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Man-in-the-street interviews can always be counted on to produce some unexpected and funny answers to questions posed to passers-by. The technique was perfected by Jay Leno in his Jaywalking episodes, but has been used to good effect by other reporters with a microphone.
Over the years we've posted some "Jew Walking" episodes with questions about Passover and Chanukah by comedian Simmy Kay and Rabbi Zvi Drizin.
A reporter for Torah Cafe asked random New Yorkers passing by Columbus Circle in New York City what they know about Passover. The results are unpredictable and entertaining.
Enjoy!
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Why is this Monday different from all other Mondays? Because it's erev Pesach, and you're all probably overloaded with cleaning and cooking for the seder tonight. But that's no excuse for us to skip our Joke to Start the Week. Today it's also a Joke to Start the Week of Passover.
Today's joke teller is Rabbi Yitz Wyne, founder and spiritual leader of the Young Israel Aish of Las Vegas. He's usually busy as the rabbi of his congregation and as a talk show host with a weekly half-hour show on Jewish values called Life Is Great.
But humor is also part of his repertoire. After hours at the shul, Rabbi Wyne tests a few Passover jokes on an ambivalent audience. His topics include a drunk at the seder and two classic oldies -- the Jew at the queen's knighting ceremony and the great horseradish shortage. OK, so you've probably heard them, but how many times have you also heard the Haggadah?
Enjoy the jokes, the sedarim, and have a happy and kosher Pesach. We're taking two days off to enjoy Passover in Jerusalem with our family and we'll be back with our usual mix on Thursday.
Chag Sameach!
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It's almost time for the Passover seder. Tomorrow night Jews all over the world will sit down for the first (and in Israel the only) seder.
We don't know how many sedarim comedian Jackie Mason will attend, but if this video clip is a sample, it looks like it will be a stand-up affair. But surprisingly, not stand-up comedy.
Jackie shows that he can conduct a seder standing up, even though he moves the afikoman up from its place at the end of the seder to an earlier appearance. There are a few other missteps, but for the most part, he follows the traditional sequence as outlined in the Haggadah.
We were surprised to see that he went through the basics of the seder without cracking a joke or even a smile. To to his credit, he showed a basic knowledge that he acquired in Sheboygan, Wisconsin and on the Lower East Side of Manhattan when as Yacov Moshe Maza he followed his brothers into the rabbinate.
This may well be the only serious video of Jackie Mason. We'll be back in future posts with funny ones. Be sure to watch for tomorrow's Joke to Start the week, even though it's Erev Pesach.
Enjoy!
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With the first night of Passover rapidly approaching, we still have a few new videos to share that relate directly to the Pesach seder.
Here's a rendition of Dayenu that just came in from the boys of Boys Town Jerusalem. Produced in the Judean hills outside Jerusalem, it features the boys dressed in appropriate attire and a cast of camels to complete the picture.
Established in 1948 to provide a home and education for young immigrants to the newly-created State of Israel, Boys Town Jerusalem has become one of the country's largest and most respected educational institutions.
Boys Town was founded by Alexander S. Linchner, a Brooklyn-born
rabbi who, after the Holocaust, devoted his life to building a school
for the children of immigrants who poured into Israel from countries
around the world. His goal: providing them with a quality education that
would prepare them to build the State of Israel with technological
skill and traditional Jewish idealism.
Today, the beautiful 18-acre Boys Town campus in the Bayit Vegan
neighborhood of Jerusalem is one of Israel’s major technological
training centers. Approximately 800 students, ranging in age from 12 to
20, live on the campus, with a capacity to house up to 1,000.
The
children and grandchildren of immigrants from 45 countries on six
continents, they mirror the ethnic diversity of the Israeli population.
More than 75% come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and
require substantial scholarship assistance. No student is ever turned
away from Boys Town due to inability to pay tuition.
In
addition to receiving a fine technological and academic education, Boys
Town students are deeply imbued with traditional Jewish values and
ideals, and pride in their Jewish heritage. As a result, Boys Town
graduates are proud to serve in the Israel Defense Forces
and then go on to build fine Jewish homes and families, while making
important contributions to their communities and the State of Israel.
Among Boys Town’s more than 6,200 graduates are many engineers,
technicians, educators, fine craftsmen and professionals.
Enjoy the video,and Shabbat shalom from Yerushalayim.
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Gluten-free matzo balls? Rukhl Schaechter and Eve Jochnowitz, the Yiddish speaking chefs from the Jewish Daily Forward, found a way for gluten-restricted seder participants to enjoy chicken matzo ball soup with ground nuts substituting for matzo meal. Of course, if anyone is allergic to nuts, oh well...
According to the chefs, the resulting product is not going to be as fluffy as traditional matzo balls, but it will be very tasty (geshmack, in Yiddish).
We're posting this a few days before seder night to give you time to incorporate this recipe into your cooking plans.
