Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Wall Street Journal Says Hava Nagila Has Fallen on Hard Times


Hava Nagila, that old musical standby, the song that used to be played at every Jewish gathering, is increasingly becoming musica non grata at weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, and other festive occasions. 

As simchas, or joyous affairs, include longer dance sets playing a variety of Hebrew music, Hava Nagila is rarely played, unless it's a special request from the hosts or guests. The song is becoming an unwelcome cliche among those who listen to a lot of Hebrew music. 

Its popularity hasn't diminished in circles where it's played as the token Jewish dance at events where most of the music is American pop and rock. And it remains an iconic symbol of Jewish life as seen in an upcoming exhibit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage and in a documentary that premiered last week at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

Since starting Jewish Humor Central almost three years ago, we have shared 21 videos of traditional and off-beat versions of Hava Nagila showing up in such places as India, Estonia, Korea, Italy, Russia, Paraguay, Peru, Thailand, and the Shetland Islands. And we're not done. You can expect to see more examples of this enduring song performed in still more unexpected places.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal carried a front page report about the backlash. As Lucette Lagnado reported,
"Hava Nagila," Hebrew for "Let Us Rejoice," has been a staple of Jewish—and some non-Jewish—celebrations for decades. The song often accompanies the hora, a traditional dance-in-the-round that is performed at weddings, bar mitzvahs, engagement parties and other joyful occasions.
As American Jews assimilated, "Hava Nagila," with its dizzying tune that incorporates major and minor modes, became one of the last cultural touchstones of the past. Even the most secular Jews craved it.

It became "the equivalent of a knish," says Henry Sapoznik, an ethnomusicologist at the University of Wisconsin. Incidentally, he considers it to be "a really crummy little tune."
Crummy or not, the melody rang off the walls of catering halls, echoed in big suburban synagogues that sprouted up after World War II and broke into the musical mainstream in the 1950s. Crooner Harry Belafonte made it one of his signature songs. Chubby Checker danced the twist to it. Lena Horne used the melody to deliver a powerful message against racism in a song called "Now." In 1961, Bob Dylan sang his own version—"Talkin' Hava Nageilah Blues"—in a Greenwich Village club.
Some of those earlier interpretations may have boosted "Hava Nagila" into an improbably cool range. Now, a backlash is in full swing.
"It is the cliché of Jewish music," insists Neshoma Orchestra leader Elly Zomick, which does some 200 wedding and bar mitzvah gigs a year. He avoids playing it—along with "The Macarena," "YMCA," and "Sunrise, Sunset"—unless specifically asked.
Among other tunes from the annoyingly redundant banquet-hall repertoire: "The Electric Slide" and the "Chicken Dance."
Rabbi Haskel Lookstein of Kehilath Jeshurun, a large Orthodox congregation on Manhattan's Upper East Side, isn't one to be moved. The body of Jewish musical works, he says, "has gone leagues beyond" the familiar ditties. Yet "no one sings it unless someone in the wedding party has a nostalgia for the old days."
The Journal has posted a video about the worldwide popularity of the song that surprisingly omits any reference to the backlash reported in the front page article. But it's a nice piece of nostalgia that's worth seeing. Enjoy!

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Monday, July 30, 2012

The Yiddish Chefs Cook Up a Peasant Meal on the Yiddish Farm


Earlier this month we featured a video about the Yiddish Farm in Goshen, New York, and how it has become a destination for volunteers who were looking for a back-to-the-earth farming experience and also immersion in the Yiddish language.

Now, our favorite Yiddish chefs have journeyed to the farm to use its produce and kitchen to create a peasant meal featuring white beets and spinach, while chatting with each other in Yiddish (with English subtitles, of course.)

Here are today's Yiddish words and their English translations:

Goyshen (Goshen)
Berikes (Beets)
Shpinat (Spinach)
Shrotzim (Bugs)
Shrotzimlach (Little Bugs)
Opgossen (Sink)
Grintzen (Veggies)
Skorinkeh (Bread Crust)

We assume you already know the Yiddish words for garlic, dill, and frying pan from previous recipes. If not, check them out here, here, and here. The list of ingredients and quantities appear below the video. Enjoy!

