10 IDF Couples Get Married in Mass Wedding Ceremony in Savion, Israel

Last week in the Israeli town of Savyon, ten couples stood underneath their wedding canopies, which were lined up side by side on a large stage. 1,500 guests looked on as the brides and grooms took their vows in one of the largest joint marriage ceremonies to ever take place in Israel.

As Jennifer Hassan-Smith reported for i24 News,

The unique ceremony was organized by the Savyon Chabad Community as part of an initiative called "Marrying the Warrior." They are helping couples like these — whose previous wedding plans were derailed by the war — finally celebrate their unions. 

In all of these couples, either the groom or bride have been serving in the IDF reserves, and have had to reschedule their dream day several times before the organizers stepped in with the special offer. 

Such is the case of Moshe and his bride, who were supposed to get married on October 12.  While a mass ceremony is the opposite of their initial plans for an intimate wedding, they were grateful for the chance to celebrate their coming together as a family, and participate in a larger display of joy and solidarity amid the war.

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Comedy Showcase: Rabbi/Comedian Bob Alper on Weddings

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We've been following Rabbi Bob Alper since we started this blog in 2009. Over the years we've posted some of his stand-up comedy performances and clips from his DVD.

Alper, 69, started doing stand-up comedy in 1986 in Philadelphia. He's been at it ever since, doing about 60 shows a year across the USA.

He served Reform congregations for 14 years, but now only officiates at High Holy Day services in Philadelphia.

His  DVD runs 102 minutes, and includes a live performance, an interview, and 33 of his best jokes. He bills himself as the only practicing clergyman doing standup comedy...intentionally.

Here's an excerpt from the DVD in which he has the audience laughing about funny experiences he's had while officiating at weddings. 

Enjoy, and Shabbat shalom! 

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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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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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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.

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.)

It's a Bobover Wedding - Time to Dance!

What do Bobover Hasidim do for fun? They have lots of weddings and get caught up in the spirit of singing and dancing, especially when the bride is the daughter of the rebbe himself.

Only yesterday, on Tu BiShevat, the daughter of the Bobover rebbe got married in Boro Park, and thanks to the ubiquity of the miniature camera, video clips of the event made their way through the internet and onto YouTube. We didn't make the guest list, but watching the videos made us feel like the proverbial fly on the wall, taking part in the general simcha, and then all 11 minutes of the rebbe dancing with his daughter. 

The first clip shows the enormous crowd getting caught up in the simcha. Then comes the 11 minute Mitzvah Tantz.

For the first six minutes, the bride stands motionless while the rebbe dances forward and back, holding the long ribbon. After seven minutes, the rebbe drops the ribbon and starts to dance in a circle around his daughter, while she starts to rotate ever so slowly, keeping pace with him. After another minute or so, she leaves the scene, taking a place at the end of the arena as the rebbe continues his back and forth dance, this time joined by another dancer, most likely the bridegroom. Mazal tov!

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The Smashed Wedding Glass That Wouldn't

A Jewish wedding isn't a Jewish wedding without the groom breaking a glass at the end of the wedding ceremony. Although the preparation of the glass may vary from country to country and the type of glass may vary because of its availability, the format is basically the same: 

Either someone announces that the glass will be broken by the groom, a statement is made or song is sung to remember Jerusalem,or in some cases the glass is just broken without comment.

The glass is usually selected based on its breakability. When cameras used flashbulbs, these were sometmes selected because of their thin construction. The glass is usually wrapped in a napkin or paper to prevent glass shards from striking the participants or guests.

In most cases, the next step is simply for the groom to step on the glass and break it. But what would happen if the glass puts up a fight and refuses to be smashed?

Here's a look at just such a case where the groom intended to smash the glass with one good blow, but the glass had different ideas.  Enjoy!

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(A tip of the kippah to Dr. Allen Freedman for sending us this video.)

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Reflections on New Year's Resolutions for 2012

It's time to wish all of our readers a Happy New Year and to make resolutions for 2012. But wait a minute! Didn't we just do this a few months ago on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur?

Well, yes and no. Yes to the wishing a Happy (and also Healthy and Prosperous) New Year. But we're not so sure about the resolutions part.

