The Yiddish Chefs Welcome Hoshana Rabbah With Vegetarian Stuffed Cabbage

Today is Hoshana Rabbah, the last day of Chol Hamoed Sukkot. Tonight we start a separate holiday, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah -- a single day in Israel and two days everywhere else. 

There are no special foods designated for Chol Hamoed, the intermediate days of Sukkot. But thanks to a Yiddish pun, there is a tradition to eat stuffed cabbage on Hoshana Rabbah.

So what's the pun? You're going to love this one. On Hoshana Rabbah we beat willow branches on the ground and say the phrase Kol Mevasser. If you tune your ears to the Yiddish channel, it sounds like Kroyt mit vasser, or cabbage with water. O--kay!

Whether or not you accept this reasoning, it's still a good idea to try a new dish during this month of seemingly endless holidays meals. In this case, it's a vegetarian version of stuffed cabbage prepared in the kitchen of the Jewish Daily Forward by their team of Yiddish-speaking chefs, Rukhl Schaechter and Eve Jochnowitz.

Whenever we run one of these recipes (and we've run 16 others - just click on "Est Gezunterheit" in the Labels column at the left of the page) we pick up a few new Yiddish words, and today is no exception. Listen carefully to the dialogue and watch the English subtitles and you'll add these new words to your Yiddish vocabulary:

Holuptshes or Holishkes or Prakes or Gevikelte Kroyt or Golumpke = Stuffed Cabbage
(It's been said that Eskimos have dozens of words for snow and ice, so why can't Jews have multiple words for stuffed cabbage?)

Kroyt = Cabbage
Bletter = Leaves 
Gefilachts = Stuffing
Semishkes = Sunflower seeds
Shvemelach = Mushrooms
Grintzen = Vegetables
Tzeribeneh Kez = Grated cheese
Leffel = Tablespoon
Leffeleh = Teaspoon 
Zilber Papeer = Aluminum Foil

The recipe appears just below the video. We wish you a happy Hoshana Rabbah, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah. Enjoy the video and we'll see you back here on Sunday with another selection from our eclectic mix.

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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.)

A Joke to Start the Week - "The Bullfight"

A month of holidays is rapidly coming to an end with Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah on Thursday and Friday. OK, in Israel they're one day -- Thursday. After that, we're holiday-free until Chanukah and Thanksgiving collide on November 28. 

But with all the holiday traditions, we haven't forgotten another weekly tradition -- Monday, the day that we start the week with a joke.

So it's back to the Catskills and Kutsher's for another episode of Jews at Kutsher's Telling Jokes. Today we're bringing back Sheldon Horowitz, the 80-year-old retired attorney and adjunct professor who started the Kutsher's series with us back in July.

Here's the setup: This Jewish couple goes to Seville, Spain to tour, and they decide they're going to go to the bullfights. So they go to the arena, and then...

Enjoy!

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TV Classic: Judge Judy Rules in Bar Mitzvah Disc Jockey Case

Judge Judith Sheindlin presides as Judge Judy in the longest running TV court show, adjudicating small claims disputes since 1996. It's now in its 18th season and has been renewed through 2014.

Sheindlin, in the role of Judge Judy, is a retired Manhattan Family Court judge. She's known for her tough talk to litigants and also funny asides as she passes judgement on her cases.

We discovered a case that made us chuckle and we wanted to share it with you. It involves a Bar Mitzvah celebration in Las Vegas in which the parents of the Bar Mitzvah paid a disc jockey $1150 for his performance at the event. They were unhappy about the quality of his performance and stopped payment on the check.

The DJ sued to collect payment for his services. The parents countersued him for defamation of character because he wrote letters to four rabbis and the local newspaper saying that they stiffed him.

The parents claimed that their guests emailed them the next day with complaints about how horrible the Bar Mitzvah was, but instead of presenting copies of the emails, gave the judge copies of letters that were solicited six months after the event. That really got Judge Judy mad. 

