Avi Liberman's Comedy for Koby Tour is Back in Israel This Week

Avi Liberman, a Los Angeles-based stand-up comic, has been bringing groups of American comedians to Israel since 2002 to raise money for multiple charities, most recently for the Koby Mandell Foundation, which works on behalf of terror victims' families. 

The foundation is named after the 13-year-old who was murdered by terrorists near his Tekoa home on May 8, 2001.

This week Liberman is back in Israel with comics Roy Wood Jr., Andrew Norelli, and Dan Naturman. The comedians have appeared on the Conan, Jimmy Kimmel, David Letterman, and Craig Ferguson late night TV shows.

As David Brinn reported in The Jerusalem Post,

Whatever the benefactor or gravity of the cause, the common element in all of the tours Liberman continues to organize is sheer laughter – from equal-opportunity jokes aimed at Israelis, American Jews and everything in between.

One such joke from Liberman: “I love to going to Marzipan bakery in Jerusalem for the chocolate rugelach. This last time, they were out of the air-sealed plastic containers. The guy said he’d put them in cardboard boxes and if he closes them really tight, it would be the same thing. I told him it wouldn’t, and he said he’d been doing this for 15 years and knew what he was talking about. So apparently, if you are Israeli and have been doing something for a long time, you can defy the laws of physics.”

Or, “LA has such a large Jewish community that they actually have a Yeshiva Day School Basketball league. I don’t think that’s morally or ethically correct, because it instills these kids with a false sense of athletic ability.”

The Winter 2013 Comedy for Koby tour kicked off yesterday in Beit Shemesh. Other shows: Saturday, December 7 in Gush Etzion – 8:30 p.m., Matnas Gush Etzion; Sunday, December 8 in Jerusalem – two shows: 7 and 9:30 p.m., Beit Shmuel; Tuesday, December 10 in Tel Aviv – 8:30 p.m, Tzavta; Wednesday, December 11 in Ra’anana - 8:30 p.m., Yad Labanim; Thursday, December 12 in Modi’in – 8 p.m., Einan Theater.  

We'll be attending the 7 p.m. show Sunday night in Jerusalem and talking with Avi between shows. So if you're in Jerusalem, why not get tickets online and shmooze with us after the show.

Here's a report from Israel21C on a 2011 tour that includes a few jokes and interviews with Avi Liberman and the comics that he brought over to Israel.

Enjoy!

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It's Time For You to Choose: Which Chanukah Music Video is Your Favorite?

Since we started our Chanukah countdown, we posted 11 new music videos that were created for this season. They covered a wide range of music styles, and they were sung by boys and girls, men and women, young and old. 

Here's an opportunity for all of our readers to get involved, take another look at the songs as we get ready to light the eighth Chanukah candle, and vote for your favorite. Only one vote can be cast, so choose carefully. Just make your selection in the column at the left of this blog post.

We'll be collecting votes for a week, ending at midnight next Wednesday, December 11.

Here are links to the videos, just in case you'd like to see them again before voting.

Kvelling for Thanksgivukkah - Lauren Mayer 

   

 The Ballad of Thanksgivukkah - Kehilla Schechter Academy

 

Chanukah, Oh Chanukah - Gil and Margie Brodsky

  
Maoz Tzur - Technion Chemistry Lab

Thanksgivukkah Scream and Shout - Buba Myses

Thanksgivukkah Pie - Benji Lovitt

Thanksgivukkah Anthem - Six13

  
I Believe in Miracles - Julie Geller

Maoz Tzur - KippAlive

Maoz Tzur - Boys Town Jerusalem

  
Subway Medley - Isaiah Richardson

Subways Are For...Chanukah Songs by Klezmer Saxophonist Isaiah Richardson

Last January we posted two videos of New York subway and street musician Isaiah Richardson Jr. performing his unique saxophone dance to a variety of Jewish tunes. This week an alert subway rider with a smartphone captured his latest subway platform antics, hopping around while playing a medley of Hanukkah songs.

As we pointed out in January, Richardson is no ordinary street musician. He is an alumnus of the Juilliard School, the High School of Music and Art and the Performing Arts, the Clown Academy, and the United States Marine Corps Band. 

The 32-year-old Bronx saxophonist, who also plays a mean clarinet, specializes in anthems and tunes from many countries and nationalities, and can quickly launch into an appropriate set whenever he encounters a recognizable ethnic group from one of his perches at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or a convenient subway platform.

Enjoy!


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Boys Town Jerusalem Joins the Chanukah Music Video Competition

They probably don't think it's a competition, but we're posting the Boy's Town Jerusalem Chanukah music video as an entry in our collection of the best holiday music videos this season. We'll ask you to pick the best one in a few days and see what Jewish Humor Central viewers have to say.

We're including this one not only for the quality of the boys' performance, but also for what their organization stands for and what they have accomplished.

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. 

We hope you enjoy the video, yet another rendition of Maoz Tzur.

(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.) 

A Joke to Start the Week: "Squeezing the Lemon"

Tonight we light the sixth candle of Hanukkah. So you think you're gettting another Hanukkah music video? Think again, because today is Monday, and it's time for another joke to start the week.

As we get closer to a new year and get ready for some more comedy shows in Florida, Israel, and other locations,we're building a collection of jokes from our audiences. But until we have a backlog of these home grown jokes, we'll continue to pick and choose the funniest (and cleanest) jokes we can find from the large inventory of Old Jews Telling Jokes.

