Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places: Biggest Traditional Jewish Wedding Held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Hundreds of Jews from all over the world have gathered in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, ahead of the two-year anniversary of its establishment of diplomatic ties with Israel.

But the crowds aren’t in town to honor the Abraham Accords — at least not directly.

They came to party last Wednesday at the largest Jewish wedding in the history of the UAE, which the bride and groom, emissaries of the Chabad movement who are living in that country, timed to coincide with the anniversary of the signing of the accords.

As reported by Cnaan Liphshiz of JTA in The Times of Israel, 

About 1,500 people, including dignitaries and Emirati royals as well as rabbis stationed around the world, attended the wedding of Rabbi Levi Duchman, 29, who was born in Brooklyn and has been living in the UAE since 2014, and Lea Hadad of Brussels, 27, according to the media relations department of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

The wedding “is a source of great national pride, as a demonstration and living experience of the Emirates’ longstanding investment in creating a culture of coexistence and religious diversity,” read a statement to the media about the event.

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A Surprise Wedding at the 2017 Maccabiah Games in Jerusalem

The 2017 Maccabiah Games are underway in Israel, having started on July 4 and running through July 18. 

The Maccabiah Games are open to Jewish athletes from around the world, and to all Israeli citizens regardless of their religion. A total of 10,000 athletes are competing, a Maccabiah Games record, making the 2017 Maccabiah Games the third-largest sporting competition in the world (after the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup).

The athletes are from 85 countries, also a record^. Countries represented for the first time include the Bahamas, Cambodia, the Cayman Islands, Haiti, Malta, Morocco, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and Trinidad. The athletes are competing in 45 sports.

At the games, Canadian ice hockey team member Avi Steinberg was asked to come to the stage together with his girlfriend Rachel Dixon, who just completed her year and a half of studies for her conversion to Judaism.

Rachel thought they would only be reenacting their engagement, but the event planners surprised her with a surprise wedding on international television! 

Mazal tov!

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Basketball Giant Shaquille O'Neal Dances the Hora

Shaquille O'Neal, the retired professional basketball player who is currently an analyst on the television program Inside the NBA, showed off his skill at a different sport last week -- dancing the Hora.

Seven feet tall and weighing 350 pounds, he was one of the heaviest players ever to play in the NBA. O'Neal played for six teams throughout his 19-year NBA career.

It happened at the Salter-Markowitz wedding in Miami, where O'Neal was a guest of Jamie Salter's, the father of the groom and his partner at Authentic Brands Group.

As the staff of TMZ reported,

We're told the entire party was poppin' until around 2:30 AM (oy vey) and at one point Shaq took to the dance floor -- but instead of his tried-and-true pop-locking routine, he got cultural ... and Horah'd it up.

BTW -- we're also told efforts were actually made to lift Shaq up in a chair (part of the dance) but they were predictably unsuccessful.

Which means we'll never know the answer to the question -- how many Jews does it take to lift Shaquille O'Neal?

Enjoy!

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Unexpected Traces in Jewish Places - Hasidim Play and Sing "Samba Set"

Wedding music at Hasidic weddings is pretty predictable. That is, until now. At a recent wedding in Lakewood, New Jersey, the Meshorerim Choir sang and Naftuli Moshe Schnitzler played a "Samba Set" on the keyboard.

We found the music to be infectious as we swayed and looked for a dance partner to launch into a set of Latin American dances. 

Do you think this will motivate Hasidic wedding guests to get out of their chairs and sweep across the dance floor? Will it lead to social dancing? Probably not, but who can predict what's next? The Rumba? Bossa Nova?  

Enjoy!

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A Visual Guide to Chassidic Wedding Dances

Did you ever attend a Chassidic wedding and feel like an outsider because you didn't know the steps or even what the names of the dances were?  

Now AMK Productions and Chony Milecki Music have provided a video reference guide so you can impress your friends with your newly acquired knowledge.

Maybe you'll feel like such an expert after watching the video a few times that you'll even be willing to try a few steps.

