More Jewish Jokes From Lou Mason

In August we posted a rapid-fire collection of Jewish doctor jokes by comedian Lou Mason that were discovered on an old record. (Yes, that shiny round piece of black plastic that preceded eight-track and cassette tapes and MP3 audio files.) As we said then, it's not easy to find any background information about this comedian who was able to produce lots of laughs in his Catskills appearances in the 1970s

Here's another set of Lou's jokes about fathers and children, including an updated version of the Red Sea crossing and a dialogue between two fathers comparing the shlemielishness of their sons.

Information about Lou Mason is not easy to find, but we did find a blog in which the readers, challenged to come up with details about his life, confirmed that Mason was frequently on stage at the Lebowitz Pine View Hotel in Fallsburg, New York in the 1970s.

Enjoy!

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"Why Moses Hit the Rock" - A Comedy Midrash From Jewbellish

Last month we posted the first funny bit from the new parody website Jewbellish, co-founded by Chabad Chasidic comic Mendy Pellin. Today we're sharing another shtick that offers a more modern version of why Moses hit the rock in the wilderness that brought forth water. Let's consider it as a new midrash (story or interpretation).

In Parashat Chukat in the book of Bamidbar (Numbers) we are told:

After traveling for forty years in the wilderness, the people of Israel arrived in Kadesh in the Zin Desert, on the border of the Holy Land. Upon arrival, the people discovered that there was no water in Kadesh, and they complained to Moses. “If only we had died,” they vented, “when our brethren died before G‑d! Why have you brought the congregation of G‑d to this desert, to die there, we and our cattle? Why have you taken us out of Egypt—to bring us to this evil place?”

In this video Jewbellish offers a more down to earth (and funnier) version of the complaints aired by the Jews wandering through the desert. 

If you want to know the meaning of the word Jewbellish, as we did, we found an approximate definition on the web site. As explained by founders Pellin and Jeff Rudes, it's a word that was omitted from the dictionary by Rebbetzin Miriam Webster. It's a word that's defined by its use -- the more you use it, the more you'll feel the meaning -- it's a close relative of the word kvetch.

Enjoy!

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A 40 Year Old Comedy Classic: Alan King - "Survived By His Wife"

Last week the long-running Off-Broadway show Old Jews Telling Jokes went on the road and opened at the Royal George Theater in Chicago.

Reviews were positive, and the Chicago papers praised the show that has kept New Yorkers laughing for the last few years.

The show has a new cast but uses the same old jokes (what else would you expect?) The reviewers especially enjoyed an old video clip that was part of the show -- a famous routine that master comedian Alan King introduced more than 40 years ago. In the video King repeats the routine 15 years later, in 1987 in Las Vegas. We thought you'd like to see it and laugh along with the audience.

King declares that women live longer than men and produces a few pages of obituaries from local newspapers. He walks into the audience and  asks members to read the closing line of each one, which provides hilarious proof of his premise.

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 - "A Mynah Bird for Mother"

Another Monday. Another Joke to Start the Week. Another trip back to Kutsher's Resort in Monticello, New York, the Borscht Belt, the Catskills, where we recorded a lot of Jews telling their favorite jokes in the lobby between meals this summer.

We could use some more jokes and jokers for the coming months, so if you're interesting in bringing our shows to your synagogue or club, just invite us for a comedy evening or comedy brunch. We'll be there with one or more of our hour-long romps through the funniest Jewish videos on the Internet, and bring along a video camera and tripod to record your funniest jokes. For more information, use the contact form in the left column of this page.

Today we're bringing back 80-year-old Sheldon Horowitz, the retired attorney and adjunct professor, to tell his joke for this week.

Here's the setup: There are three Jewish brothers. One of them is a successful doctor, one of them is a successful lawyer, and the third guy runs a delicatessen. He's not so successful. Their mother is down in Florida and her birthday is coming up. So...

Enjoy!

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CBS Sunday Morning Celebrates the Catskills and Jewish Humor

A few months ago, the weekly CBS television news magazine Sunday Morning had a funny and poignant report on the Rise and Fall of the Borscht Belt. We usually watch the show every week but somehow missed this one. So we were delighted to find the segment on YouTube and wanted to share it with our joke-loving and Catskills-loving readers.

In the segment, Richard Schlesinger of 48 Hours reports on the Catskills phenomenon. Comedian Stewie Stone reminisces about his days at Grossingers, the Concord, and Kutsher's. Photos of the hotels in their heyday are shown followed by views of the now empty land where they once stood. Of all the hotels, only Kutsher's survived, and its owner Milton Kutsher recalls the old days when Wilt Chamberlain was hired as a bellhop before he became famous as a basketball player.

The segment highlights a revival of the jokes as performed in the New York off-Broadway show Old Jews Telling Jokes, which recently ended its long run and moved on to Chicago. You can't do a report like this without showing the jokes, and if you watch the video you'll get eight of them at no extra charge.

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.)

 

Israeli Talent Comes Together for "Eishet Chayil" Set to "You Raise Me Up"

When talented singers and musicians collaborate to produce a special rendition of a traditional Shabbat eve song, and set it to the melody of a popular English-Irish ballad, the result can be beautiful.

That's what happened when Israeli singer Ohad Moskowitz got together with The Kinderlach, a group of seven pre-teen boys from all over Israel, and Daniel Ahaviel, a British klezmer violinist who made aliyah to Israel in 1988, and sang the song Eishet Chayil at a wedding.

Eishet Chayil is usually sung at home on Friday night before the Shabbat meal is served. Traditionally, a husband sings the song to his wife, extolling her virtues, and expressing thanks for all that his wife has done for him and their family.