When you got home from shul after Yom Kippur services were over, did you get out a pad of paper, laptop, iPad, or smartphone and start making a list of specific changes you were going to try to achieve in the new year?  To be perfectly honest, we didn't. How could we, in our rush to put out the bagels, cream cheese, and other delicacies for the traditional break-fast?

Isn't it funny that on Yom Kippur we recite, over and over again, a set of 44 Al Chets, mistakes that we, the collective Jewish people, are sorry that we made during the past year, but there is no formal place in the services to list positive steps for change that we plan to take in the year to come?  

Of course, we're not going to actually write a list on the day of Yom Kippur, and there's an implied promise that we won't repeat the same mistakes next year. But unless we translate these very general categories of mistakes into a personal action plan, it's hard to think of the avoidance of general mistakes as New Years Resolutions. It's especially difficult when we have asked forgiveness for:

- the mistakes we committed before you willfully and intentionally
- the mistakes we committed before you by exercising power
- the mistakes we committed before you with eye movements
- the mistakes we committed before you with a strong forehead

Even the Al Chets that are more specific, like mistakes we committed before you with food and drink, or in business, are easy to dismiss as just another prayer in our rush to put up the Sukkah and start cooking for yet another Yom Tov.

But why write about Yom Kippur and Al Chet now, when we're starting a secular New Year?

Because there's a lesson here that we can learn from our secular friends and neighbors. The secular New Year's Day, January 1, long stripped of any religious meaning, can be a boon to us by infusing Jewish values into the New Year's resolutions that the secular world reminds us of every New Year's eve. 

For sure, nobody makes a resolution to abstain from using  a strong forehead, exercising power, or watching eye movements. But we can resolve to think through consequences (both intended and unintended) before making important decisions, we can resolve to not take advantage of anyone who is in a weaker physical or economic condition, and we can resolve to look people in the eye when having conversations and listening carefully to what they have to say before jumping in to make our point. These are just a few examples of how we can turn the mistakes (some say sins) that we renounce on Yom Kippur into positive actions if we think about applying Jewish values in making resolutions for the New Year.

So we, individually, and bloggerly (is that a word?) will be making a list of behavioral improvements for the coming year and trying to adhere to them for as long as possible.  By way of example, we came across a list of resolutions written in 1943 by Woody Guthrie, the legendary folk singer who gave us This Land is Your Land and So Long, It's Been Good to Know You among the hundreds of songs that he wrote.

Guthrie was not Jewish, but his second wife, and mother of Arlo Guthrie (Alice's Restaurant, The City of New Orleans) was the daughter of Aliza Greenblatt, a Yiddish poet. So, writing his list while living in the Jewish neighborhood of Coney Island in Brooklyn, he just might have been influenced by the values of his shvigger (mother-in-law) and neighbors.

Here is the actual list that Guthrie wrote and illustrated by hand:

 

Our favorites?  Learn people better, stay glad, and keep hoping machine running. 

If we've made you yearn for a few choruses of This Land is Your Land, here they are, as sung by Woody Guthrie himself. Enjoy, make a list, and have a Happy New Year!

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Misirlou - A Greek Song of Forbidden Love, Popular at Jewish Weddings. But Sung by Chubby Checker?

We can't recall a Jewish wedding or a shul dinner that we've been to over the years that didn't include a roomful of women rushing to the dance floor to join in the circle dance called Misirlou (or Miserlou).

So when we heard of a new CD that includes a version with words in English and Spanish sung by Chubby Checker (remember The Twist?) we decided to take a closer look at the song and its origins.

It turns out that Misirlou is a Greek song about forbidden love, originating with Greek refugees from Turkey at the end of World War I. Misirlou translates as Eqyptian Girl. However, the Greek word Misirlou refers specifically to a Muslim Egyptian woman, thus this song refers to a cross-faith, cross-race relationship, a risqué subject at the time. 

This song has had a long history of being adopted by various styles of music from klezmer to surf-rock. The instrumental group Shalom Salaam is continuing that tradition by singing it in Hebrew and English. In the video below, they perform it together with Miranda, a talented dancer. It's safe to say you're unlikely to see this performance at a shul dinner.

(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.)

But what about Chubby Checker? His version appears on a new CD called Kosher Nostra: Jewish Gangsters' Greatest Hits (No, we're not making this up, and Purim is four months away!). This album, produced by Oz Almog and Shantel, includes Jewish songs that were popular in the heyday of Jewish gangsters like Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel; songs such as The Anniversary Song by Connie Francis, Bei Mir Bist Du Sheyn by the Andrews Sisters, and, yes, Misirlou by Chubby Checker. Check out the Checker version in the video below, and share the origin of this song the next time you get up to dance at that wedding. 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.)