The video includes such favorites as Od Yishama, Hup Cossack, Choson on the Table, The Chassidic Running Man, Penguin Dance, Mitzvah Tantz , Na Nach Nachman Style, and that perennial favorite, Hand on Your Friend's Shoulder as You Walk in a Circle.

And all that before the main course is served. Oy, are we tired.

Enjoy!

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Amazing Entrance of Bride to Chuppah Lights Up Israeli Wedding

Whenever we find an unusual clip of a Jewish wedding anywhere in the world, we like to share it with you so we can all join in the simcha. 

We've posted videos of weddings in unusual and exotic locations, and weddings where something funny or unexpected happened. 

We've posted clips of Hasidic and secular weddings, but somehow we missed this one. About four years ago, there was a very popular song in Israel called Lehishtatot Lif'amim (To Play the Fool Sometimes.) It was used as the basis for a well-choreographed flash mob in a Haifa shopping mall that we posted in 2010.

That same year it was used for a very unusual entry of an Israeli bride to her chuppah. 

Usually the groom is led by a group of singing and dancing friends to a reception room where the bride sits like a queen on her throne, waiting for the groom to cover her face with a veil (badeken). The bride and groom are then escorted separately by their parents to the chuppah in a slow procession.

In this Israeli wedding, the bride wanted to have something different. So she appeared on a balcony, danced down the stairs, and launched into a wild dance to the popular song. Only after being carried down the aisle by the groomsmen did the groom come forward to meet her and perform the badeken before walking hand in hand to the wedding ceremony.

Here's the refrain of the song translated into English:

It's not important where we go or what we do
The important thing is that we'll do it together.

I simply love you, love you very much
I think of you during the nights and during the days.
I simply love you, love you very much
And I don't mind playing the fool sometimes.

Enjoy!

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"Time to Say Goodbye" Becomes "Bo'i Kallah" at Beautiful Jewish Wedding in Israel

We always enjoy attending beautiful weddings, even if we're not there in person but peeking in through the Internet. 

In the last four years we've shared many with you, including  Hasidic, Black, Mock, and ceremonies taking place in South Africa and Thailand.

Today we have another one to share -- a collaboration of Tal Vaknin and Yossi Azulay, top Israeli singers and the Musikids, a children's choir conducted by Vaknin. The wedding was at Havat Ronit (The Ronit Farm) in Israel.

The song accompanying the wedding procession is a beautiful rendition of Bo'i B'shalom, a Hebrew version of Time to Say Goodbye, a modern Italian-English classic made famous by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman, one of our favorite duets which we include just below the wedding video.

Enjoy!

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Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman - Time to Say Goodbye



(A tip of the kippah to Dan Englander for bringing this video to our attention.)

Newly Orthodox Groom Sings "Just a Kosher Walk With Thee" at His Wedding

When Bud Coulson married Rebecca Gordon in New Jersey last week, he also embraced Jewish Orthodoxy. 

As a member of his family's jazz band, he wrote and performed Just a Kosher Walk With Thee, a song with original lyrics celebrating his new status as an Orthodox Jew, with his family band members accompanying him in front of the wedding guests.

We don't think he expected the video clip that he posted on YouTube to be seen by the thousands of Jewish Humor Central subscribers, but since he invited YouTube viewers to share it, we were only too glad to take him up on the offer and share in the simcha.

The video, which includes subtitles, touches on aspects of Orthodoxy, including kashrut and Shabbat observance. It's set to the melody of Just a Closer Walk With Thee, a song with roots in gospel, jazz, and country music.

Mazal tov, Bud and Rebecca, and Shabbat shalom to all!

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Chasidic Wedding Welcomes a Special Guest - an Upside Down Polar Bear!

Celebrating a wedding is one of the happiest occasions in Jewish life, and over the last four years we have been a fly on the wall at many Jewish weddings and shared many videos with you.

The most joyful, and sometimes funny ones have involved jubilant dancing and singing among Chasidim. 