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Sauteed White Beets
6 white beets, sliced
1 small red onion, sliced
A handful of dill
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Spinach with Garlic
3-4 bunches of spinach
1/4 cup olive oil
10 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Meeting the Tisha B'Av Challenge: Being Serious and Funny at Once


Today is Tisha B'Av -- the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av, the saddest day of the year in the Jewish calendar. It marks the day when the Holy Temples were destroyed, and, over the years it was also adopted as the day to commemorate other tragedies that occurred on the same day.

So the question is what to post on a day like this. In previous years we explored Jewish history, particularly with regard to Jerusalem, and reflected on the destruction of the Temples.

But in keeping with our belief that no day, no matter how serious it is, should pass without a light moment, today we're sharing a lesson in how to put on tefillin spoken to the beat of an a cappella rap. Incidentally, the tefillin, or phylacteries, worn on weekdays for the Shacharit morning service, are worn on Tisha B'Av in the afternoon Mincha Service.

Our thanks go out to the Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs (FMJC) for producing and posting this video on YouTube. 

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Friday, July 27, 2012

Olympic Gold(stein) in London: Orthodox Jew Carries the Torch


Long after all the medals are distributed at the Summer Olympics now underway in London, the Jewish community there will proudly remember the role played by Efrayim Goldstein, a Chassidic Jew. Goldstein was chosen as one of 187 carriers of the Olympic torch as it made its way to the Olympic Stadium.

As Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu reported in Israel National News,
Chassidic London Jew Ephraim Goldstein carried the Olympic torch Monday. He has worked with seven charities and runs a soup kitchen.
Many members of the London Jewish community turned out in the early morning to watch Goldstein carry the Olympic Torch for 330 meters, approximately 1080 feet, in southeast London.
The British Jewish Defense League website described Goldstein as being so excited he felt like was in “flames.”
He is 22 years old, and has started up and worked with charities since the age of 16, including the London Shomrim organization, which has 300 volunteers.
The League noted he carried the torch in memory of the 11 Israelis who were massacred in the Munich Olympics in 1972. The International Olympics Committee, which includes more than 40 Muslim representatives, has refused to allow the opening ceremony next week to include a one-minute silence in memory of the murdered athletes.
Goldstein told the League, “He told us he wanted people to know that he wanted to pay homage to the 11 Israelis that were murdered by the Palestinian terrorists during the Munich games in 1972, so we designed a banner to express his wishes.”
“It’s an honor and a privilege to carry the torch,” Goldstein said. “It’s a unique opportunity in life and I’m very happy to be part of it.”
This video follows Goldstein as he travels by bus to the starting point of his run, the lighting of the torch, and his run for almost a quarter of a mile until he hands off the flame to the next runner. Enjoy!
 
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(A tip of the kippah to Sheila Zucker for bringing this story to our attention.)

Thursday, July 26, 2012

"Old Jews" Actors Joke About Their Old Jewish Jokes


Well, we finally got to see the off-Broadway production of "Old Jews Telling Jokes" and can say that it's even funnier than we expected it to be. 

The audience, which consisted mainly of Jews of a certain age, tensed with gidddy anticipation as each joke and story was deftly delivered, and you could tell that they were eager to hear each punch line as if they never heard it before.

We couldn't find anything to criticize about the clever minimalist staging, the acting, the musical numbers, or the sequencing and timing of the jokes and stories, but on reflection, the show should be more honestly titled "Old Jews Telling Old Jewish Jokes." After collecting, chronicling, and sharing so many of them, we concluded that there is no such thing as a new Jewish joke. If there were one, it would age instantly as it was being delivered and immediately join the pantheon of old classics.