As usual with our Yiddish recipe sessions (we've posted 20 in the last four years -- see "Est Gezunterheit" in the list of keywords in the left column) we're including a few funny-sounding Yiddish words that are used in this episode. If you're a follower of this series, you've heard most of them already.
Chicken soup = Hindel yoich
Oil = Boimel
Drumsticks = Pulkelach
Vegetables = Grintzen
Parsley = Pasternak
Garlic = Knubble
Parsley = Petrusshka
Enjoy!
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It's not often that we get to post a Jewish flash mob from Johannesburg, South Africa, but so far the Jewish community there is the only one we've seen that takes parts of the Haggadah into the public sphere.
In this case Rabbi Dovid Hazdan of the Great Park Synagogue South Africa
arranged a flash mob at Pick 'n Pay, a major supermarket to draw attention to the display of Kosher for Pesach products that are
available.
The flash mob performed a rendition of Vehi She'amdah, a portion of the Pesach Haggaddah, to the surprise and delight of shoppers.It generated Jewish pride and positive happy energy as it added to the community’s awareness and preparation for Pesach.
Enjoy!
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(A tip of the kippah to Sheila Zucker for bringing this video to our attention.)
What can you do with All Of the Lights, a pop song by Kanye West that has 96 million views on YouTube?
Well, if you're 26-year-old Rebecca Adelson, you make it into a Passover parody, of course. Rebecca heard the words as All Other Nights, as in the words from Mah Nishtanah, On all other nights, we eat etc.....
So she turned to her crew from the hip hop sketch comedy show The People of Channel 38 and, along with her brother Matt, turned the flashy, and in our opinion tasteless song into a meaningful review of what happens on the seder night.
The music video was shot on location at two venerable Washington, DC synagogues, Adas Israel and the Historic Sixth and I.
Enjoy!
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Yep, it's another Monday and time to start the week with a joke -- make that two, no, make that three or more. Ellis Simon, an 87-year-old resident of the Los Angeles Jewish Home enjoys telling old jokes to his fellow residents, and we have a bunch of his one-liners to share with you today.
We give a tip of the kippah to the Los Angeles Jewish Home for creating a Comedy Corner where residents can tell jokes and have them viewed around the world on YouTube and sites like Jewish Humor Central. We hope they will continue this program and give us more material to use on future Mondays.
Today's one-liners all have a common theme -- getting old. So what else would you expect? They come in rapid succession -- so fast that there's no time to set up each one. You'll just have to listen fast and carefully. Enjoy!
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And now for something completely different. The Fountainheads, a group of graduates and students from Midreshet Ein Prat in the Judean desert, have released Escape From Egypt, a new Passover video with interactive features.
The very talented Fountainheads, whose music videos we have shared in previous years for Passover, Sukkot, Hanukkah, Purim, Rosh Hashanah, and Israel Independence Day, are breaking ground with an internet video that lets you choose the direction of the action.
In the style of the Choose Your Own Adventure series of children's books, the action stops at six points and you're asked to choose what happens next. It's a lot of fun, and it's the most elaborate Passover video we've seen so far. The singing, acting, choreography, and costumes make this a winner.
Through their videos and live performances, the
Fountainheads' work is enjoyed by millions of people all over the world.
The Fountainheads perform at special events, trips, concerts, weddings,
and simchas in Israel, and also tour overseas a few times a year.
Because this is an interactive video, we can't embed it in Jewish Humor Central like the videos that we share every day. You'll have to take an extra step to see it, but trust us, it will be worth the effort.
All you have to do to see it is click on the words Escape From Egypt, and you'll be at the Fountainheads' website where clicking on the arrow in the center of the page will start the action. (PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU WANT TO WATCH THIS VIDEO FROM AN IPAD OR IPHONE YOU WILL HAVE TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE INTERLUDE PLAYER APP FROM THE APPLE APPSTORE.) Enjoy!
Israel's HaHafuch comedy troupe has been featured many times here at Jewish Humor Central. They do improv and sketch comedy in their periodic shows in Jerusalem. We try to see their performances whenever we're in Jerusalem.
This year they're performing in mid-June and we're visiting now and in December. So we'll have to manage with viewing the funny video clips that they post on YouTube. And they're really funny.
Most of us are familiar with the custom of throwing candy, either as individual pieces or wrapped up in small bags at Bar Mitzvah boys and Bat Mitzvah girls when they complete their Torah reading in the synagogue. But the HaHafuch crew asked why should such a fun custom be limited to these occasions? Why not throw candy on other happy occasions?
The occasions they picked for this video should produce at least a chuckle, if not an outright LOL. How about throwing candy when a waiter brings your order immediately? On acceptance of an engagement ring? When a dog does what he's asked to do? Or when two JDaters realize that they both look exactly like their online photos? The possibilities are endless.
Enjoy, and Shabbat shalom from the City of Gold.
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