Here's a wedding video posted just last week that had us laughing. Please bear with us for the duration of the performance to see the polar bear fall down twice and do a complete flip to dance on its head. 

You'll have to take our word that this was really a wedding, as there's no trace of any women, including a bride, in the video.
 
Enjoy!

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Israeli Talent Comes Together for "Eishet Chayil" Set to "You Raise Me Up"

When talented singers and musicians collaborate to produce a special rendition of a traditional Shabbat eve song, and set it to the melody of a popular English-Irish ballad, the result can be beautiful.

That's what happened when Israeli singer Ohad Moskowitz got together with The Kinderlach, a group of seven pre-teen boys from all over Israel, and Daniel Ahaviel, a British klezmer violinist who made aliyah to Israel in 1988, and sang the song Eishet Chayil at a wedding.

Eishet Chayil is usually sung at home on Friday night before the Shabbat meal is served. Traditionally, a husband sings the song to his wife, extolling her virtues, and expressing thanks for all that his wife has done for him and their family.

The version in this video bypasses the traditional melody, and instead is set to the melody of You Raise Me Up, which has an interesting history.

It was composed originally as an instrumental piece by Rolf Lovland, with parts of the melody based on Londonderry Air, an Irish tune later put to lyrics in 1910 to create the song Danny Boy, now considered an Irish classic. Lovland approached the Irish songwriter Brendan Graham to add lyrics and You Raise Me Up was the result.

It became a huge success in a version produced by David Foster and sung by Josh Groban, reaching the top of the Billboard charts in 2004. It has since been covered more than 125 times, with our favorite version the finale of the Celtic Woman concert at Slane Castle, Ireland in 2006. We've included that version at the end of this blog post. 

Enjoy and Shabbat Shalom!

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Fidddler on the Roof's "To Life" Surprises at Jewish and Non-Jewish Weddings

At a Jewish wedding in Johannesburg, South Africa this summer, the father of the bride staggered over to a waiter and asked him for a drink. 

The waiter obliged, not only with a drink, but with an introduction to a four-minute song and dance number -- the "To Life - L'Chaim" song from Fiddler on the Roof. 

Joined by the father of the bride and brothers of the bride and groom, the waiter (or was he a chef?) put on a full production to the surprise and delight of the bride, the wedding party and the guests.

But this summer's performance wasn't the first time that the Fiddler song was used as a wedding surprise. Three years ago, the New York Times reported that Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Puerto Rican composer and star of the Tony Award winning Broadway musical In the Heights staged a similar surprise for his wife, Vanessa. Neither are Jewish, but that didn't prevent Miranda from gathering friends and family and rehearsing a full-on production number with them in secret for a month leading up to the wedding.

Here are both videos for your enjoyment.

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(A tip of the kippah to Meyer Berkowitz for bringing the video to our attention.)

25,000 Hasidim Attend Second Biggest Wedding Ever in Jerusalem

Photo: Reuters

Last week, the Jerusalem neighborhood of Kiryat Belz was the scene of the second biggest wedding ever held in Israel. On Tuesday evening, under a chuppah built for the occasion in the center of the sector, Shalom Rokeach, the 18-year-old grandson of the Belzer Rebbe, leader of the Belz Hasidic dynasty, married Hanna Batya Penet, his 19-year-old bride in the presence of 25,000 guests (no, that's not a misprint.)

In this video you can see the bride, completely veiled, escorted by two female relatives holding candles, circling the groom seven times. After the chuppah, the men adjourned for an all-night celebration at the Belz synagogue. The women had their own celebration a mile away at Binyanei Ha'Uma, Jerusalem's large convention center.

In the last half minute of the video, the camera pulls back from the chuppah so you can see the magnitude of the crowd and the setting.

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If you're wondering why 25,000 guests didn't make it the biggest wedding ever, The Times of Israel reported that the wedding of Rokeach’s parents in 1993 was the largest in the city’s modern history, drawing 30,000 people, who gobbled down 3.1 tons of potatoes, 1.5 tons of gefilte fish and 39,000 gallons of soda in celebration.