In the TheaterMania video below, Tod Susman, Marilyn Sokol, Lenny Wolpe, Bill Army, and Audrey Lynn Weston talk about their comedic influences, the interplay between them in doing the show, and even manage to squeeze in a joke containing three basic Jewish joke elements -- a shlemiel, a rabbi, and a slice of bread. Enjoy!

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Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Shomo Carlebach Musical "Soul Doctor" Coming to New York Next Week


Soul Doctor, a new musical portraying the musical odyssey of famed rock star-rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, is coming to New York this week for a three week run at the New York Theatre Workshop on West 4th Street as it prepares for its Broadway debut. Carlebach was a modern day troubador and the beloved and controversial father of popular Jewish music.

Carlebach is considered by many to be the foremost Jewish religious songwriter of the 20th century. In a career that spanned 40 years, he composed thousands of melodies and recorded more than 25 albums that continue to have widespread popularity and appeal. His influence also continues to this day in "Carlebach Minyanim" and Jewish religious gatherings in many cities and remote areas around the globe.

As The Wall Street Journal reported last December as the show was on tour in Florida:
SOUL DOCTOR takes us on a musical odyssey through the challenges and triumphs of this cultural phenomenon: his childhood escape from Nazi Germany, becoming a rabbinical prodigy in America; discovering Gospel and Soul music during his unlikely friendship with Nina Simone; his meteoric rise as a "Rock Star-Rabbi" in the 1960s, performing with Bob Dylan, Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead; his struggle to reconcile his deep traditional roots with his desire to reach people of all backgrounds in the "free-love generation;" and his personal conflicts trying to keep his family together while traversing the globe as a "Soul Doctor," bringing joy and song to the lonely, the searching and the brokenhearted.
Here's a preview of the show hosted by Larry King. Enjoy!

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Tuesday, July 24, 2012

"One Grain More" - Brilliant Les Mis Parody About Food Allergies


We don't know anyone who doesn't have a relative or friend whose diet is restricted by real or imagined food allergies or strong dislikes. 

We're not talking about kosher here, but rather about disinclinations to eat anything containing meat, wheat, milk, eggs, soy, peanut, cheese, coffee, lettuce, tomato, rye, cantaloupe, sesame, mackerel, rhubarb, pepper, strawberries, garlic, mushrooms, coconut, eggplant, peas, barley, basil, chocolate, celery, or tuna.

What better way than parody to express the frustrations of having to deal with these food avoidance requirements. And when we came across a brilliantly conceived and executed takeoff on the song "One Day More" from the musical Les Miserables, we just had to share it with you.

The parody, "One Grain More" is the work of Michael Bihovsky, an actor, musician, composer, lyricist, and director of musicals off-Broadway and on screen. Before graduating from NYU and studying at the Julliard School, he graduated from Philadelphia's Akiba Hebrew Academy.

So find that relative or friend who has been driving you crazy with special food requests and laugh as you watch this video together.  Enjoy!

(If you didn't catch all of the words, the complete lyrics appear after the video.)

(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 tip of the kippah to Dan Mosenkis for bringing this video to our attention.) 
 VALJEAN
One grain more
A dash of millet flour might be the key
This never-ending road to gluten free
This horrifying food I eat
Will never taste the same as wheat
One grain more...

COSETTE
A quarter cup of cornflake crumbs
To meet my carbohydrate quota

VALJEAN
One grain more

MARIUS & COSETTE
A teaspoon of some xanthan gum
And still it tastes like...baking soda

EPIPEN
One more dairy substitute

MARIUS & COSETTE
Will I ever eat again?

EPIPEN
Drinking oat milk from a carton

MARIUS & COSETTE
What I'd give for pizza pie

EPIPEN
Now I spend my days confused

MARIUS & COSETTE
Or a slice of beef on rye...

EPIPEN
Wond'ring how you milk an oat

VALJEAN
It's so good to see you, Quinoa!
You're the protein source I chose
Still, you look as if I've seen ya
Coming out of someone's nose

MARIUS & COSETTE
Flax instead of eggs
Try to make it whip
Now what do we use
Instead of chocolate chips?
Carob doesn't work
Carob is a trap
Anyone who's had it
Knows it tastes like crap!

