeralds.

Klein was born in the Bronx, the son of Frieda (née Moskowitz) and Benjamin Klein and was raised in a "prototypical 1950s Bronx Jewish" environment, the grandson of Hungarian Jewish immigrants who arrived in the USA early in the 20th century.

Enjoy!

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"The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" Season 3 Has Arrived on Amazon Prime

With most TV channels covering the news coming daily out of Washington, you may not have noticed that over the weekend, Amazon Prime has unloaded another full season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It's a breath of fresh air that takes us back to simpler times.

Eight hour-long episodes of the highly anticipated third season of the widely acclaimed portrayal of a Jewish family in New York in the 1950s and 1960s is now streaming on Amazon Prime. All of the main characters are back, and we get to relive Jewish life in New York 60 years ago.

In the first episode Midge performs at a USO show with White Christmas as the closing number. She quickly realizes that she doesn't know the words. Her manager Susie learns the ins and outs of contract negotiation. Abe and Rose grapple with their new financial situation, and Joel finds the perfect spot for his new club until he discovers that the space isn't as it appears.

Here's the trailer for the new season.

Enjoy!

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Israel's Shalva Band Sings "God Bless America" at IAC Summit

On Saturday night December 7, Israel's Shalva Band gave an emotional performance of God Bless America at the Israeli American Council (IAC) Summit at the Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood, Florida. 

The IAC's mission is to unite Israelis who moved to America with the Jewish State. Attendees spent Thursday through Saturday discussing the most “pressing matters in Diaspora Jewish affairs.” 

The band originally began as a music therapy group started by Shalva, the Israel Association for the Care and Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities. 

They previously made it to the finals in The Rising Star competition leading to representing Israel at Eurovision, but they dropped out because they would have had to violate Shabbat to perform.

At the Summit, President Trump prefaced his introduction of the Shalva Band with a tribute to Irving Berlin, who wrote God Bless America in 1918 and revised it to the current form in 1938. After the performance, they showered him with hugs.

Enjoy!

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A Joke to Start the Week - "A New Name"

It's another Monday, and it's time for another joke to start the week. Here comes another one from Toronto's Jewish Folks Telling Jokes, a night of comedy to benefit Jewish Family and Child, one of the foremost Jewish service agencies in North America.
We previously posted a few jokes that were told at the event, a Canadian contribution to the world of Jewish humor, probably inspired by the off-Broadway show Old Jews Telling Jokes, still touring around the USA.
We'll be posting more of these jokes on upcoming Mondays. Here's another oldie but goodie, told by Alf Kwinter.
Here's the setup: Moishe and Duvid met on Spadina Avenue in Toronto. Moishe says: Duvid, my name is no longer Moishe. And then...

Enjoy!
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Comedy Showcase: Sebastian Maniscalco on How he Tried to Baptize His Jewish Baby

Los Angeles artist Lana Gomez is married to stand-up comedian Sebastian Maniscalco, an Italian Catholic whose encounters with his Jewish in-laws have given him lots of material for his routines.

As Erin Ben-Moche wrote in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, 

Gomez, who is Sephardic, grew up in Memphis, Tenn., and Naples, Fla. She said although she lived in the heart of the Bible belt in Memphis, the Jewish community thrived. She also noted she is a descendant of the Gomez family who fled to America after the Spanish Inquisition. Their family ancestor Luis Gomez established the Gomez Mill House in 1714 in Newburgh, N.Y., and it remains one of the earliest known Jewish dwellings in North America and one of the oldest homes on the National Register of Historic Places.

Together, with her husband — comedian Sebastian Maniscalco — and their two children, 2 1/2-year-old Serafina and 3-month-old Caruso, Gomez said their artistic visions are a team effort, whether she’s styling posters or tour artwork for her husband or he is weighing in on designs for their West Hollywood home.

Here's a funny video about what happened when Sebastian Maniscalco's family wanted him to baptize their Jewish baby so she could celebrate Christmas.

Enjoy!

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Welcoming Shabbat with Adon Olam by Cantor Shira Ginsburg and Michael Hunter Ochs

This week we welcome Shabbat with a new version of Adon Olam by Cantor Shira Ginsburg and Composer-in-Residence Michael Hunter Ochs at the East End Temple, a Reform synagogue in New York City.