Choice quotes from the judge during the trial:
"On your best day you're not as smart as I am on my worst day."
"I've been to more Bar Mitzvahs in my day than you have and I've made more."
"No guest at a Jewish Bar Mitzvah tells their host or hostess what a terrible time they've had."

So who was right and who was wrong? Watch the rest of the video and find out.

Enjoy!

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How Many Poles Does it Take to Build a Sukkah?

How many poles does it take to build a sukkah? No, this isn't a bad ethnic or politically incorrect joke. It's a legitimate question. The answer is that it all depends on how big the sukkah is. For example, our 8 x 10 foot sukkah takes exactly 17 aluminum poles, plus some metal fittings, bungee cords, wall fabric, and bamboo mats for the roof.

In the last few years, we saw lots of music videos made just for the Sukkot holiday, which begins this evening and lasts for seven days in Israel and eight days everywhere else. This year the rage seems to be time-lapse videos of sukkah building, in which the hours that it usually takes are boiled down to a few minutes with the magic of time-lapse photography.

We selected a couple of these for your amusement as you reflect on the construction of your own sukkah, or if you didn't build one, on the architectural details of the sukkot you will likely sit in this week or observe as you walk through the streets of your community. One uses metal and wood poles, and the other is made from wood panels. Both videos use appropriate music to match the tempo of the speeded-up construction project.

Enjoy, and have a Chag Sukkot sameach! We'll be back on Chol Hamoed (Sunday) with our usual fun mix.

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Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places: Yiddish on a Carolina Mountaintop

For 35 summers, a mountaintop in Wildacres, North Carolina has been a gathering place for up to 110 guests of the Charlotte Yiddish Institute, a group that is united by one thing -- their love for the Yiddish language.

They hail from all over the United States, as well as from Mexico, Uruguay, and Argentina. During the four-day program, the guests are treated to Yiddish singing, dancing, klezmer music, poetry readings, sharing meals, and walks in the woods.

The narrator in Yiddish (with English subtitles) says that it was hard to keep the audience members in their seats, but we suspect that some, including the lady caught by the camera busily knitting during a performance, may have found it hard to stand up.

For anyone not fluent in Yiddish, which probably includes most of our readers, we apologize for the minute-long poetry reading without any subtitles. Also included in the video is a three minute interview with one of the founders that, if you'll forgive our Yiddish, shleppt zich a bissel. But all in all, we think it's good to see that Yiddish is still alive outside of the Catskills.

Enjoy!

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A Joke to Start the Week - "What Do You Want to Be?"

It's Monday morning -- time for another Joke to Start the Week, and another trip back to  Kutsher's Resort in New York's Catskill mountains.
 
During our last set of performances we had the pleasure of meeting some very interesting and funny guests with whom we shared good food, stories and jokes in the dining room.

Friday morning we found a quiet corner in the spacious lobby and recorded a few of the guests telling some of their favorite jokes, which we have been posting over the past few Mondays.

Today's joke teller is Yaffa Lown, a retired Hebrew teacher.

Here's the setup for today's joke:  This story happened in Russia, many years ago, when the Communist Party was really strong. So the head of the Communist Party walks into the classroom, and then...

Enjoy!


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Jewish Parody Gets a Boost as Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Proclaims Allan Sherman Day

Jewish parody got a big boost on August 28 when Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel issued a formal proclamation designating August 31 as Allan Sherman Day.

Over the last few years we've been posting some of Sherman's clever parodies of songs that were popular in the 1960s, especially since Mark Cohen wrote the definitive biography of the pudgy parodist, Overweight Sensation: The Life and Comedy of Allan Sherman.

The proclamation cited Sherman's connections to Chicago (he was born and raised there), but focused mainly on the 50th anniversary of the release of his most popular song, Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah, a hilarious takeoff on letters written by children in summer camp.

We're glad to see Sherman get so much recognition because we think his parodies were inspired and we miss his brand of humor. He had a knack of getting to the core of Jewish life in America in the 1950s and 1960s, when Jews were trying hard to assimilate and upward mobility was the name of the game.