The version in this video bypasses the traditional melody, and instead is set to the melody of You Raise Me Up, which has an interesting history.

It was composed originally as an instrumental piece by Rolf Lovland, with parts of the melody based on Londonderry Air, an Irish tune later put to lyrics in 1910 to create the song Danny Boy, now considered an Irish classic. Lovland approached the Irish songwriter Brendan Graham to add lyrics and You Raise Me Up was the result.

It became a huge success in a version produced by David Foster and sung by Josh Groban, reaching the top of the Billboard charts in 2004. It has since been covered more than 125 times, with our favorite version the finale of the Celtic Woman concert at Slane Castle, Ireland in 2006. We've included that version at the end of this blog post. 

Enjoy and Shabbat Shalom!

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Comedy Showcase: 13 Hilarious Minutes With Mal Z. Lawrence

Mal Z. Lawrence probably holds the record for most stand-up comedy routines performed in Catskills hotels. When the hotels started to disappear, Mal simply moved his shtick to the casino hotels of Atlantic City and the playhouses of Century Village and other residential communities in Florida.

And as old as the jokes are, and no matter how many times the audiences heard them, they still laugh their heads off when Mal strides onto the stage and starts his delivery. The 76-year-old comedian is still performing and still telling the same jokes.

We featured Mal back in 2010 doing a few minutes of his routine on a stage in Florida. We think it's time to bring him back in a longer version of his act for our readers who have been asking for more of him and for our newer and younger readers who are not familiar with his humor. This show was in Los Angeles last year at the annual gathering of New York Alumni in California. 

The secret of Mal's popularity is his uncanny sense of timing, irony, and exaggeration. The subjects covered in this routine include hotels and buses in Atlantic City, drivers, malls, and security guards in Florida, and of course, the bountiful food of the Catskill hotels and imagining how gambling would change if casinos ever came there. Mal's description of the Conservative and Orthodox slot machines alone are worth the time and the price of the show.

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: Sukkot Concert and Braai in Johannesburg, South Africa

This year Sukkot coincided with the South African public holiday, Heritage Day. 

Since South Africans are encouraged to celebrate their diversity of cultures, beliefs and traditions, this was a good opportunity for one of South Africa's Jewish Outreach organizations to organize a concert of local soul and pop music talent to celebrate both religion and culture. 

The educational and outreach organization Soul Workout organized the Soul Simcha concert. Amid the smoke of braai (barbecue) fires, performers sang in Hebrew and English. A children's choir stole the show as South Africans got an exposure to Jewish culture and music that usually appears only at weddings and bar mitzvahs.

It turned out to be a joyful family evening filled with Jewish music and Boerewors rolls – South Africa’s version of a hotdog. The event was recorded and reported on by JN1, the Jewish-interest news channel of the European Jewish Union.

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.) 

Bark Mitzvah Update: Nicky the Pomeranian's Sister Sophia Gets Her Own Special Day

In January 2012 we ran an Associated Press story and local TV video about a Pomeranian dog named Nicky who turned 2, or 13 in dog years, and celebrated his "Bark Mitzvah" in Stanhope, New Jersey. This was a doggy version of a Bar Mitzvah with all the trimmings. 

Predictably, it drew negative comments, including criticism of the event by a rabbi who called it degrading and the TV reporter who referred to the "wacky chutzpah" of the dog owners who organized the event. But some of our readers praised the owners for throwing a party for their beloved pet.

At the end of the celebration, the TV reporter noted that Nicky's sister Sophia was four now, and if she keeps up with her studies, they plan on continuing the new tradition. Well, fast forward to April, and that's exactly what they did.

But Sophia's Bark Mitzvah became the subject of the National Geographic show, Nat Geo Wild: Spoiled Rotten Pets, as one of the more outrageous examples of overly spoiled and pampered pets.

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 - "A Minister, Priest, and Rabbi Go Hiking"

It's Monday again, and time to celebrate because Monday at Jewish Humor Central means it's time for another joke to start the week.

Ever since we started this weekly tradition more than a year ago, we've been using jokes from the Old Jews Telling Jokes collection and jokes that we videotaped at our performances at Kutsher's Resort in the Catskills and at residential communities in New Jersey. But we discovered that not all of the old Jewish jokes are told by Jews, especially the "minister, priest, and rabbi" genre of jokes. 

In reviewing lots of these "minister, priest, and rabbi" jokes, we found that in almost every case, the rabbi comes off as the wisest of the group, regardless of who is telling the joke.

Here's a classic joke of the genre, as told by the Reverend Chad O'Shea of the Unity Church in North Carolina.  The setup: A minister, a priest, and a rabbi went for a hike one day. It was a very hot day, They were sweating and exhausted, and they came upon a small lake. 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.) 

Hava Nagila Meets Jingle Bells in "Mendel's Tree" - A Short Comedy Film From Australia

We hope you enjoyed the long month of holidays from Rosh Hashanah through Sukkot as much as we did. Now we're back in a holiday-free zone until Thanksgivukkah arrives at the end of November. So today Jewish Humor Central returns with something completely different.

Mendel is an Orthodox Jew living in Melbourne, Australia, with his wife and baby in a small apartment. But he has a secret that he has kept from his parents. Now he gets a call from his mother telling him that they're on their way to visit him from Israel and they're in a taxi about 30 minutes away.

So what's the problem? Mendel's secret is that he loves Christmas, its decorations, and its music. How can he possibly explain this aberration to his mom? He has to get rid of the Christmas tree in his living room. And right away. But how?

This short film from Australia highlights Mendel's dilemma and the actions he and his wife take to deal with it. Are they successful? Watch the film and find out.

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 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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