A Joke to Start the Week: "The First Time"

It's that time again. Monday morning and the start of another work week. (Sorry, readers in Israel. For you it's the second day of the work week.) We're off to a good start with another joke from the Old Jews Telling Jokes collection. 

This time it's Max Rosenthal, 87-year-old children's wear businessman with a joke that takes place in a doctor's office. Here's the setup: Mr. and Mrs. Shapiro go to see the doctor. The doctor calls in Mrs. Shapiro and tells her that her husband told him that he has a little problem with his sex life.
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.)

Tuesday is Election Day in Israel - Funny Man-in-the-Street Reactions

Tuesday is Election Day in Israel. But it's not anything like the US presidential or congressional elections. Voting is not for a president. It's for a party, and there are 17 of them currently represented in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. 

So it's no surprise that there's a lot of confusion. And unlike the Republican and Democratic parties in the US, which have been in existence for many years, many of the Israeli parties change their names every few years, adding to the confusion about which party stands for what and who is who.

To see how the residents of Jerusalem are reacting to the coming election, Molly Livingstone, a founder of and intrepid reporter for the HaHafuch comedy troupe took to the streets with a camera and microphone to hear what the people have to say.

And what they have to say is...confusing. We'll have to wait until after Tuesday to find out the results.

In the meantime, 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.) 

Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places: Chinese Chorus Sings in Yiddish and Hebrew

Would you expect a Chinese Chorus to sing the Yiddish song Oifn Pripitchik and the Hebrew song Yerushalayim Shel Zahav? Well, Jewish traces show up in the most unlikely places, and Hong Kong is no exception.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong Student Chorus performs the music of many cultures in many languages, and Yiddish and Hebrew are part of their repertoire. They also sing in Finnish, Japanese, German and Latin.

The video we're sharing today is titled Choral Selections from Schindler's List. We had forgotten that these two songs were included in the Steven Spielberg film. But here they are, preceded by a violinist playing the plaintive theme from the movie, with which he also closes the medley.

Shabbat shalom.

(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 Yiddish Chefs are Back, Cooking Vegetarian Cabbage Borscht with Matza Balls

It's been awhile since we posted an episode of Est Gezunterheit, the Jewish Daily Forward's cooking show with Rukhl Schaechter and Eve Yochnowitz, the resident Yiddish speaking chefs teaching as they cook up one of their specialties.

Yesterday they released their latest production, a vegetarian pareve borscht made with beets and cabbage, paired with matza balls made with white and whole wheat matza meal.

One of the benefits of watching these episodes is the use of colorful Yiddish words and expressions, which are rendered in English subtitles. Since this series started a few years ago, we've posted 14 episodes, most containing definitions of  a few Yiddish words that were either new to us or that we just wanted to share because of the way the words sound.

Some of the words we picked up in today's episode are:
berikes - beets
gringger - right away
antioxidenten - antioxidants
hindle yoich - chicken soup
hocken di knubble - chopping the garlic
roite kartuffle - red potatoes
roite tzibbeleh - red onion
kimmel - caraway seeds
kneidlach - matza balls
pomidoren - tomatoes
vebzeitel - website

The chefs use lots of words that we posted in previous episodes. If you missed them, you can find all of them by clicking on the words "Est Gezunterheit" in the labels section of this blog in the left column.

If you want to prepare this dish, you'll find screen shots with the recipes just below the video.

Est Gezunterheit!

(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.)

Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places: Subways Are For Klezmer

This week an unexpected one-man klezmer concert took place in the Times Square subway station in New York. 

OK, so Manhattan isn't an unexpected place to hear Jewish music. But in the subway???

There's a lot that's unknown about this episode, but we'll tell you what is self-evident from the video below. An unidentified man dressed in black tie and tails plays eight popular Jewish songs on a New York subway platform, the first three on a saxophone and the next five on a clarinet.

The songs are Hava Nagila, Yismechu Hashamayim, Jerusalem of Gold, Eleh Chamda Libi, Bashanah Haba'ah, Mayim Mayim, Let My People Go, and Eliyahu Hanavi.

This is so typical New York. The musician plays while running around a litter can in the center of the platform while the trains come and go. Most people ignore him, walking by without stopping. Occasionally, someone drops a coin or bill into his collection box while others drop garbage into the litter can.

We're lucky that at least one observer (TubeDude78, who posted it on YouTube) had a camera or phone and captured this five minute gem.

After two minutes he takes one minute off to change instruments and adjust his clarinet before continuing with the next five songs, so don't be put off by the silence between the 2 minute and 3 minute marks.

