Coronavirus Lockdown Brings Wild Boars to Streets of Haifa

During Israel's coronavirus lockdown, the empty streets of Haifa, Israel's port city, have become irresistible to wild boars roaming around, looking for food.

As reported in Yeshiva World News,

Located on the foot of the Carmel mountains, Haifa residents have seen wild boars, which have no natural predators, wandering around Haifa at night for years. However, the problem was kept at bay by hunters who culled the boars.

But when Mayor Einat Kalisch-Rotem (Labor) was elected in 2018, she put a stop to culling the boars and the boars started proliferating in the city and brazenly wandering the streets of the city during the daytime as well.

The problem has recently become increasingly worse due to the deserted streets in wake of the restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic like other cities around the world.

Haifa residents are worried that even when the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is behind them, the problem of the boars will persist in the city.

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A Joke to Start the Week - "Make Me a Kohen"

The rabbis and cantors of the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles have been adding a series of jokes to the videos on their website over the last few weeks. We're sure that their members join us in appreciating this welcome opportunity to share some laughs in the midst of the coronavirus stay-at-home world that most of us are experiencing.

We have a few lined up to share with you on the next few Monday mornings as our Joke to Start the Week.

One of America’s most highly respected congregations, Wilshire Boulevard Temple has been serving the Los Angeles Jewish community since its founding in 1862 as Congregation B’nai B'rith, the city’s first synagogue. Today, Wilshire Boulevard Temple carries out the mission through a variety of ways, as a center for Jewish spirituality and celebration, a place for lifelong learning and friendship and home to an engaged congregation where every person can make a difference.

Today Rabbi Beau Shapiro tells a joke about a congregant's urgent need.

Here's the setup: A man comes to see the rabbi. He says "Rabbi, it's very important to me that you make me a Kohen". The rabbi says "I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way." And then...

Enjoy!

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Teaching Your Mom How to Start a ZOOM Meeting (Hebrew with English Titles)

With everyone using ZOOM to host and participate in video chats and meetings in these days of isolation, explaining the technology to internet and technology-challenged parents can be a frustrating ordeal. 

Clicking on a provided link to participate can be easy to explain, but the mechanics of starting a ZOOM meeting and selecting all the right options can be even more than a patient son can bear.

Yonatan Gruber has posted a YouTube video of his experience in getting his mother up to speed in starting and managing a ZOOM conversation. If you've been using this technology and had to explain it to a less technical relative or friend, the conversation should be familiar.

The video is in Hebrew with English subtitles.

Enjoy!

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Welcoming Shabbat with a Bukharian Shalom Aleichem

The liturgical poem Lekha Dodi is sung to many different melodies throughout the world, including melodies from India, Central Asia (Bukhara), Yemen, Kurdistan, Italy, Bulgaria, Germany, and the Mountain Jews of the Caucasus.

Wherever Jews gather for prayer on a Friday night, there one can find Lekha Dodi being sung.

Today we're sharing a version that was popular among the Jews of Bukhara, a city in Uzbekistan in Central Asia. Below the video of Lekha Dodi is another video about the Bukharian Jews.

Enjoy, and Shabbat shalom!

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In the lands along the Silk Road, Jews lived under some of the world's most powerful empires. Despite their isolation from other Jewish communities, oppression, and forced conversion, this ancient community persisted. This is the story of the Bukharan Jews of Central Asia.




(A tip of the kippah to Dan Mosenkis for bringing these videos to our attention)

Throwback Thursday Comedy Special: Remembering Jerry Stiller

We're dedicating today's Throwback Thursday post in memory of actor/comedian Jerry Stiller, who died Monday at the age of 92.

We have fond memories of Stiller, who used his training as an actor to create many comedic roles on stage, screen, and television.

As Peter Keepnews wrote in the New York Times,

Mr. Stiller’s accomplishments as an actor were considerable. He appeared on Broadway in Terrence McNally’s frantic farce “The Ritz” in 1975 and David Rabe’s dark drama “Hurlyburly” in 1984. Off Broadway, he was in “The Threepenny Opera”; in Central Park, he played Shakespearean clowns for Joseph Papp; onscreen, he was seen as a police detective in “The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three” (1974) and Divine’s husband in John Waters’s “Hairspray” (1988). But he was best known as a comedian.

The team of Stiller and Meara was for many years a familiar presence in nightclubs, on television variety and talk shows, and in radio and television commercials, most memorably for Blue Nun wine and Amalgamated Bank.

Years after the act broke up, Mr. Stiller captured a new generation of fans as Frank Costanza, the short-tempered and not entirely sane father of Jason Alexander’s George, on the NBC series “Seinfeld,” one of the most successful television comedies of all time.