Emanuel's proclamation gives us a good excuse to share two of our Allan Sherman favorites, Harvey and Sheila (a takeoff on Hava Nagila) and Sarah Jackman (a takeoff on Frere Jacques). Because Sherman's shtick preceded the age of music videos, the YouTube versions are mostly audio with still photos or plain text.

There are many versions, but for Harvey and Sheila we chose the one that has translations of the many acronyms in the song, which might not be understood by post-baby boomers, Generation X and Y, and Millennials.

Enjoy!

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(A tip of the kippah to Mark Cohen and Yonina Rosenbluth for bringing this news item to our attention.)

Two Versions of Kol Nidrei as Yom Kippur Starts Tonight

Every year when Yom Kippur comes around, we search the internet for something appropriate to post. Jokes just aren't right for the most serious and spiritual day of the Jewish year, and the music videos that appear in the weeks before the other holidays either don't appear for Yom Kippur or seem inappropriate for the awesomeness of the day.

So every year we're left with Kol Nidrei, which has been sung and recorded by almost every cantor and singer in the world, including the great Jewish cantors and popular singers such as Neil Diamond, Johnny Mathis, and Perry Como.

Most of our readers will hear Kol Nidre chanted three times tonight when they attend their local house of worship, and the melody will be the same, regardless of whether it's Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform. Another reason we post one or more versions of this traditional start to Yom Kippur is that some of our readers can't get to their shul, synagogue, or temple because of illness or physical limitations.

This year we're sharing two versions, so you can choose your favorite, or better still, watch and listen to both of them to get in the mood for the Day of Atonement. We're posting a version by Shai Abramson, the Chief Cantor of the Israel Defense Forces, and by Angela Warnick Buchdahl, the first woman to be ordained as both a cantor and a Reform rabbi, and the first Asian American to obtain either post.

We hope these melodies put you in the proper mood to experience a meaningful day of prayer and reflection. G'mar Chatimah Tovah!

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Rabbi Itche Kadoozy Learns How to Make a Perfect Yom Kippur Speech

As we head to our synagogues, shuls, and temples tomorrow night and Shabbat for Yom Kippur services, we will be a willing audience for sermons delivered by our rabbis, who have been preparing for weeks to deliver a meaningful spiritual message to their congregations.

In most synagogues, Yom Kippur brings out the largest audience of the year, and the rabbis do all they can to deliver their most powerful message.
 
The Itche Kadoozy Show, started in 2003 as a muppet-like series about Jewish holidays, has gone through a few revisions and relocations and has emerged as a series on a funny new Jewish web site called shmideo.com.

In this episode, the muppet characters, including one who is a talking slice of gefilte fish complete with carrot on top, teach Rabbi Itche Kadoozy the five rules for the perfect Yom Kippur speech. It's cute, funny, and most important, meaningful.

Enjoy!

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(A tip of the kippah to Jack Kustanowitz for bringing this video to our attention.)

Jewish Temple Run - A Parody Video for the High Holy Days

It looks like we're going to be seeing a lot more of Hasidic comedian Mendy Pellin. We've posted some of his videos over the last four years, notably the Rosh Hashanah video when the apples that he dipped in honey were iPhones and iPads.

Mendy has co-founded a new venture -- a website called Jewbellish, which runs funny Jewish videos, some of which we'll be sharing as they are released. 

Today we're sharing the Jewbellish version of Temple Run, one of the most popular video apps for smartphones and tablets.

As Allison Kaplan Sommer wrote in her review in Haaretz,

Anyone familiar with the popular game application Temple Run will love watching the real-life re-creation, showing a guy running around Los Angeles (the video is a play on words as many Reform Jews use the phrases ‘attending synagogue’ and ‘going to Temple’ interchangeably.) The background noises are the sound effects of the game, as our hero drops coins in charity boxes and kisses mezuzahs as he runs.

It’s unclear whether he’s running to synagogue or away from it – but the message is clearly – get thee to a house of prayer on the holiday. The chase ends with a splash at the Santa Monica Pier, and a soulful version of “I Got the ‘What Page are we on in the Prayer Book Blues?”