VALJEAN & EPIPEN
When the hell is this stuff dated?

MARIUS & COSETTE
Burned and bloated day and night

VALJEAN & EPIPEN
Why's it smell like something died?

COSETTE
What on earth is "lecithin"?

MARIUS
Love, I fin'ly defecated!

EPIPEN
This does not feel like a bun...

ALL
Do you hear the people sneeze
And cough and wheeze
From allergies?

VALJEAN
One grain more!

MARIUS
(simul)
So I added wheat -- I'm sorry
We still had some left in stock
Nothing says "it's time to party"
Like anaphylactic shock
So I guess this must be Quinoi
It's not so gross, I suppose
Still it looks as if I've seen ya...

COSETTE
(simul)
Will I ever eat again?
What if there's a trace of tree nuts?
Someone get my Epi-pen
I'm not supposed to breathe in peanuts!

EPIPEN
(simul)
Have you ever milked an oat?
Guess it's better than a goat
Try a little nog
Smoother than a silk
Even though it's made
Of neither eggs nor milk!
Have another roll
Harder than a rock
Better hold your breath,
Because it tastes like-

VALJEAN & MARIUS
Tomorrow we will bitch and moan
Tomorrow we'll need cortisone

ALL
Tomorrow we'll discover foods
That even vegans have forsworn!
Wish me luck
Mother(BLEEEEEEEEEP)
One grain more..

Monday, July 23, 2012

Everything You Wanted to Know About Pickles But Were Afraid to Ask


We all love a good pickle with our sandwich or just to snack on. Half-sour, full-sour or dill, everyone has their favorite. But who are the people behind the pickle? JTA's Uri Fintzy visited the United Pickle factory in the Bronx and The Pickle Guys store in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and witnessed the pickling process, found out about the Jewish connection and revealed a secret about the actual "Kosherness" of the Kosher pickle.

In the course of the interview with the pickle people, secrets of pickle making and answers to long standing questions about this consummate Jewish delicacy began to emerge. Watch the video below to find out:

- Is a kosher dill pickle really kosher?
- Why do pickles have a Jewish connection?
- How do you make different pickle flavors?
- What about pickling at home?
- Why do pickles go so well with a sandwich?

Enjoy!

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Sunday, July 22, 2012

Jerusalem's Next Top Model - A Hahafuch Comedy Special


The Jerusalem-based improv group Hahafuch has done it again with a parody of the world of fashion shows. 

Hahafuch is Israel’s premier English-speaking comedy troupe.  Their variety shows feature hilarious original sketches, videos, improv games, musical guests, interview segments, and more.  

Composed of olim (immigrants) from around the world, Hahafuch aims to present the lighter side of Israel  Their message: "Israel is funny and if you don't think so then you haven't seen our show."

You have to be in Jerusalem to see their show, but you can watch their funny videos at Jewish Humor Central. Just scroll down and enter hahafuch in the "Search this Blog" field.

Enjoy!

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Friday, July 20, 2012

What Grows on a Yiddish Farm? Yiddish Speakers, of Course


Did you ever wonder what it would be like to go back to nature and work on a farm for the summer while speaking only Yiddish? A group of ten eager participants are doing just that this summer in a farming community located in Goshen, New York, just an hour north of New York City.

Founded by Yisroel Bass and Naftali Ejdelman and funded by grants from Jewish foundations, the Yiddish Farm was established as a venue for Yiddish language immersion and Yiddish programs, ranging in length from a weekend to three months. It functions as a real organic farm, raising vegetables for sale in nearby towns.

In 1939, over 75% of Jews spoke Yiddish as their primary language. There were over 150 daily newspapers worldwide, and at least 12 Yiddish theaters in New York alone. Tragically, the language has been passed down to only a fraction of today’s youth, though more than 50% of American Jews descend from Yiddish-speakers.

