Meir Kalmanson Spreads Joy by High Fiving Strangers in New York

Meir Kalmanson has been posting funny Jewish videos on YouTube under the name Meir Kay. An Orthodox Jewish filmmaker from Brooklyn, his aim is to spread "happiness and positivity."

We've already featured one of his videos in April 2015 on the Evolution of Chassidic Dance. A video of him wandering the streets of New York and high fiving unsuspecting strangers who were raising their hands to hail a cab made it onto a Fox 5 TV newscast.

We'll be showing you some of his other comedy videos in the coming weeks. Here's the original high fiving video followed by the TV news report. Enjoy!

(A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO IS NOT VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY.  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.)  

New Comedy Series Depicts Orthodox Singles Life in New York City

Srugim is a popular award-winning TV series produced in Israel about the lives of a group of Orthodox Jewish singles living in the Katamon section of Jerusalem. It ran for 45 episodes in three seasons between 2008 and 2012.

But there are also Orthodox Jewish singles in the USA, and many of them live and date on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Modern Orthodox filmmaker Leah Gottfried took the concept and created a new series in English called Soon By You about these singles and their dating adventures. The first episode, The Setup, was released this week.

As Sarah Trappler Spielman wrote in Tablet this week,

The Setup, a short film about Jewish dating by 25-year-old Modern Orthodox filmmaker Leah Gottfried, was described by its producers as “Friends but with Jews” and “Srugim but in New York.” The film, which won an audience award for Best Short at the Washington Jewish Film Festival, also serves as the pilot episode for Soon By You, a new web series that depicts the lives of six Modern Orthodox twentysomethings dating in present-day New York City.

We watched the first 16-minute long episode and we think it has potential as a long-running series that gives insight into the unique challenges that young single Orthodox Jewish professionals face in a largely secular multicultural environment such as New York City.

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.)

Orthodox Jewish Graduate Finds a Kosher Way to Give His Speech on Shabbat

Don Greenberg, a triple major in computer science, finance and math at Binghamton University, was scheduled to speak at the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science graduation ceremony on Saturday.

But there was one problem. The ceremony was scheduled on Shabbat, and Don is an Orthodox Jew whose use of the school's microphone and sound system with lights illuminating a sound board would be a violation of Shabbat.
  
The solution? The school allowed him to videotape his speech three days earlier. So on graduation day Don stood at the podium and watched the video of himself delivering the speech on the jumbo screens on both sides of the podium.

(A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO IS NOT VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY.  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.)

"Kosher Comedy" Attracts a New Generation of Orthodox Jewish Stand-up Comics

Yesterday's edition of Tablet, the online Jewish magazine, featured an article on Orthodox Jewish comedy by Josh Lambert about how observant Jewish funnymen (and women) navigate the line between irreverence and devotion.

As Lambert writes in Tablet,

For the most part, good comedy, including good Orthodox comedy—funny Orthodox comedy—isn’t kosher. Which isn’t to suggest that there aren’t sincerely devout folks in the comedy business.

On the contrary, in just about every community, no matter how pious, somebody’s making a living telling jokes. And it should be noted at the outset that there are plenty of Christian comedians—even a few excellent ones, like Jim Gaffigan and Steven Colbert, who are faithful Catholics.

But Judaism goes much further than most faiths in specifying the limits of proper speech. It’s not just that Jews are enjoined to avoid nivul peh—obscene speech—by authorities like Maimonides, who taught that “we must not imitate the songs and tales of ignorant and lascivious people” (Songs and Tales of Ignorant and Lascivious People would actually be a pretty good title for a comedy podcast).

One of the Orthodox Jewish comedians profiled in the article is David Finkelstein, a stand-up performer who we have featured three times in the last year on Jewish Humor Central. His slightly unkempt look and his droll delivery with impeccable timing make him stand out in a field of observant comics whose routines are sometimes, and only sometimes, funny.

David knows how to play to his audiences, which are likely to be a mix of Jewish and non-Jewish lovers of stand-up comedy. He performs at venues such as the Broadway Comedy Club in New York City, but does not have many video clips on the Internet. We were lucky to find a fourth clip of one of his sessions that we're sharing with you today.

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.)

Orthodox Jewish Stars Shine in All Walks of Life

What do Senator Joe Lieberman, best-selling novelist Faye Kellerman, professional boxer Dmitriy Salita, former HBO producer Jamie Geller, Rhodes Scholar Miriam Rosenbaum, the Maccabeats, and Hasidic comedian/actor Mendy Pellin have in common?

They're all highly successful in their mainstream careers while also remaining true to Torah observance. In other words, they're Orthodox Jews.  

A new video, produced by Jew in the City, showcases these and other Orthodox Jews who talk about their careers and experiences being religious and successful in the world. The goal is to break down the stereotype that all Orthodox Jews are rabbis or homemakers -- in reality, many are successful in all walks of life.

Through YouTube videos, blogs, Q&A's, and articles in traditional print media, Jew in the City (through its founder, Allison Josephs and a group of volunteers) publicizes the message that Orthodox Jews can be funny, approachable, educated, pro-women and open-minded, and that Orthodox Judaism links the Jewish people to a deep and beautiful heritage that is just as relevant today as it ever was.

(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 Esther Kustanowitz for bringing this video to our attention.)