If you happen to be among the few who don't have the original Temple Run on your phone or tablet, and who don't have children or grandchildren who spend countless hours running from monkeys and collecting coins in the video game, we include a short demo below the Jewbellish version.

Enjoy!

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California's Temple Judea Revisits the 1960s with Rosh Hashanah Dreamin'

We thought we were done with Rosh Hashanah music videos for the year now that we are post-Rosh Hashanah and counting down to Yom Kippur, but we found Rosh Hashanah Dreamin' from Temple Judea in Tarzana, California, and just couldn't put it on the shelf until next year.

The temple's rabbis, cantors, staff, and dancing congregants take us back to 1965 and memories of The Mamas and the Papas singing California Dreamin'. Dressed in outfits to remind us of the fashions of the 60s, they launch into a vibrant renditon of the song with all new lyrics suitable for the High Holy Days.

Enjoy!

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A Joke to Start the Week - "Yiddish Voodoo"

Just two weeks ago we were back at Kutsher's Resort in New York's Catskill mountains, performing our sixth and seventh shows there this season. 

We also had the pleasure of meeting some very interesting and funny guests with whom we shared good food, stories and jokes in the dining room.

Friday morning we found a quiet corner in the spacious lobby and recorded a few of the guests telling some of their favorite jokes, which we will be posting over the next few Mondays.

 Today's joke teller is Bernette Rudolph, an 84-year-old artist from Brooklyn. She has been exhibiting her art for over fifty years in galleries and museums throughout the United States with patrons worldwide. Her work, mainly using wood, relates to her life in Brooklyn where where she has her Park Slope studio. The wide range of her colorful works can be seen on her web site, www.Bernette Rudolph.com.

Here's the setup for today's joke:  Two men travel to the deepest, darkest jungles of Africa. They come to an opening. And then...

Enjoy!

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Benji Lovitt Presents "Rosh Hashana: Apples and What???"

It's the day after the day after Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and you've probably had your fill of apples dipped in honey.

Comedian Benji Lovitt, looking for alternatives to that traditional combination, tries to find some new ones that are very non-traditional. In the end he realizes that there's just no substitute for the real deal, apples and honey.  (No apples were harmed in the making of this video.)

Israel21c, the online news magazine, picked this video as number 2 on its list of the top seven Rosh Hashanah videos of this year.

For a hilarious stand-up comedy show about life in Israel, a fun, educational workshop about Israeli society, or your own promotional video, contact Benji at http://www.BenjiLovitt.com.

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Wishing All of Our Readers a Shanah Tovah - Happy New Year 5774

Thanks to our thousands of loyal subscribers and casual readers worldwide who have joined us during the year.  We started this blog on October 5, 2009 and it's been going strong with more than 1200 blog entries over the last four  years.  We appreciate your loyalty and we hope to keep bringing you a daily mix of Jewish humor in all of its forms -- traditional, eclectic, unbelievable but true, and just funny, tempered with touches of nostalgia and Yiddishe nachas. 

5773 has been an amazing year for us -- a year in which we published nine books on Jewish humor, and performed 20 comedy shows from Pennsylvania to Florida, including seven at Kutsher's Resort in New York's Catskill mountains.

We'll be attending Rosh Hashanah and Shabbat services for the next three days, and we'll be back posting again on Sunday.  Here's wishing a happy, healthy, joyous, prosperous and funny New Year from our family to yours! 

The Kustanowitz Kronikle is our Rosh Hashanah Greeting Card. 

Click below for a printable PDF version. 
http://www.kustanowitz.com/kronrh13.pdf

Akum Le'Shorer - A 16th Century Rosh Hashanah Poem Gets an Update by Young Modern Israeli Singers

 

With Rosh Hashanah beginning Wednesday evening, we bring you a beautiful piyut (poem) for the holiday written in the 16th century and sung by Shirat Machar (Tomorrow's Song), a group of eleven talented young singers from Israel, all with extensive experience as youth leaders in the Masorti movement.