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 tip of the kippah to Phoebe Weisbrot for bringing this video to our attention.)}

A Woody Allen Classic Clip: Being Jewish Among Gentiles

It's been 36 years since the release of Annie Hall, the Woody Allen film that won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director (Allen) and Best Actress (Diane Keaton.) But still the movie attracts viewers and stirs funny memories wherever it's shown.

We were reminded of Annie Hall by an article yesterday in the online edition of The Jewish Daily Forward by Lenore Skenasi. It will appear in the Friday print edition. 

She wrote about the film as a metaphor for feeling out of place in environments where you are not surrounded by members of your own tribe. We think of it as Jews among Gentiles, but it's probably felt by other ethnic groups living in small numbers among a majority population. It's a very interesting piece that can be read in full here.

In the opening paragraphs, Skenasi writes:

You call that a Kiddush?” whispered my husband, referring to the spread that synagogues offer after services.

Except we were in a Catholic church.

Congregants were receiving their communion wafers — a fact not lost on my darling. But there was just something about being in a church and watching the wedding of a distant, half-Jewish cousin that made my husband and me keenly, almost aggressively, aware of just how Jewish with a capital J that rhymes with K as in Koufax and kosher and knaidlach we are. And so the jokes kept coming, sotto voce, almost compulsively:

“Where’s the rebbetzin?” “Who’s the guy above the bimah?” “I forgot my tallis!” — yada, yada, yada (an expression, you’ll note, popularized by Jerry Seinfeld, who’s a — well, no need to beat you over the head with an all-beef salami). What is it about being in an un-Jewish place that brings out every Jewish instinct, impulse and, sometimes, wisecrack?

“It’s the same way you feel very American when you’re abroad,” said Ruth Nemzoff, resident scholar at Brandeis University’s Women’s Studies Research Center, and author of the 2012 book “Don’t Roll Your Eyes: Making In-Laws Into Family.” When you’re among your own kind, you generally don’t notice the way you talk, or think, or even your core beliefs. But when you’re apart from your base, you can’t help but keep comparing what’s normal for you versus those other folks. And suddenly, everything you once took for granted (or even scorned) is very precious.

Here's the famous Easter dinner scene at the home of Annie's parents. Her grandmother can't take her eyes off Alvy Singer (Woody Allen), imagining him to be a bearded Hasid. In an aside to the audience, Alvy contrasts the dinner conversation among Annie's straitlaced family about treif foods, swap meets and boat basins with the boisterous talk at his family's table.

It's a classic. 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 Week: "Magician and the Sledgehammer"

Milton Glaser is a graphic designer best known for the I Love New York logo, his Bob Dylan poster, the logos for Sesame Place, and New York Magazine, which he founded with Clay Felker in 1968.

Glaser is also an old Jew (83 years old) who likes to tell jokes. He's our choice for the joke teller of this week's Joke to Start the Week. It also comes from the collection of Old Jews Telling Jokes, but as a celebrity joke teller, he gets to perform in his design studio instead of the usual plain white background.

Here's the setup: There's a magician on stage and he's about to perform his act. He looks out at the audience and sees a young man. He asks him to come up on stage to help him with his act. He asks him to pick up a sledgehammer and hit him right over the head just as hard as he can. And then...

^{(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 Unique Hava Nagila: No Music, No Words, Just Tap and Clap

We thought we'd seen every rendition of Hava Nagila -- sung in so many languages, danced in so many costumes, until we came across a new contender for the title of most unusual treatment of the universally recognized, much played and much overplayed Jewish song.

This one is a song without lyrics and without music. It's acted out in tap dance and hand clapping by the Chicago Tap Theater. It took us more than one watching to get tuned into the rhythm and follow it closely. But after a few viewings, you can get into it. It helps to sing along to the tapping of the dancers.

Chicago Tap Theatre (CTT) is a young and vibrant dance company with a unique mission to preserve the quintessentially American dance form of tap and to take tap to the next level of creativity and innovation. CTT stands apart from other dance companies by bridging the gap between tap and other forms of concert dance (such as jazz, ballet and modern) by adopting a conceptual, narrative (i.e., story-based) and more emotional approach to its work. 

Under the dynamic direction of internationally renowned dancer and choreographer Mark Yonally, CTT has gained a loyal following in its hometown of Chicago and continues to develop and enhance its reputation nationally and around the world.

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.)