Just a few months after the final episode of “Seinfeld” (in which Frank had one last moment in the spotlight, spending most of it yelling), broadcast on May 14, 1998, Mr. Stiller was back on television playing another off-kilter father — a marginally more restrained version of Frank Costanza — on another sitcom, “The King of Queens,” which made its debut that fall on CBS.

While his characters were not explicitly Jewish, there was no mistaking his ethnicity in all of  his roles. Although the ethnic and religious differences between Stiller and his wife Anne Meara were ever present and accounted for much of their appeal, when it came to religious affiliation in their 61-year-long marriage, they agreed to live a Jewish life.

As Allison Kaplan Sommer wrote in Haaretz,

After Meara died in 2015, the Jewish Women’s Archive noted that their relationship had been a groundbreaking one. Most Christian women in the ’50s who married Jewish men converted before marriage and took their husband’s names. Meara, still Catholic when the couple married in 1954, converted to Judaism before the birth of her children – Amy, and the actor/director Ben Stiller – so her kids “would know who they were,” she explained.

Ben Stiller once commented that it was his mother who “knew more about Judaism than our entire family combined.”

Here is the famous skit that Stiller and Meara performed on the Ed Sullivan Show, and went on to create skits to follow the course of their relationship.

Enjoy!

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Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah for Hatzalah Israel with an All-Star Cast

Since Leonard Cohen released his song Hallelujah in 1984, it has been performed by a more than 300 singers in various languages. By late 2008, more than five million copies of the song have been sold in CD format.  

It has been the subject of a BBC Radio documentary, a book, and has been included in the soundtracks of numerous films and television programs. Different interpretations of the song may include different verses, out of the over 80 verses Cohen originally wrote.

Last week we were treated to a special new version from Hatzalah of Israel.

As JTA and Marcy Oster reported in Haaretz,

A new version of the iconic Leonard Cohen song “Hallelujah” performed in English, Hebrew and Arabic was released as part of a benefit supporting first responders in Israel.

 “Saving Lives Sunday,” a virtual benefit to support the emergency response organization United Hatzalah of Israel in its fight against COVID-19, raised over $1 million.

The new “Hallelujah” was performed by Israeli recording artist Dudu Aharon, as well as “Fauda” star Rona-Lee Shimon, actress and singer Layan Elwazani, Iranian-American Jewish singer  and composer Chloe Pourmorady, and Adam Kantor from the Broadway cast of “The Band’s Visit.” Joining in were first responders and people whose lives were saved by Jewish, Muslim and Christian Hatzalah volunteers.

Enjoy!

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Lag B'Omer is Celebrated in Israel but Coronavirus Dampens the Bonfires and Crowds

Today is Lag B'Omer, the 33rd day of the Omer that is counted for 49 days from Passover to Shavuot. In Meron, in northern Israel, about 500,000 chasidim make an annual pilgrimage to the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (Rashbi) to sing, dance, and light bonfires.  

Rashbi's tomb is the epicenter of the Lag B'Omer celebrations because he was one of the students of Rabbi Akiva who survived a terrible plague that killed thousands of them, and he went on to write the Zohar, the book of Kabbalah.

In most years, thousands of buses make their way from all over Israel to the small town of Meron. This year the coronavirus pandemic has drastically reduced the number of buses, chasidim, and bonfires. 

As reported by JTA,

Traditional bonfires and other events that are held yearly at the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on Mount Meron will be canceled this year. Instead, the Religious Services minister will allow three separate bonfires, each led by a prominent rabbi, in the area of the tomb to be held by special permit at different times. No more than 50 people will be permitted to participate in each bonfire, and women must be allowed equal participation. 
Last night they lit the bonfires, and though the numbers were limited, the enthusiasm of the groups that were able to dance around them was not diminished. 

Happy Lag B'Omer! Enjoy!

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A Joke to Start the Week - "The Best Hearing Aid"

It's Monday again. Time for another Joke to Start the Week. Today we're sharing a quickie by standup comedian Modi (Mordechai) Rosenfeld.

A regular performer at the New York and Los Angeles comedy clubs, Modi also headlines around the country and across the globe. He has toured in the United Kingdom, Holland, and Israel and performs in comedy festivals and special venues, including Montreal’s Just for Laughs Comedy Festival and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. 

Here's the setup: Two elderly Jewish men in Miami are talking. One turns to the other, and then...

Enjoy!


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Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places: NJ Chabad Rabbi Gets Stumped by Ugandan Teenagers

 

A few days ago, Rabbi Avrohom Rapoport, who runs the Chabad Chai Center in Ventnor, New Jersey, received an Instagram message from a young Orthodox Jewish man in Puti, Uganda.