Masorti, meaning traditional, is the Hebrew name for the movement of Conservative Judaism in Israel. The Masorti Movement, founded in 1979, is the umbrella organization of Masorti kehillot (congregations), which foster the practice of traditional Judaism among Israeli men and women while embracing modernity. In promoting the combined values of Conservative Judaism, religious tolerance and Zionism, the Movement strives to nurture a healthy, pluralistic, spiritual and ethical foundation for Israeli society.

Today's music video, Akum Le'Shorer (I Will Arise to Write Poetry) is a piyut written by Rabbi Avraham Bar Yaakov Ben Tuah, born in 16th century Algeria. A modest man, a brilliant scholar, and an esteemed lawmaker, he wrote the piyut as a special plea to be sung before the High Holiday prayers. The prayer leader, just moments before arising to sing prayers on behalf of his congregation, implored the God of justice and mercy to hear and answer his prayers. This piyut turns both to the image of the One who sits in heaven as well as the image of the One who creates on the earth, and to all artisans who arise daily to do their work and rise up in song.

The video shows typical scenes of everyday life in modern Israel, and ends with the singers tossing chunks of bread into a river, in the traditional Tashlich ceremony for Rosh Hashanah.

Enjoy! 

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(A tip of the kippah to Shelly Allon for bringing this video to our attention.)

A Rosh Hashanah Bonus From Jewbilation - Inspiring New Lyrics to Elton John's "Your Song"

We've been holding to our pattern of one post each morning, whether it's a joke like today's post, an anecdote, musical interlude, funny happening, or whatever we find worthy of sharing with you.

We had lined up all the daily posts leading up to Rosh Hashanah and scheduled them to post day by day. And then we found something new that we just had to share. So here we go with two posts on this erev erev erev Rosh Hashanah.

Jewbilation founder Dr. Richard Seaman has just released a single for Rosh Hashanah, a new set of lyrics to Elton John's classic Your Song. We previously posted some of Jewbilation's songs -- The Sounds of Shabbos for Shabbat, Bye, Bye, Mr. Pharaoh Goodbye for Passover, for Chanukah, and Just Too Good to be True for Rosh Hashanah last year -- featuring the voices of Richard Seaman and Andrew Dimond.

We found the lyrics to be inspiring and helpful in setting the right mood for the start of the Aseret Yemei Teshuva - the ten days of repentance starting Wednesday night. We hope you like them, too.

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A Joke to Start the Week - "The Conversion"

Rosh Hashanah is only a few days away, but today is Monday, and that means it's time for another joke to start the week. These Monday jokes have been the most watched of our posts at Jewish Humor Central, and you can count on us to keep them coming.

Last week we were back at Kutsher's Resort in New York's Catskill mountains, performing our fifth and sixth shows there this season. We also had the pleasure of meeting some very interesting and funny guests with whom we shared good food, stories and jokes in the dining room.

Friday morning we found a quiet corner in the spacious lobby and recorded a few of the guests telling some of their favorite jokes, which we will be posting over the next few Mondays.

Today's joke teller is Rena Wilen, a 77-year-old retired social worker. Here's the setup:

Count Pataki was a very prosperous landowner. He had orchards, he had farms, he had fields, and his overseer was Moish. And then...

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.)

Apple is Dancing Salsa - A French Rosh Hashanah Music Video

An innovative dance group in Paris has created the Apple Dance, made just for Rosh Hashanah. Led by David el Shatran, a musician and dance instructor, the group of 80 participants from 16 different countries, the music video was made in Budapest, Hungary.

David specializes in merging the music of Klezmer and Salsa to create a surrealistic result. This is an example of how country-specific these videos can be. Non-French viewers may not get the references to European comic book characters or the bee costumes, but that shouldn't get in the way of experiencing the fusion of klezmer and salsa music and dance.

We were particularly impressed with the way the dancers bent their bodies to form the Hebrew letters for Shana Tova. This video was produced last year, but came out too late for us to include it in our Rosh Hashana video postings. It's just as entertaining this year.

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.)