Shabbat Candle Lighting: From 2200 BCE to 2012 and Beyond

To many of us, the image of Chabad is that of bearded men dressed in black lighting a huge Chanukah menorah or showing men in the street how to put on tefillin. But Chabad has many other faces, including a strong showing among teenagers through their CTeen organization, which has been sponsoring a weekend Shabbaton in New York City for the last three years.

During the weekend, hundreds of Jewish teens from all across the country and overseas join together for an uplifting weekend of fun and Jewish pride in New York City. Shabbaton Highlights include a Circle Line boat ride, shopping in Manhattan stores, and a Jewish heritage tour. This year's upcoming Shabbaton will take place Feb-8-10th.

The CTeen organization has produced a video re-enacting the lighting of Shabbat candles from the tent of Abraham and Sarah in 2200 BCE to the present day, and projecting candle lighting in Jerusalem in 2042. Each of the scenes show women lighting candles wearing clothing appropriate for the period. The stops along the way include Judea in 207 BCE, Yemen in 1200, Spain in 1481, Russia in 1812, Germany in 1939, and Israel in 1967.

Below the Shabbat video you'll find another one revisiting the CTeen Shabbaton in New York last year.

Candle lighting time today is 4:30 pm in New York, 4:45 pm in Los Angeles, 5:30 pm in Miami, and 4;14 pm in Jerusalem. 

Enjoy, and Shabbat shalom!

(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.)

You May Think It's Early, But...Here Come the Purim Music Videos

There's been a lot of buzz that all of the Jewish holidays are coming early this year. The one most often cited is Chanukah, which starts a day before Thanksgiving. But at Jewish Humor Central we're very aware that Purim, our favorite fun holiday is almost here. Actually it's not until February 23, about six weeks away, but we got a reminder today with the release of the first Purim music video of the season.

We didn't expect the Purim shtick to appear for another few weeks, but the rabbis and cantors at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, the largest synagogue in the Union for Reform Judaism, have been busy rehearsing for their Adult Purim Spiel on February 23. 

The whole crew of rabbis, cantors, and staff members, led by cantor Michael Smolash strumming his guitar with a hamantash, puts on a vibrant, energetic song and dance number called Move Like Graggers, a parody of the Maroon 5 pop hit Moves Like Jagger.

It's an impressive piece of work, with costumes, choreography...the whole works. And if you listen carefully, you'll see that it's not just loud music, but actually a modern retelling of the story of Purim.

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.)

Music: A Common Language For Arab and Jewish Youth

Twenty-four young Israeli musicians aged 15 to 28, 12 Arabs and 12 Jews, have found a common language in music. They are the members of the Arab-Jewish Youth Orchestra (AJYO) and come from various parts of Israel. 

The orchestra was founded in 2002, through the initiative of Dr. Meir Wiesel, Director of Youth and Music Israel. In 2008, the renowned composer and Oud player and violinist Professor Taisser Elias became the orchestra’s Musical Director and conductor, incorporating the Arab-Jewish Ensemble in the orchestra and creating collaboration between the Youth and Music NPO and the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.

The repertoire is based on a mixture of East and West, reflected also in the instruments, ranging from the Oud and Kanoon up to the Cello and Violin. A new sound and a new music are thus created, developing a repertoire of newly composed or arranged works, both original as well as works taken from Oriental Arabic or Jewish traditions. 

Concerts are performed throughout Israel, in Jewish as well as Arab locations. In addition, AJYO has performed on 5 European concert tours.

In 7 years of its existence the orchestra has proven to be a real success, both musically and socially. It has succeeded in developing a new kind of music, which combines the Arab, Jewish and western cultures. The young musicians travel great distances to participate in rehearsals and performances, and when on stage they prove to the audience that harmony and coexistence are in fact possible.

The first video below is an introduction to the Arab-Jewish Youth Orchestra. The second video is a performance by the orchestra at the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 

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.)

Meet The Bible Players - Torah Improv Comedy For All Ages

The Bible Players are a two-man team performing a unique kind of stand-up comedy -- they act out stories from the Torah in improv style. In the words of The Jewish Exponent, "Midrash meets Monty Python."

The players, Andrew Davies and Aaron Friedman, have a solid Jewish education, having met as students at the Akiba Hebrew Academy. Davies graduated from Brandeis University while Friedman, a stand-up comedian and Hebrew school teacher, earned his bachelor's degree at the Albert A. List College, a joint program of the Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia University in New York City.