He was the leader of a Ugandan youth group in their synagogue and asked Rabbi Rapoport to give a class to the group via Zoom. The rabbi agreed, and soon found himself being questioned by a group of 15 teenagers. He played "Stump the Rabbi" with them, and he was stumped.

We noticed that the group did not practice social distancing and we wondered how they were dealing with the coronavirus. As of yesterday, Uganda had 116 confirmed cases, 55 recovered, and 0 deaths.

So maybe they know something that we don't. 

Enjoy and stay safe.

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Welcoming Shabbat with Adon Olam by the Moscow Male Jewish Cappella

This Shabbat we're posting our 58th version of Adon Olam since starting Jewish Humor Central in 2009. 

It's a rendition by the Moscow Male Cappella choir, sung at their 30th anniversary concert at the Small Hall of the Moscow State P.I. Tchaikovsky Conservatoire last November.

The artistic leader and conductor is Alexander Tsaliuk. The cantor is Uriel Granat, the cantor of the Voronezh Synagogue and a soloist in the Voronezh State Theatre of Opera and Ballet.

Enjoy, and Shabbat shalom!

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Throwback Thursday Comedy Special: Harpo and Chico Marx in "A Night in Casablanca"

It's another Throwback Thursday. Today we're turning the clock back 74 years to revisit a comedy classic.

In the 1946 Marx Brothers film A Night in Casablanca Ronald Kornblow (Groucho Marx) takes over as the manager of a luxurious hotel in Casablanca, in the aftermath of World War II.

After discovering that both of his predecessors had been murdered, Kornblow begins to fear for his safety -- especially when Nazi Count Pfefferman (Sig Ruman) tries to take over Kornblow's job in a bid to get his hands on valuable items that were stashed in the hotel by the Nazis at the tail end of the war.

In this funny clip from the film, Harpo Marx overhears a plot to kill Kornblow and uses his skills at pantomime and whistling to tip off Chico Marx (Groucho's bodyguard) about the plot.

Enjoy! 

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#Throwback Thursday     #TBT

British Comedian Ashley Blaker is Meshuga Frum When it Comes to Televison

We've become big fans of Ashley Blaker, the British Orthodox comedian who's been getting rave reviews on his stand-up tours and requests for more video clips from our readers.

 

He has previously performed two sell-out tours of the UK (Ungefiltered and Meshuga Frum)to great acclaim and toured his comedy across Israel and South Africa. He started performing in USA with a sold-out show at New York's Gramercy Theatre.

 

Here's a clip from his Meshuga Frum show where he talks about his favorite American TV show and how he would remake it. 

Enjoy! 

 

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Shtisel Season 3 is Coming, But Filming Has to Wait for Coronavirus to Pass

To all Shtisel fans who are anxiously awaiting the third season of this popular TV series, we have good news and bad news.

The good news is that season 3 is in the planning stage and will definitely be broadcast in the near future. The bad news is that the cast has been under lockup in their own homes in Israel and can't start filming until conditions improve.

If you miss seeing the cast members on TV, here's a teaser. It's a Passover greeting from all the leading actors in the show. OK, we should have posted it before or during Pesach. But we didn't find the video until today, so consider it a belated Passover wish for good health.

As reported by JTA,

The video includes virtual and verbal hugs from series producer Dikla Barkai and actors Dov Glickman (who portrays Shulem); Michael Aloni (Akiva); Neta Riskin (Gitti);  Sasson Gabai (Nukhem); and Zohar Strauss (Lipe).

“We’ll be back soon, as soon as this whole thing is over,” Riskin says, referring to the coronavirus crisis.

The London-based Jewish News organized the video.

“We’ll see you all on the other side of this,” Glickman says, warning those holding seders to stay six feet away from Elijah the Prophet when he visits on seder night.

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A Joke to Start the Week - A Jewish Mother Riddle

The rabbis and cantors of the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles have been adding a series of jokes to the videos on their website over the last few weeks. We're sure that their members join us in appreciating this welcome opportunity to share some laughs in the midst of the coronavirus stay-at-home world that most of us are experiencing.

We have a few lined up to share with you on the next few Monday mornings as our Joke to Start the Week.

One of America’s most highly respected congregations, Wilshire Boulevard Temple has been serving the Los Angeles Jewish community since its founding in 1862 as Congregation B’nai B'rith, the city’s first synagogue. Today, Wilshire Boulevard Temple carries out the mission through a variety of ways, as a center for Jewish spirituality and celebration, a place for lifelong learning and friendship and home to an engaged congregation where every person can make a difference.

Today Senior Rabbi Steve Leder tells a Jewish mother riddle.

Enjoy!

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