A Joke to Start the Week - "Interview with Mother Mary"

It's another Monday, and time for another joke to start the week. This week we're diving into the archives of the Yiddish Book Center for an old joke.

 

Since 2010, the Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project has recorded hundreds of in-depth video interviews that provide a deeper understanding of the Jewish experience and the legacy and changing nature of Yiddish language and culture. 

The interviews in the growing collection are conducted in Yiddish and/or English with narrators of all ages from a variety of backgrounds. 

Most of the interviews are reminiscenses of Jewish life around the world, but some of them are retellings of old Jewish jokes. Here's an oldie but goodie told by psychiatrist Gregory Firman about a devout Catholic priest who gets his wish fulfilled.

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.

CBS TV Visits the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts

Earlier this month "CBS Saturday Morning" co-hosts Jeff Glor, Michelle Miller and Dana Jacobson aired a TV segment about the Jewish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. 

The center, founded 42 years ago by then-graduate student Aaron Lansky, has collected more than a million and a half Yiddish books and made them available to visitors. 

In 1997 the center established the Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library, where complete digitized works can be accessed online, free of charge. The digital library today contains 12,000 titles, which so far have been downloaded an astounding 1.6 million times.

In this video interview, Lansky tells the story of the center's creation and shows some of the books, ranging from Yiddish classics to a translation of the children's book Curious George.

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.

A Joke to Start the Day: "Insurance"

Since 2010, the Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project has recorded hundreds of in-depth video interviews that provide a deeper understanding of the Jewish experience and the legacy and changing nature of Yiddish language and culture. 

The interviews in the growing collection are conducted in Yiddish and/or English with narrators of all ages from a variety of backgrounds. 

Hyman Batalion, Yiddish speaker and Montreal native, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on August 16, 2016, at the Segal Centre for the Performing Arts in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.  

 

Last year we posted a clip from the interview, in which Batalion, father of YidLife Crisis co-creator Eli Batalion, reflected on some of the early Yiddish speaking Montreal comedians and retold some of the old jokes.

In this clip from the interview, Batalion tells a joke in Yiddish with English subtitles. Here's the setup: A guy calls an insurance company and asks for insurance. The salesman asks him "How old are you?" And then...

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.

Hyman Batalion on the Essential Parts of Jewish Humor

Since 2010, the Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project has recorded hundreds of in-depth video interviews that provide a deeper understanding of the Jewish experience and the legacy and changing nature of Yiddish language and culture. 

The interviews in the growing collection are conducted in Yiddish and/or English with narrators of all ages from a variety of backgrounds. 

Hyman Batalion, Yiddish speaker and Montreal native, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on August 16, 2016, at the Segal Centre for the Performing Arts in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.  

Back in April, we posted a clip from the interview, in which Batalion, father of YidLife Crisis co-creator Eli Batalion, reflected on some of the early Yiddish speaking Montreal comedians and retold some of the old jokes.

In this second clip from the interview, Batalion describes what he considers to be essential parts of Jewish humor.

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.

 

The Great Jewish Entertainers: "Let's Make a Deal" Host Monty Hall Reflects on Yiddish in Hollywood

Our series on The Great Jewish Comedians has blossomed into a lecture that's now one of the most popular on our lecture circuit. We're adding new comedians to it and it's scheduled to become a 90 minute program at Florida Atlantic University in March 2019.

Meanwhile we're working on a new series called The Great Jewish Entertainers, going beyond comedy to all forms of entertainment. Today we're profiling Monte Halparin, who you might recognize as Monty Hall, host of the 1970s TV game show Let's Make a Deal.

Hall, who was born in Winnipeg, Canada in 1921 to Orthodox Jewish parents, celebrated his 96th birthday last week. In 2014 he was interviewed as part of the Wexler Oral History Project at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. 

In the interview, he speaks about his surprise and joy at finding fluent Yiddish speakers in Hollywood, including the great Danny Kaye and non-Jewish stars like James Cagney and Burt Lancaster.

Here's the interview, followed by a Throwback Thursday bonus -- a short clip from Let's Make a Deal that's more than 40 years old.

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.





#Throwback Thursday   #TBT

Fyvush Finkel Tells His Grandfather's Favorite Joke - In Yiddish

Since 2010, the Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project has recorded more than 600 in-depth video interviews that provide a deeper understanding of the Jewish experience and the legacy and changing nature of Yiddish language and culture. 

The interviews in the growing collection are conducted in Yiddish and/or English with narrators of all ages from a variety of backgrounds. 

Fyvush Finkel, the beloved comedian, actor, and singer who died in August, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on October 23, 2014 in New York. Finkel reminisced about how he inherited his grandfather's sense of humor and retold his grandfather's favorite joke -- all in Yiddish (with English subtitles).

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.)



 

How Do You Say Lobster in Yiddish? Teaching Yiddish to Senior Citizens

Last week, during a vacation in the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts, we took a side trip to visit the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst.

We expected to be there for no more than an hour, but ended up spending almost three hours watching the videos and browsing the collection of books, sheet music, and viewing artifacts such as a Yiddish printing press and reproductions of front pages of Yiddish newspapers that described the major events of the twentieth century. 

One of the more interesting videos is about how more than a million Yiddish books were saved and are now being digitized and translated so that anyone can read them on the Internet.

Copyright Yiddish Book Center

The center has a room dedicated to the Wexler Oral History Project, a growing collection of in-depth video interviews.  Through stories of tradition and survival, memories of bygone neighborhoods, foods and family rituals, and stories of connection to Yiddish language and culture today, they are chronicling the many ways there are to be Jewish.

In the past four years, they’ve recorded over 400 interviews, stories told by people of all ages and backgrounds—bobes (grandmothers) and young activists, Yiddish language students and professors, musicians, and grandchildren of Yiddish writers, native speakers and non-Yiddish speakers.

These interviews illustrate the ways in which Yiddish language and culture inform Jewish identity.  Together, these stories and reflections provide a glimpse into the ways in which cultural heritage is transmitted, adapted, and reinterpreted by each generation.

The goal of the Wexler Oral History Project is to record and preserve stories. They are particularly looking for people with strong connections to Yiddish language and culture, but they also interview people from all ages and backgrounds in order to explore the broadest expression of Jewish experience. 

If you are planning to visit the Book Center, consider packing your stories along with you!  They have appointments available now for the coming months.  Don't miss your chance to contribute your story to the archive in their state-of-the-art Karmazin Recording Studio in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Here's an example that was just posted on the Internet. It features Helen Kurzban, a Brooklyn-born native Yiddish speaker, describing how after retirement she volunteered to teach a variety of Yiddish-related courses to senior citizens and how she found out how to say lobster in Yiddish.

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.)