Members of various Hasidic sects, the national-religious world and Sephardi Judaism also attended the wedding.

The leader of the Gur Hasidic sect, the biggest in Israel, and the Lithuanian Ultra-Orthodox community each received a special welcome from the Belz Rabbi, as did Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

For a close-up view of all aspects of the wedding, click here to check out the photo album posted by the Haredi web site Vos iz Neias. 

The Belz Great Synagogue is the biggest synagogue in Jerusalem, with an ark that is so huge it has been included in the Guiness Book of World Records. This imposing monolith of a building is located in northern Jerusalem and was built by the Belz Hasidim, a Hasidic sect dating to the nineteenth century. The Belz Great Synagogue is also significant for its uncanny resemblance to the Holy Temple built by Herod thousands of years ago.

Like the original Belz synagogue in Europe that was destroyed by the Nazis, the Belz Great Synagogue in Jerusalem took 15 years to build. The building was dedicated in 2000 and now towers imposingly in the Jerusalem skyline, rising above the surrounding apartment complexes like a new incarnation of the Holy Temple. The project was financed by the Belz community as well as by philanthropic donations.

The main interior of the synagogue can house up to 6,000 worshipers—an unheard of number for most synagogues, which usually seat hundreds or less. The record-breaking ark is 12 meters high, weighs 18 tons, and can hold 70 Torah scrolls. (In contrast, most synagogue arks can hold about six or less.)

Nine chandeliers gracing the synagogue are each strung with 200,000 pieces of Czech crystal, lending the sanctuary a lofty ballroom splendor. Since it is so huge, the building is utilized not just for prayer, but also for weddings, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, and communal events. Smaller study halls and communal facilities are included in the building.

The original Belz synagogue, located in the Ukrainian town of Belz, was similar in size to the new Jerusalem version. The building was destroyed in 1939 by the Nazis, who first attempted to burn it down. When the synagogue proved too huge to be destroyed by such means, the Nazis forced the Jews of the community to dismantle the synagogue one stone at a time.

Now it has been rebuilt in Jerusalem and stands as the center of a thriving Belz community.

"President Obama" Is Guest Speaker at Sheva Brochos in Boro Park

Two months ago there was a Sheva Brochos (post-wedding dinner) in Boro Park for the daughter of Shloime Bochner, Executive Director of Bonei Olam, an organization that provides funding for all aspects of infertility treatments.

The host of the evening, Chaim Ziegler, seemed nervous as he asked the audience to calm down and take their seats. And then he introduced the guest speaker, the President of the United States, who entered with two secret service agents to the strains of "Hail to the Chief" and took his place at a podium emblazoned with the presidential seal.

We'll let you be the judge of how good a job Reggie Brown did as he delivered one joke after another, touching some Jewish bases in addition to the expected political humor.

Some of the best lines:

"My administration is out there creating jobs every day. I'm fighting for people like Mary Grady, from Tallahassee, Florida. Mary worked for Tropicana for 22 years until she got canned. It turns out she could never concentrate."

"For the first time in the history of the United States, 75 percent of the people in this country make up three-quarters of the domestic population."

Enjoy!

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Amazing Bottle Dancers Crash a Wedding

Bottle dancing, a highlight of the wedding scene in Fiddler on the Roof, started long before the Broadway show and Hollywood film made it popular. An Eastern European folk tradition, it was part of the culture of Hungary and other countries. And it was a feature of many Jewish weddings in Europe. But Fiddler brought the dance home to American audiences in a uniquely Jewish way.

Michael Pasternak, who comes from a line of rabbis and cantors, owned a production company that created exciting sales meetings and events. He wanted a unique way to make his own wedding special, so he came up with the idea of staging a traditional Hasidic bottle dance in the middle of a modern wedding. Soon he was getting calls asking for a similar performance at other weddings, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, and other occasions. Before long, the Amazing Bottle Dancers were born.