As Bryan Schwartzman wrote in Philadelphia's Jewish Exponent,

What would happen if two 20-something Jews were asked to entertain hundreds of restless Ramah campers for an hour on a rain-soaked summer day? As it turned out, it was something like midrash meets Monty Python, with a little bit of Mel thrown in -- Brooks, that is.

That's how Andrew Davies and Aaron Friedman -- who both spent the summer of 2010 working at the Ramah Day Camp in Nyack, N.Y. -- explain the genesis of The Bible Players. The duo use improvisation and comedy to teach the lessons of the Torah.

"That was the day that we realized that performing and creating stories could work well with the way we like to study Torah -- where we make it our own and make it personal," said Davies

The idea has taken off beyond expectations. For more than a year now, Davis and Friedman have performed their shtick in more than 50 synagogues, JCCs and Jewish camps in the New York City area.

Eschewing elaborate costumes for bright T-shirts and baseball caps, the two deliver hammy interpretations of such biblical stories as Noah's ark, Jacob and Esau, and Moses and the burning bush. (Moses somehow has a Brooklyn accent and sounds a lot like Woody Allen.)

"We are teaching on one foot, summarizing stories and putting them in our own words -- and teaching kids as well that they can be interpreters of Torah themselves," said Friedman.

These two have serious Torah study behind them, and each hopes to share their enthusiasm with their young audiences.

"I think we really want to be honest and authentic about information in the story. We do serious research before we write and perform a sketch," said Davies.

They said they were thankful to have attended day school, and think it's more difficult to absorb Torah in a supplementary school setting.

In this video, they act out the encounter between Moses and the burning bush, which we read in last week's Torah portion.
 
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.)

An Old Joke to Start the Week: "French Restaurant"

Another Monday, another old joke to get the week off to a funny start. 

Once again we dip into the Old Jews Telling Jokes archive. Today's joke teller is 90-year-old practicing attorney Jesse Cohen with a joke about dining in a fancy French restaurant.

Here's the setup: A man walks into an elegant French restaurant. The waiter asks him what he wants to order. The man orders a cup of clear consomme and the waiter brings the soup with his thumb in it. 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.)

Tumbalalaika Around the World: Igor Epstein in Rostov, Russia

As we follow the Yiddish folk song Tumbalalaika around the world, featuring performances in Amsterdam and in an Italian movie, we come to Rostov, Russia, probably not far from where the song originated.

Last month, the Jewish community of Rostov was the site of a concert that featured violinist Igor Epstein playing Tumbalalaika in the Gorky Theater. With a black kippah nestled in his mane of white hair, Epstein showed his virtuosity in interpreting this folk classic.

Rostov-on-Don is located in southern Russia not far from the Ukrainian border. It has a population of 1.1 million people including over 10,000 Jews. Once home to a bustling Jewish community with 14 splendid Synagogues and many communal institutions, Rostov now has just one Synagogue around which Jewish communal activities are centered. 

Rostov has been the site of tragic events, including anti-Jewish riots in 1883, the pogrom of 1905, and a Nazi massacre in 1943. Rostov-on-Don is also noted for the resting place of the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Tzadik Rabbi Sholom Ber Schneerson (Rabbi Rashab) of righteous memory, who spent the final years of his life in this city.

Today Jewish life is experiencing a revival in Rostov. Two years ago a major restoration of the shul was completed. Currently they have a daily morning minyan and Shabbat services attended by more than 100 people. There is also a Jewish day school with more than 130 children enrolled.

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.) 

We're Celebrating Our 1,000th Blog Post - A Virtual Car Ride With Seinfeld, Brooks, and Reiner

It's hard to believe, but today marks the 1,000th blog post at Jewish Humor Central. We started this blog back on Sunday, October 4, 2009 with a welcome to our handful of readers and followed up the next day with our first posting, which you can see at the bottom of this page.

What was the first blog post? A review of two "ultimate books of jokes," Oy! and Oy Vey: More! by David Minkoff. And so on it went, day after day, with more jokes, video clips, funny happenings around the world, musical interludes, hilarious Israeli commercials and Jewish holiday humor, flavored with some Yiddishe nachas.

We're thankful to you, our loyal readers, more than 3,000 email subscribers plus countless Facebook and Twitter followers for staying with us and hopefully getting your days off to a brighter start.

The blog has grown and now it's also a series of eight books and eight lectures on Jewish humor which will be coming to Scranton, Pennsylvania; Jackson, New Jersey; Deerfield Beach, Florida; and Jerusalem in the next three months.