In recent years there has been a Yiddish revival, with the language now being taught in over 50 universities throughout the world. The Klezmer revival has popularized Jewish folk music across continents, and over 10,000 Yiddish books are now available on the internet free of charge. 

Workers on the farm and attendees at its programs are now getting the opportunity to speak Yiddish outside of the classroom and restore it to a living language.

Get a close-up view of how these goals are being met in this video of life on the Yiddish Farm. Enjoy!

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Thursday, July 19, 2012

Edon - 14-Year-Old With Kippa - Wows America's Got Talent


Edon Pinchot, a 14 year old Yeshiva student from Chicago, has reached the semi-finals of the America's Got Talent TV show, which airs Tuesday nights on NBC. Edon has played piano since he was nine years old and has been singing even longer. He comes from a musical family, is the fourth child of five siblings, and is a straight A student.

As Rachel Hirshfeld wrote in Israel National News,
Edon Pinchot, a 14-year-old orthodox singer, has advanced to the semi-finals on “America’s Got Talent,” after receiving a standing ovation earlier in the week.
“For me, Edon, is the chosen,” said Howie Mandel, one of the three judges on NBC’s hit reality television show.
"Did you get a standing ovation at your Bar Mitzvah?" asked Mandel after Edon's performance.
“One of the chosen,” said host Nick Cannon.
Howard Stern, the second judge to place a vote, said that while Pinchot’s age worked against him in certain instances, he nonetheless decided to vote for him.
"You nailed every single note. You did a great job. You just are humble, you're nice and I love that about you. America is going to fall in love with you," Stern said.
Pinchot, dubbed the “Jewish Justin Beiber”, performed the song “Titanium”, created by David Guetta and Sia, in the quarterfinals of the competition.
While Sharon Osborne did not officially get to vote for Pinchot or his competitor, Todd Oliver, she did not hold back her opinion.
“Absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt in my mind, I would have voted for Edon,” she said. “You hit every single note. You sang with great emotion," Osbourne added.
Here's the video of Edon's performance. Enjoy!

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Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Tough Guy Actor James Cagney Spoke Yiddish Fluently


James Cagney, the American actor best known for playing tough guys in gangster films and for winning an Oscar for playing George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy, was a fluent Yiddish speaker.

He spoke Yiddish in a few of his films, including Taxi (1932) and The Fighting 69th (1940).

As John Farr wrote yesterday in The Huntington Post,
About a month ago, I was watching an early Cagney entry called Taxi! (1932), and in one early scene, witnessed the diminutive actor of Irish/Norwegian stock speaking Yiddish... not one or two words, mind you, but paragraphs.
And I thought to myself -- yet another reason to love Jimmy Cagney.
As if we needed any more.
In fact, Cagney learned that language fluently growing up dirt-poor on New York's Lower East Side in the early days of the twentieth century. But he had much more than language skills in his favor.
Though compact, he was scrappy and a natural fighter, often protecting his brother from neighborhood bullies. He eventually learned how to box, and became skillful enough to consider doing it for a living.
He also knew how to hustle and sell. He was in constant motion. From early days, he worked several jobs to support his family. Even once he'd made it in Hollywood, he sent his mother the majority of his earnings till the day she died.
Of course Cagney never mentioned that.
Here's the clip of Cagney as a taxi driver in Taxi. He watches as a man tries to ask an Irish policeman how to get to Ellis Island to see his wife. When he sees that the man can't get through to the cop and says he has a goyishe kop, Cagney asks the man in Yiddish where he wants to go. The man, surprised, asks Cagney if he is Jewish. Cagney replies, "What then, a shaygetz?"

Enjoy the video excerpt. The Yiddish dialogue runs from  1:30 to 4:00 in the 9 minute clip. The full movie (1 hour, 9 minutes) is viewable on YouTube. The DVD is not available from Netflix, but can be purchased at Amazon.com and at DeepDiscount.com.