Royal Wedding Spoof Video Goes Klezmer

A week before the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, T-Mobile created an ad in the form of a spoof video preview of the wedding entrance procession. The video went viral and drew millions of viewers.

But it also created some spoofs of the spoof, including the klezmer version we found on YouTube and that we're sharing with you below.

The original T-Mobile Royal Wedding video features 15 royal lookalikes, including the Queen, Prince Charles and Camilla, and Prince Harry, who dance their way down the aisle in a routine choreographed to the East 17 song, 'House of Love'. But as you can see, it's also an almost perfect fit to the Yiddish klezmer song Chosson Kalleh Mazeltov.

Dressed in a ceremonial Army uniform, the Prince’s double disco-dances in the aisle, then joins doppelgangers of Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie for more moves before bending down for “William” to leapfrog over him. 

Enjoy!

The Royal Couple Will Have a Ketubah Today, Their Wedding Day

Prince William and Kate Middleton are to receive a ketubah-style document to mark their wedding today, according to a report in the London Jewish Chronicle.

As Nathan Jeffay wrote in the online version of the Chronicle,

Michael Horton, a British-born calligrapher who lives in Jerusalem, took a traditional ketubah text and "de-koshered" it so that it would be suitable to honour a church wedding. He also removed the husband-to-wife obligations outlined in a ketubah, so that his text could be purely commemorative.

He then inscribed it on a parchment from the strictly-Orthodox Jerusalem neighbourhood of Mea Shearim, using the same rabbinically supervised inks that scribes use to write Torah scrolls. The right-hand side of the parchment has the text, including the names of the bride and groom, in Hebrew; the left-hand side is in English.

At the top of the document Mr Horton drew the Ten Commandments, held by one lion on the right, which symbolises the biblical tribe of Judah, and on the left, another lion taken from Prince William's coat of arms.

Beneath the right-hand lion are Solomon's Temple and King David playing the harp; beneath the left-hand lion are Westminster Abbey, where the couple will be married, and the seal of William the Conqueror.

Mr. Horton, renowned for the ornate ketubot, said: "For 40 years I have been doing marriage documents and a friend suggested: 'There's a big wedding coming up in London - why don't you do something for that?'"

The 63-year-old has a fondness for royalty. He said: "My grandfather was Commissioner for Crown Lands, and received the OBE in 1955, so I feel a special connection to the Royal Family."

Nevertheless, he will not be following the wedding on television, because he doesn't have one. The document took eight full days of work. He was due to present it yesterday to Matthew Gould, British ambassador in Israel, who said he would send it in a diplomatic bag to ensure that it gets there in plenty of time. "This is a lovely piece of art and a novel present for the Royal Couple," he said.

The Chief Rabbi's Office has confirmed that Lord Sacks will attend the wedding.

Horton delivered the gift to the British ambassador to Israel in a ceremony Thursday in Ramat Gan.

Binghamton University Students Stage "My Big Fat (Mock) Jewish Wedding"

First there was Tony and Tina's Wedding, then The Godfather's Meshuggener Wedding, and then My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  

Last November, the Jewish students of Binghamton University's Chabad House took on the roles of bride and groom, officiating rabbi, and all of the other roles in a typical Jewish wedding, to produce and act in their own production, My Big Fat (Mock) Jewish Wedding.

Virtually nothing was left out, with students assuming the roles of friends and relatives greeting the happy couple, dancing wildly, escorting the bride and groom at the badeken and chosson's tish, grandparents with canes walking down the aisle, the ceremony under the chuppah, and of course lots of food.  

Nothing about the wedding was different from the real thing, and if you weren't clued in and wandered into the reception room, you wouldn't know that it was only a mock wedding.  The Chabad rabbi sitting in the back row had a big smile on his face as the flower girl threw petals onto the red carpet and as the bride was escorted by her parents to the chuppah.  He must have had great satisfaction that the event was a success, gave the students an education about Jewish wedding customs, and provided a venue for acting and turning a learning experience into a real simcha.

Here is the video showing all of the highlights of the "wedding."  Enjoy!