Michael has since perfected the bottle dance performance as a surprise feature of these events, with only the sponsors aware of the shtick that is about to happen in the middle of the event. Typically, a Hasid mistakenly wanders into the ballroom seemingly confused about where he is going, starts a dialogue with the sponsor or master of ceremonies, and then the fun begins.

They perform their shtick with sensitivity to tradition. Their website says:

Having been founded by someone with such a rich family history, we are certainly aware that if you are planning an ORTHODOX simcha, you may be having a mechitzah, or perhaps just a "ceremonial" separation of the dancing for men and women (such as a few strategically-placed potted plants or trees). And our performers, of course, are fully aware that they must not extend a hand to any of the women in attendance.

Additionally, if you're planning a kiddush luncheon following your Bar or Bat Mitzvah and will not be having recorded music, we can discuss a program featuring a capella singers.

Here's a video showing a typical performance of the Amazing Bottle Dancers.  Enjoy!

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 (A tip of the kippah and a copy of "Jewish Humor on Your Desktop: The Complete Collection" to Phoebe Weisbrot for bringing this video to our attention.)
 

Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places: An Orthodox Australian South African Wedding in Thailand

Every once in a while we come across a video that illustrates the beauty and pervasiveness of Jewish life and traditions reaching out to corners of the world where they are least expected to be found. We categorize these as "Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places" and have reported on quite a few since starting Jewish Humor Central.

Today we're sharing a video of a Jewish wedding that took place last December on the beach of a remote island in Thailand that has no roads. The Australian groom met his South African bride while rock climbing in Asia.

Why Thailand? Well, it's roughly half-way between South Africa and Australia. Eighty of their friends and family traveled across the world to attend the wedding. Talk about destination weddings!

The couple were married in a traditional Orthodox ceremony by a South African rabbi who happened to be the grandson of the rabbi who had married the bride's grandparents on the same day two generations earlier in South Africa. You'll notice the signing of the ketuba at the chatan's tish, the badeken ceremony, the bride circling the groom during the ceremony, and the use of an RCA ArtScroll Life Cycle Madrikh (guide to performing life cycle ceremonies) by the rabbi.

The videographers deserve a lot of credit for shooting for 17 hours straight, walking and running over 12 miles between locations, each carrying 22 pounds of video gear all day in sweltering heat.

It's not exactly Jewish humor, but it clearly fits into our category of Yiddishe nachas. If you're looking for humor in this video, we can call your attention to:

- Monkeys cavorting on a fence

- Locals smoking home made cigarettes

- Wedding procession marching to Hebrew version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah

- Fire dancers at nighttime reception
- Launching fire lanterns into the night sky

Mazal tov! Enjoy!

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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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Di Mamme Iz Gegangen - Delightful Animation of a Classic Yiddish Song

"Almonds and Wine" brings a Yiddish folk song to life, as the animated journey of a young bride and groom from Eastern Europe to North America is set to rollicking klezmer music. 

Fleeing the threat of war, the couple arrive in Canada, establish a new life together and hand down their traditions to the generations that follow. This film is set to a classic Yiddish folk song, Di Mamme iz Gegangen in Mark Arayn (My Mother Went to Market.) It was produced, directed and animated by Arnie Lipsey.

The animation is inspired, but the characters move through the story so fast that you'll have to watch it more than once or keep your finger on the pause button to catch all of the details and read what's written on the store signs and protest signs. 

How do we know that the couple settles in Canada and not the U.S.? Notice that the boy is running around with a hockey stick, not a baseball bat.

The depiction of the Jewish wedding ceremony is very detailed. Be sure to watch for the expression on the bride's and groom's faces when they are lifted onto chairs for the traditional handkerchief dance.

The Yiddish lyrics and English translation appear below the video. Enjoy!

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Oy di mamme iz gegangen in mark arayn noch keyln,

Oy hot zi mir tzurik gebracht a meydele fun Peyln.

Oy iz dos a meydele a sheyns un a feyns,

Oy Mit di shvartse eygelach, oy ketsele du mayns.