Cantor Ginsburg is celebrating her 15th year of service at the synagogue in New York City. As a Messinger Scholar, Shira earned her Masters, Cantorial degrees and ordination from Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion.  

Shira is the recipient of the Women of Reform Judaism Award, Cantorial Alumni Association Prize, and Sylvia Davidson Memorial Award for extraordinary diligence in mastering Chazzanut. 

In addition to his success in contemporary popular music, Ochs is universally recognized as a leading composer of Jewish and Interfaith worship music. On any given Friday evening his music can be heard in synagogues around the world. 

Enjoy, and Shabbat shalom!

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Throwback Thursday Comedy Special: Billy Crystal Standup from 1977

On this Throwback Thursday we're going back 42 years to 1977 and a standup comedy performance by Billy Crystal on the TV show Midnight Special.

In this set, Billy makes fun of leisure suits, Nehru jackets, corduroy on college campuses, getting phony proof of age, and dealing with a malfunctioning microphone at the senior class high school assembly.

Enjoy!

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#Throwback Thursday     #TBT

Comedian Tiffany Haddish Celebrates Her "Black Mitzvah"

Black and Jewish US comedian Tiffany Haddish is having a bat mitzvah ceremony soon. 

She has released a Netflix stand-up special inspired by the occasion as well. 

As reported by The Times of Israel, 

Haddish had been kicking around the comedy world and doing guest shots on television programs for some time, but her role in the raunchy comedy “Girls Trip” got her the spotlight she deserved. She was voted Best Supporting Actress by the prestigious New York Film Critics Circle, a rarity for a comedic performance, and ultimately far more impressive than an Oscar.

As a teen she met her biological father, an Eritrean Jew who was living in Los Angeles for a while but went back to his home country when she was three years old. At the same time she started working in comedy clubs and other entertainment jobs. Ironically enough, one of her early gigs was working as part of the party team at bar and bat mitzvahs in Los Angeles.

In recent years, though, Haddish has gotten more interested in exploring her Jewish heritage. She started learning Hebrew and preparing for a bat mitzvah of her own. Indeed, she plans to answer the call to Torah this December 3, her 40th birthday, which just so happens to coincide with the release of her latest comedy special on Netflix, “Black Mitzvah.”

 In a special Sunday night edition of Jimmy Fallon’s “The Tonight Show,” Haddish broke into singing “Hava Nagila,” backed up by The Roots, Fallon’s famous house band.

Enjoy! 

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Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places: Jewish and Japanese Foods Fuse in Brooklyn

She is Japanese. He is Jewish. Together, they cook up all kinds of deliciousness. Meet Sawako Okochi and Aaron Israel. Their love for each other led to marriage, and their love of cooking led to Shalom Japan.

The Brooklyn restaurant merges Japanese and Jewish culinary influences. On the menu? Matzoh ball ramen and a lox bowl version of chirashi. 

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A Joke to Start the Week - "The Best Insurance"

It's another Monday, and it's time for another joke to start the week. Here comes another one from Toronto's Jewish Folks Telling Jokes, a night of comedy to benefit Jewish Family and Child, one of the foremost Jewish service agencies in North America.

We previously posted a few jokes that were told at the event, a Canadian contribution to the world of Jewish humor, probably inspired by the off-Broadway show Old Jews Telling Jokes, still touring around the USA.

We'll be posting more of these jokes on upcoming Mondays. Here's another oldie but goodie, told by Susan Lanczi.

Here's the setup: . An elderly woman goes for a checkup to her physician. The physician is asking many questions about her health. And then...

Enjoy!

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Comedy Showcase: Gad Elmaleh Sings a Song in Made Up English

We've posted a few video clips by French Moroccan Jewish comedian Gad Elmaleh, and your response has been very positive. So today we're posting another one of his funny bits as shown on the Conan O'Brien show last year.

Before he launched his comedy career which made him France's most popular comedian, Elmaleh played at a piano bar, entertaining customers who didn't speak English.

One day one of the owners asked him to sing a song in English for an important client whose wife was celebrating her birthday and insisted on an English song.

So he made up a song that sounded like English. And everyone joined in. 

Here's the stunt that he pulled off successfully. Enjoy!

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