So how to start this day in a very special funny way? We're going for a virtual ride in a Rolls Royce with Jerry Seinfeld and Carl Reiner as they head for a breakfast shmooze in a Los Angeles diner. Later that evening, Seinfeld and Brooks visit Reiner at his home for a takeout dinner and longer shmooze filled with anecdotes about their show business careers, tossing out a few old jokes and nostalgic recollections.

It's one of a series of episodes of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, a Seinfeld-produced web series where Jerry rides with a different comedian in each episode to have coffee in a different restaurant. Like his TV show, it's "a show about nothing," but we feel it's energizing to be in the presence of these geniuses of comedy. It's not a rip-roaring hilarious session, and we could do without Carl Reiner chowing down on chazerai, but it's fun to see these masters of the stage and screen enjoying themselves in the comfort of a private home.

Enjoy the visit, and take a look at the first Jewish Humor Central blog post just below it.

Shabbat shalom.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Jewish Jokes: Oy and Oy Vey

David Minkoff has probably compiled more Jewish jokes than anyone on the internet or in the universe. Last month his second "ultimate complilation" of Jewish jokes, "Oy Vey: More" was published by Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's Press in hardcover.

With 459 pages and over a thousand jokes, there is something here to please everybody and something to make everybody groan. Just a random sampling:

Chanukah cards
Sadie is in Israel on holiday and goes to the post office to buy some stamps for her Chanukah cards. "Can I have 50 Chanukah stamps please?"
"Of course," says the clerk, "what denomination?"
"Oy veh," says Sadie, "has it come to this already? OK, give me 14 Liberal, 28 Reform Orthodox stamps please."

A question for the rabbi
Rabbi, am I permitted to ride in an airplane on shabbes as long as my seat belt remains fastened? Surely it can then be considered as if I'm wearing the plane?

And so it goes, with topics including romance, family fortunes, medical jokes, life and death, people and professions, matters of faith, and even a few pages of child-friendly jokes.

Both books will give you one-liners, gags, riddles, and shaggy dog stories to share with family and friends, if you can get used to the British inflections and conventions such as money in pounds instead of dollars and British spellings and usage. Some of the jokes are a bit off-color, such as What brocheh does one say before taking Viagra.
 
The first book, Oy: The Ultimate Book of Jewish Jokes is now out in paperback. I keep a few copies on hand to give as get-well gifts to friends who have been hospitalized. They say that laughter is the best medicine, and I include a fake prescription blank recommending two jokes three times a day and three jokes just before bedtime. It works wonders!

"Der Kish" ("The Kiss") - A Short, Sweet, Poignant Film in Yiddish With English Titles

It took us a couple of years to find this short, sweet, poignant eight minute film, but we're glad we found it and are happily sharing it with you today.

The film Der Kish (The Kiss) is about a young girl, daughter of a rabbi, who pines for a kiss from him. The rabbi, his wife and his daughter rise early in the morning and get ready to go to the synagogue. The girl watches with envy as her father kisses his tallit, his tefillin, his tzitzit, and even tries to kiss his wife as she is getting dressed, but is rebuffed when his wife notices the girl looking on and pushes him away.

They walk to shul where the rabbi leads the service and the rebbetzin and her daughter climb the stairs to the balcony. The girl watches as her father takes the Torah from the ark and she fantasizes that he is holding her instead. Her siddur falls from the balcony and lands near the bimah. Her father picks it up and kisses it. When the service is over, the little girl decides to take matters into her own hands and brings the mini-story to a climax.

Does she get the kiss that she pines for? Watch the film and see.

Der Kish was directed by Paul Fischer and won awards in film festivals worldwide but has not been widely distributed. All of the dialogue (what little there is of it) is in Yiddish with English subtitles.

 It stars Modi Rosenfeld as the rabbi. We have followed Modi's career as an actor and stand-up comedian over the last three years. Professionally known as just Modi, his portrayals of chassidim are believable and his stand-up routines can be very funny.

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.)   

Comedy's "Odd Couple" - Rabbi Bob Alper and Azhar Usman on How Comedy Unites Them

Comedian and Rabbi Bob Alper and Lawyer and Community Activist Azhar Usman are a comedy duo known as 'Comedy's Odd Couple' performing together in an act entitled One Muslim, One Jew, One Stage.

Their comedy routine aims to entertain and heal through humor and social commentary. Both on and off stage the comics demonstrate friendship, respect and understanding. As noted by the Boston Globe, "It could be the opening line of a joke from a Dean Martin roast: 'There's this Muslim comedian and this Jewish comedian' but it's actually a thoroughly modern comedy tour featuring two hip standup comics who draw on their similarities, rather than their differences, for laughs."