Today's joke teller is Lou Charloff, a 92-year-old retired actor. Lou starts off his joke this way:

The strongman was doing his act. He had a chain around his chest and smashed it, just extending his muscles...

And in the climax of his act, he took a lemon, an ordinary lemon in his right hand and a glass in his left hand. And then...

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.) 

Introducing KippAlive - A New Israeli a Cappella Group With a Unifying Chanukah Theme

We've been sharing music videos for Chanukah and other holidays by a cappella groups, mostly from the USA. But here in Israel we discovered a group called KippaLive that has all the tunes and all the moves to make some great music videos.

This group of 10 guys has just produced a video that supports an initiative called Ner Mehaber (Candle Unites or Connects) that brings families from different backgrounds together to light Chanukah candles.

The group members have known each other for years but were never very close friends. In the middle of 2011 they started meeting each other on Friday nights after dinner. Instead of the “boring” Shabbat songs, together they put their own “twist” on them and soon this became a Friday night “tradition”.

Soon enough the Ra’anana municipality heard of this group singing in the streets of the city near Tel Aviv and invited them to audition. One week later they were on stage on Yom Haatazmaut singing in front of hundreds of people.

Since then KIPPALIVE turned this hobby in to a profession. They have traveled and continue to travel all over Israel singing at all different sorts of events, from big weddings to small birthday parties. 

In this new music video they start out with the traditional Maoz Tzur and liven it up with break dancing. Notice they sing not Nes Gadol Haya Sham (A great miracle happened there) but Nes Gadol Haya Po (A great miracle happened here). All Israel sings the song that way and the Hebrew letters on the dreidels are Nun, Gimel, Hey, and Pey to reflect this fact.

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.) 

Miracles Are Happening All Around Us: Something to Sing About With Julie Geller

Julie Geller, a singer and songwriter whose music video we featured on Rosh Hashanah, has come up with another song that reminds us that the Chanukah miracles of the oil and the Maccabees' victory are not the only ones that we have experienced. 

In fact, miracles are happening all around us every day, as she reminds us in very personal ways.
 
Julie, raised in Colorado where she now lives with her family, also spent time in Boston, San Diego, and Israel. She has taken on a mission to bring love and healing into the world through her music.
Julie is a graduate of Harvard University and the New England Conservatory of Music. She studied at Bar Ilan University and Midreshet Lindenbaum in Israel. 

Reflecting on this thought, Julie writes:

I think that miracles are everywhere. It is just a matter of opening our eyes to them. Often it takes the loss of a something to realize that what we were able to do before was miraculous.  I think it is most powerful when we can appreciate miracles as they occur rather than only in hindsight. The one certainty about life is that it is constantly in flux. We never know how long anything, including our lives themselves, will last.

For this video, I sent out the word asking for people to send in videos of themselves holding up signs describing miracles that have occurred in their lives. As you can see, the arc of human experience is vast. When we open our eyes to miracles, we open our hearts to life itself. 

Let us all rejoice in all of our miracles - those historical and those taking place today (bayamim hahem barman hazeh), the small ones and the large ones , those that catch us by surprise and those we have come to expect.

Enjoy and Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem!

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Six13 Completes our Thanksgivukkah Roundup with the Thanksgivukkah Anthem

Well, the day we've all waited for is finally here. And after running nine music videos and comedy sketches focusing on the unusual coming together of Thanksgiving and Chanukah, we're saying goodbye to the once in 77,000 year holiday with one last music video. This one is by Six13, the a cappella band that we've featured in previous holiday music videos.

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-based group sound like a full band – while using nothing but their voices.

Six13 has recorded four 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. They have received several distinctions and accolades from Jewish organizations like the National Council of Young Israel and Moment Magazine, and awards from musical organizations like the Harmony Sweepstakes and the Contemporary A Cappella Society of America. 

They have appeared on the Chabad Telethon, and were chosen from hundreds of groups, both Jewish and secular, as finalists in the casting process for NBC’s hit prime-time television series The Sing-Off. The group has also become a viral internet sensation, with over one million views on YouTube.

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.)  

Comedian Molly Livingstone Gets Jerusalem Street Reactions to Thanksgivukkah

As we get ready to light the turkey and stuff the menorah (oops, we meant the other way 'round) on the first night of Chanukah, we are bringing our Thanksgivukkah coverage to a close when the dual holiday finally arrives tomorrow. 

Please bear with us for two more posts about this rare holiday. We promise that after tomorrow we'll be focusing on Chanukah alone and leaving Thanksgivukkah to the history books.

Today's post features Molly Livingstone, Jerusalem comedian and co-founder of the HaHafuch improv troupe as she heads to the streets of Talpiot in Jerusalem for a set of impromptu interviews of unsuspecting subjects who happen to be in range of her microphone.

Enjoy!

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"Abraham and Isaac - The Director's Cut" - Another Comedy Midrash From Jewbellish

Hasidic comedian Mendy Pellin has done it again. After the success of his hilarious rendition of "Why Moses Hit the Rock" his Jewbellish troupe brings us the "real" story of what happened at the binding of Isaac on Mount Moriah.

According to this comedy midrash, Abraham was "punked" (made the object of a practical joke) by God and a team of angels into thinking he was commanded to sacrifice his son, Isaac. It turns out that it was a gag and Isaac was in on it the whole time. 

There's a funny side reference to the possibility that Abraham had been punked previously when he was commanded to circumcise himself. The whole midrash is a hilarious retelling of two of the most famous Bible stories.

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.)