Oy di mamme iz gegangen in mark arayn noch kreyt,

Oy hot zi mir tzurik gebracht a meydele fun beyt,

Oy iz dos a meydele a sheyns un a feyns,

Oy mit di shvartse eygelach, oy ketsele du mayns.

Oy di mamme is gegangen in mark noch a katchke

Oy hot zi mir tzurik gebracht a meydele, a tzatzke

Oy iz dos a meydele a sheyns un a feyns,

Oy mit di vayse tzeyndelach, oy ketsele du mayns.

Ich hob gegesn mandlen, ich hob getrunken vayn,

Ich hob gelibt a meydele un ken on ir nisht zayn,

Oy iz dos a meydele a sheyns un a feyns,

Oy mit di roite bekelach, oy ketsele du mayns.

My mother went to market to buy some coal,
She brought me back a lovely girl from Poland.
Oh what a girl she was, how beautiful and fine,
Ah, those black eyes of hers, ah, you kitten of mine.

My mother went to market to buy some cabbage,
She brought me back a girl just off a coach.
Oh what a girl she was, how beautiful and fine,
Ah, those black eyes of hers, ah, you kitten of mine.

My mother went to market to buy a duck,

She brought me back a girl - what a handful! 

Oh what a girl she was, how beautiful and fine,

Ah, those white teeth of hers, ah, you kitten of mine.

I have been eating almonds, I have been drinking wine,
And I have loved a lass and could not part from her.
O what a lass she was, how lovely and how fine,
Ah, those red cheeks of hers, ah, you kitten of mine.

(A tip of the kippah to Malka Edelman for bringing this video to our attention.)

Top Ten Things to Say to End the Shidduch

Ben Czeladnicki, who calls himself The Wondering Jew, has been posting a weekly video, looking at the world through the lens of the Torah. Most of the posts are about the weekly Torah portion, explanations of some of the Jewish holidays and fasts, observations on Jewish life, and comments on events in the news.

This week The Wondering Jew steps into the world of shidduchim and offers a funny top ten list of how to say the wrong thing and put an end to a shidduch.

If you're not familiar with the word, shidduch is a Hebrew and Yiddish term for a match, or arranged introduction to lead to marriage.  These ten show-stoppers will almost surely put an end to the match.  Enjoy!

Meet Steve Mittleman, the Made Over Wedding Comedian

Steve Mittleman has been doing clean, funny, standup Jewish comedy for more than 30 years, and has recently had a revival after undergoing an extreme makeover that totally changed his appearance. In 2008 he had a facelift, nose job, removal of his double chin, crossed-eye surgery, and dental work.

In less than nine weeks he was back on the comedy circuit, doing his shtick at weddings, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, synagogue events, and on cruise ships.

Steve has really been around a long time, having appeared with Johnny Carson, Steve Martin, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jerry Seinfeld and many other top entertainers in Atlantic City and Las Vegas. He did hundreds of comedy shows at clubs, casinos, colleges, and corporate and Jewish events.

Here's a video of a performance by Steve at a wedding in May. Enjoy!

Big Black Jewish Wedding Features Comedian Modi as Cantor

It's not often that we're invited to a Jewish African-American wedding, but we're inviting you to experience the fun and joy of Avner and Shonta's wedding in this video. We don't know any details about the couple's Jewish affiliation, only that they wanted to have a Jewish wedding, and that they were lucky to have Modi Rosenfeld, one of our favorite Jewish comedians, available to serve as cantor.

We've profiled Modi before as a stand-up comic and in the role of a Chasidic wanna-be Hollywood playwright. Modi and his colleague Brian, an insurance salesman who serves as the rabbi at this wedding, pull out all the stops in giving this couple what they asked for, and more. Somehow they manage to include elements of Chanukah, Pesach, Sukkot, Rosh Hashana, and Yom Kippur.

We think this wedding is a good way to start the weekend. Shabbat shalom and we'll see you again on Sunday.  Enjoy!

(A tip of the kippah to Brian Gross for bringing this video to our attention.)