We wrote about Alper and Usman in December 2009 and in November 2011 as they traveled all over the USA bringing their unique blend of humor to college campuses.Well, they're still at it and when this video became available we just had to share it with you. It includes their reflections on the reactions by audiences when they make their joint appearances and also gives them the opportunity to score points with a few jokes from their tour. 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 Year: "Bubele"

It's a new year, and what better way to start it than with a joke -- an old Jewish joke, what else?

It's becoming harder and harder to find family-friendly old Jewish jokes, but we found another one in the collection of Old Jews Telling Jokes.

Today's jokester is Harold Zapolsky, a 77-year-old retired Physics professor. Zapolsky spent most of his career as a Professor of Physics at Rutgers University, where he served two terms as Department Chair and is now Professor Emeritus. He also served in Washington DC for several years as Program Director for Theoretical Physics at the National Science Foundation. His research interests are in theoretical physics, specifically in the areas of astrophysics and relativity.

A good joke, according to Zapolsky, is either a slightly implausible tale, told with a straight face, about a perfectly plausible universe — or a plausible tale told about a slightly implausible universe. Either way, he notes, it is the sort of thing physicists do all the time.

Here's the setup: A lady is taking her young son to his first day of school. She's walking him to school and she's telling him "Bubele, this is going to be a marvelous day for you. Bubele, you're not going to forget it." And then......

Enjoy and have a Happy New Year!

(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.)       

"Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy" - A "Don't Miss" TV Special

This week PBS stations (Channel 13 in the New York area) will be running a not-to-be-missed 90 minute documentary titled Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy. It's the first documentary film to explore the phenomenon that, over the fifty-year period of its development, the songs of the Broadway musical were created almost exclusively by Jewish Americans. 

These are the popular songs that our nation took to war, sang to their children at bedtime, and whistled while waiting for the bus – taken in total they comprise the vast majority of what is now commonly referred to as “The American Songbook.”

Written and directed by Michael Kantor and narrated by Joel Grey, the film features interviews with Sheldon Harnick, John Kander, Andrew Lippa, Stephen Schwartz, Phyllis Newman, Charles Strouse, Harold Prince, Maury Yeston, Mary Rodgers Guettel, Ernie Harburg, Marc Shaiman, David Shire, Stephen Sondheim, Mel Brooks, Stephen Schwartz and many others.

Dynamic footage includes performances by stars such as David Hyde Pierce, Matthew Broderick and Kelli O’Hara, Zero Mostel, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Nathan Lane, Al Jolson, Fanny Brice, Barbra Streisand, Joel Grey, Dick Van Dyke, Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel.

As Eddy Friedfeld, co-author of Caesar's Hours with Sid Caesar wrote,

In the 1920s, nearly one in four New York residents was Jewish. The film charts how Jewish immigrants and children of immigrants in the melting pot of old New York helped shape the vision of America through musical theater. While shows like Porgy and Bess, Show Boat and Oklahoma are fictions, they represent the artist's vision of how do we take what we know from Jewish culture and tradition and make it into America?

The film also points out that the music of Porgy and Bess was rooted in Hebrew prayers and then charts the journey of the music into the brilliant hands of Miles Davis as he re-crafts the liturgical themes' roots into his own classic jazz riffs.

The show begins with a funny scene from Spamalot, with David Hyde Pierce singing We Won't Succeed on Broadway if We Don't Have Any Jews." Click on the video clip below to see and hear the song with the lyrics as subtitles.

Set your DVRs to record the show! 
Broadcast times:
Tuesday, New Years Day at 9:30 pm on Channel 13
Thursday, Jan. 3 at 1 am on Channel 13
Sunday, Jan. 6 at 2 pm on Channel 13 and 5 pm on Channel 21

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 tip of the kippah to Esther Kustanowitz for bringing this story to our attention.)
 

Comedy Clips From "My Mother's Italian, My Father's Jewish, and I'm in Therapy

Steve Solomon's one man comedy show My Mother's Italian, My Father's Jewish, and I'm in Therapy has been touring the US since at least 2006 and had an off-Broadway run last year. It's closed now, but we finally got a close look at his shtick in a series of segments from the show that were just posted on YouTube this week.

Solomon created the show and wrote the jokes, but the one man lead has been played by other actors during the show's run. The New York version, clips of which appear below, featured Peter Fogel in the lead (and only) role. 

We join the show in a first segment where Fogel is describing his experience on an El Al plane bound for Israel. 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.)