Shahak Shapira - Israeli Comedian Learns About Potato Crisis From His Vienna Audience

Shahak Shapira is an Israel-born, Berlin-based comedian. His comedy show on German TV got canceled so fast, most people didn’t even notice he had one. He recorded a stand up special for Comedy Central, which would have been awesome, but it was Comedy Central Germany. 

He also wrote two best sellers, which would be very impressive if this was a poetry slam. New York, Tokyo, Cape Town, Paris, London, LA, Barcelona - Shahak has successfully bamboozled audiences around the world into thinking he’s funny and even tricked world class comedians like Jim Gaffigan, Iliza Shlesinger, Maz Jobrani, Ari Shaffir and Joe List into letting him open for them. 

In this banter with his audience, Shahak gets an education about the jumping click beetle larvae attacking potatoes.

Enjoy! 

Tumbalalaika Around the World: A Yiddish Jazz Version by Sharon Brauner in Leipzig, Germany

The Yiddish folk love song Tumbalalaika originated in Eastern Europe in the 19th century, but its exact origin is hard to pinpoint. That hasn't prevented it from being sung and played over and over, not only in places where Yiddish songs are sung, but just about everywhere in the world, in vocal and instrumental versions, in cabarets and in the movies.

Just as we have followed the songs Hava Nagila, Adon Olam, Hevenu Shalom Aleichem, and Abanibi as they took different forms as interpreted by a wide variety of singers, musicians, and dancers, we're continuing the series today that we started back in 2012, bringing you many interpretations of this universal courting and love song. 

The company J. Ariowitsch was one of the leading companies in the Leipzig smoked goods trade in the Weimar Republic. Now their building is a center for Jewish culture in Germany. Numerous cultural events, concert and reading series, exhibitions, lectures and seminars take place here every year.

Last week Sharon Brauner, Karsten Troyke, Daniel Weltlinger & Harry Ermer performed a live concert of Jewish music at Ariowitsch-Haus in Leipzig, including their version of Tumbalalaika.

Born in West Berlin in 1969, Brauner attended a musical school and took a job as a bouncer, bartender, and go-go dancer in Berlin's trendy clubs. Then she studied acting at the Lee Strasberg institute in New York while singing jazz standards at night in various clubs.

Brauner launched a singing career, and dedicated herself to popularizing Yiddish classics that she knew from her childhood. She reinterpreted the songs, some of which are centuries old, in swing, jazz and pop, Balkan polka, Arab arabesques, South American rhythms, reggae, waltz, country, and tango elements. The songs captured the joy and the soul of the music.

Enjoy!

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Hava Nagila Around the World - With Shofar Intro by Folkadu with Yael Gat

Folkadu is an ensemble which takes us on a musical journey from traditional Jewish tunes to Israeli folk songs, sung in diverse Jewish languages such as Hebrew, Yiddish and Ladino, accompanied by a unique instrument combination of trumpet, accordion and oud. 

Hava Nagila (Hebrew: "הבה נגילה"‎, "Let us rejoice") is an Israeli folk song traditionally sung at Jewish celebrations. The melody is based on a Hassidic Nigun, composed in 1915 in Ottoman Palestine, when Hebrew was being revived as a spoken language for the first time in almost 2,000 years. 

We are now in the middle of the Hebrew month of Elul. As Rosh Hashanah approaches, it's traditional to blow the shofar each day of the month. By doing so, inevitably we’ll feel remorse over past misdeeds and set ourselves upon a fresh new path. We don't think that the rabbis who started this tradition had it in mind as a prelude to Hava Nagila, but why not take Yael Gat's interpretation as a foretaste of the coming holidays? 

Folkadu are: Yael Gat - Shofar & Trumpet 

Pier Paolo Bertoli - Acoordion 

Doron Furman - Oud

Performance at Berlin Music Festival 2021 

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Creative Exercising in a Coronavirus World

Exercising has become a challenge in a world of lockdowns, quarantine, and social distancing. 

But adversity always inspires creativity, and when Israeli golfer Leo Friedman found himself stuck in quarantine in Germany he came up with a series of creative rotational exercises to tone up his shoulder, neck, and wrist muscles.

In this video he demonstrates the exercises and suggest that you perform them 10 times a day.

The Hebrew subtitles translate as: "Listen to him...Required exercises for release and healing."

Enjoy!

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Welcoming Shabbat with Shalom Aleichem by Maayan Choir of Tel Aviv

The Maayan Choir under the musical direction and conductorship of Ms. Anat Morahg is the official choir of the ​Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality Department of Performances, comprising  some 45 singers.

The choir singers are graduates of the Rubin Academy of Music Tel Aviv, the School of Choir Singing, music students and graduates of selected youth choirs, performing a varied repertoire including classical, contemporary and Israeli music. 

In this rendition of Shalom Aleichem, the Maayan Choir joined with their partner choir, the Freiburger Bachchor of Freiburg, Germany in a virtual performance.

Enjoy, and Shabbat shalom!

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Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places: German Rock Group Rocks Hevenu Shalom Aleichem

We've shared lots of versions of the classic Hebrew song Hevenu Shalom Aleichem with you over the years. But we keep finding new renditions just as we've found many versions of Hava Nagila (over 50) and Hinei Ma Tov.

Here's a rocking performance of Hevenu Shalom Aleichem by a German band called Big Fat Shakin' at the Clarchers Ballhaus, a live music and dance venue in Berlin.

This song really gets around. Enjoy!

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Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places: Sharon Brauner Gives Yiddish a Whole New Look in Berlin Nightclubs

Berlin isn't the first place that comes to mind when thinking about Yiddish cabaret. And isn't a Yiddish nightclub act an oxymoron, at least in today's world?

But Yiddish nightlife in Berlin is hopping, and Sharon Brauner deserves a lot of the credit for these Jewish traces in an unexpected place.

Born in West Berlin in 1969, she attended a musical school and took a job as a bouncer, bartender, and go-go dancer in Berlin's trendy clubs. Then she studied acting at the Lee Strasberg institute in New York while singing jazz standards at night in various clubs.

Returning to Berlin as an actress, she appeared in more than 50 films, TV movies, and TV series playing roles of street girl, princcess, drug addict, stripper, secretary, thief, commissioner, Pakistani asylum seeker, German folk musician, Turkish cleaning woman, and loving psycho godmother.

Brauner launched a singing career, and dedicated herself to popularizing Yiddish classics that she knew from her childhood. She reinterpreted the songs, some of which are centuries old, in swing, jazz and pop, Balkan polka, Arab arabesques, South American rhythms, reggae, waltz, country, and tango elements. The songs captured the joy and the soul of the music.

The two videos below show the wide range of Brauner's Yiddish renditions. The first is a medley of Love Story and My Way, and the second is a lively version of Di Grine Kuzine (The Greenhorn Cousin), a major hit in 1921 in the Yiddish music halls on Second Avenue in New York. Greenhorn was a common tag for newly arrived, un-Americanized, and unadapted immigrants.

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.)