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Tuesday, July 17, 2012

10-Year-Old Yeshiva Girl From Fair Lawn, New Jersey Sets Weightlifting Record


This week the Jewish Daily Forward is running a story and video interview about Naomi Kutin, a 10-year-old yeshiva girl from Fair Lawn, New Jersey who set three weightlifting records this year, lifting more than twice her weight of 99 pounds. 

As Naomi Zeveloff wrote in The Forward,
Ed and Neshama Kutin proceeded with caution as they trained Naomi, researching the health effects of child weightlifting. But Ed Kutin said he found that the typical warnings — stunted growth or injuries — were nothing but “old wives’ tales.” Even so, Naomi started slowly, using a 14-pound bar instead of the typical 45-pound one. Soon it became apparent that she excelled at squatting, which is a pose in which the athlete crouches and then stands up, grasping a barbell across her upper back. The Kutin family competes “raw” — that is, without supportive clothes.

When Naomi was 8 years old, her parents brought her to her first meet, in Clearfield, Pa. She lifted 148 pounds, setting her first national record. Today, her purple-painted bedroom is dotted with medals; a shelf of trophies overflows onto a pile of stuffed animals.

The Kutins are Modern Orthodox Jews — he became religious as an adult, while she converted from Christianity. They refrain from competing or practicing on the Sabbath. First, there is the problem of driving to a meet. But even if the Kutins found a competition close enough to walk to, they still might encounter halachic quandaries. At powerlifting events, for instance, judges gauge the quality of each lift by blinking a white or red light to indicate that the maneuver either passed technical muster or didn’t. If a person judging a Saturday meet happens to be Jewish, then the Kutins would be violating Halacha by asking him or her to blink lights on the Sabbath on their behalf.

Another problem has to do with the physical act of weightlifting. The Torah prohibits carrying objects on the Sabbath to a public area from a private home. Technically, Ed Kutin said, the family could still lift weights in their basement gym. But this would interfere with the restful spirit of the Sabbath. “We try to avoid it,” he said.

At most two-day powerlifting meets, women and adolescents compete on Saturdays and men compete on Sundays. Because the Kutins won’t participate on the Sabbath, Naomi must lift at the Sunday meets, which are typically filled with muscle-bound, tattooed men. But she isn’t intimidated. “They are an unusual look for us,” Neshama Kutin said. “It’s not like you go to synagogue and see that.”

At Yeshivat Noam, Naomi, like all the girls there, wears a long, dark skirt that covers her knees, as well as shirts with sleeves that extend to just above her elbows. Naomi’s powerlifting outfit — typically a spandex onesie with a white T-shirt underneath — is a very different look. When she’s at home practicing, she augments the outfit with a 10-year-old’s flair: turquoise striped knee socks and candy-red ankle boots.

According to Neshama, Naomi’s teachers have cheered on her powerlifting, placing a newspaper clipping of one of her record-setting competitions in the hallway trophy case and playing video recordings of her competitions in school for the girls’ classes. Linda Stock, the assistant principal at Yeshivat Noam’s elementary school, said that Naomi’s athleticism has earned her the admiration of her peers. The powerlifting apparel, she added, does not clash with the school’s modesty standards.
“I don’t think it plays into anything,” she said. “We have plenty of kids who wear pants outside of school, or sleeveless shirts. When they come in, they are dressed appropriately.”
In this video, Naomi and her parents talk about her unusual accomplishments. As she says, "It's kind of weird being stronger than an adult." Enjoy!

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Monday, July 16, 2012

Another Old Jew Telling Another Classic Old Joke - The Bank Robbery


After a few days of posting "feel good" or "Yiddishe nachas" stories, we think it's time for another classic old joke told by (who else?) an old Jew. We hope our reader (only you know who you are) who keeps asking for more jokes will be especially happy today.

The old jokes and the old Jews keep coming. The Old Jews Telling Jokes off-Broadway show is doing well and one of these days we'll get around to seeing it. But the web site keeps adding new jokes each week, and it looks like they will never run out of new old jokes.

We'd love to share all of them with you, but we'd have to break our pledge to keep the Jewish Humor site family-friendly. So we keep an eye on our friends over at OldJewsTellingJokes.com and whenever they post a clean or mildly off-color joke we give them an extra few thousand hits by reposting it here.

Today's old joke is The Bank Robbery, another classic, retold by 82-year-old Len Portnoy, a retired chemical engineer. 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.) 
  

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Chasidic Womens' Voices Reverberate in Rock Band (For Women Only)


What's new in Brooklyn? An all-female Chasidic Indie Rock group called Bulletproof Stockings.

Yeah. Right. 

No, we're not kidding! Pianist and lead singer Perl Wolf, percussionist Dalia Shusterman and guitarist Miriam Brosseau have combined their talents to write and perform a collection of songs influenced by Hasidic, classical, rhythm & blues, and indie rock music.

Why "Bulletproof Stockings"? You probably guessed right. It's an inside joke. Read on.

As Yonit Tanenbaum wrote in a press release for the group,
The walls of the concert hall nestled on a small side street in Brooklyn reverberate with the solid beats produced by a five-piece maple wood drum set. Lead singer and songwriter Perl Wolfe's warm voice rises and falls as her fingers dance gracefully across her Yamaha keyboard. The expressions on the faces of the all-female audience exude their intense enjoyment of the performance.
No one would have guessed that here in Park Slope, a Brooklyn neighborhood filled with brownstones, quaint cafés, avid bicyclists, and streets bathed in the shadows of overgrown trees, an all-female Hasidic rock concert was taking place in a below-street-level synagogue-turned-music-café. Perhaps it's less surprising now than it would have been in years past; 2012 has brought with it a new sensationalized curiosity into the lifestyle of Hasidic Judaism, inspired by the likes of crossover artists such as Matisyahu. But even in today's anything-goes environment, the idea of an all-female Hasidic rock n' roll band still manages to raise eyebrows.
Introducing: Bulletproof Stockings -- Hasidic Judaism fused with alternative rock.
With lyrics such as "I followed you all the way down to the top" and "It's better to be outside looking in than to be inside looking out," 25-year-old Wolfe shares some of her deepest feelings and emotions blended with personal experiences and life lessons with her exceptionally diverse audience. Her songs and live performances speak to the souls of her fans, consisting of people across the spectrum of religions, ethnicities, ages and cultural backgrounds, but who have one thing in common: they are all searching for an authentic sound that truly expresses their needs, desires, goals and frustrations, and provides them with much-needed inspiration.
Bulletproof Stockings, whose name is drawn from the tongue-in-cheek description of the opaque tights worn by many ultra-modest Hasidic women, is quite unique in its makeup and message. The percussionist, Dalia G. Shusterman, says the name forms a juxtaposition whose message is meant to celebrate religious Jewish women and womanhood in general, "as well as get a bit of a laugh at a freshly owned inside joke" -- which could appear to be offensive toward the ultra-Orthodox.
"We are not making fun," Wolfe explained to the all-female crowd consisting of both non-Jews and Jews, observant and non-observant, during the opening of a recent concert at Café Bnei in Park Slope, Brooklyn. "We are Hasidic women. Stockings represent femininity. And we, the women, are bulletproof -- a force to be reckoned with. We are going to change the world!" Her declaration was met with resounding applause.
The name connotes an underlying contrast in daily life. "Everything in the world is a contrast, a balance between good and evil, dark and light. Being a Hasidic woman means not just holding on to customs from back in the day, but living in the here-and-now -- bringing those customs into our daily lives to make the world a better place and creating balance, harmony."
If you can't catch one of their performances in Brooklyn, or if you happen to be male, you can still listen to their songs on their myspace page, or download their MP3 album at Amazon.com.
Here's a video of another of Bulletproof Stockings' original songs, Day by Day. 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.)