Israeli Classic Song Showcase - "Nolad'ti LaShalom"

Today we're starting a series of classic songs that came out of Israel during its formative years and in the years that followed. Some of them were prize winners at song festivals and others are just beautiful products of Israeli musical talent. 

The songs will be posted here periodically along with our usual mix of humor, jokes, funny happenings, and Jewish traces in unexpected places.

It's fitting that we're posting our first selection in this series, Nolad'ti LaShalom, on the 5th Yahrzeit of Shulamit Kustanowitz.

Shuly, the inspiration for Jewish Humor Central, was not only a wonderful wife, mother, savta, author and journalist, but also served as a gentle censor of some of our posts that otherwise might have entered the blogosphere with questionable content.

She was born as World War II was ending, and wrote:

I was born on May 1, 1945, so my stone should read, in Hebrew, “I was born for the peace (noladti lashalom).” We, of this generation, will remember it as part of a song of modern Israel, that I have been born for a peace that’s just starting to come but is meant for the ages. For the historically aware, however, the association will be the peace the world felt on its first day without Hitler, and it was for that date that I was named.

Here is the classic Israeli song Nolad'ti LaShalom, sung by the group called Sexta. The Hebrew lyrics appear as subtitles and the English translation is below the video.

Enjoy!

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I WAS BORN TO PEACE

I was born to the melodies and to the songs of all countries I was born to the language and the place too to the few and many who will give peace a hand. Ah - ah - ah - ah - ah ah ah....... Chorus (X2) I was born to peace - let it arrive I was born to peace - let it come I was born to peace - let it appear I want, I want to be in it already. I was born to the dream and in it I see that peace will come I was born to the desire and the belief that it will come after thirty years. Chorus... I was born to a people two thousand years old. that have a land and it has a piece of heaven and it sees, watches the day unfold and it's a beautiful moment, moment of peace. Ah - ah - ah - ah - ah ah ah....... Chorus...

The Great Jewish Comedians: Betty Walker in "A Call From Long Island"

Betty Walker (1928-1982) was a Jewish-American comic who performed primarily during the 1950s and 1960s. She was born Edith Seeman in Elizabeth, New Jersey to Latvian immigrants.

Walker had a very pronounced nasal Yiddish accent that fit the stereotype of a yenta. As soon as she started to speak you knew that you would soon be laughing. She was the star of a few notable comedy record albums, and contributed greatly to their success. They included You Don't Have to be Jewish, When You're in Love the Whole World is Jewish, Hello Ceil, It's Me and The Yiddish are Coming, The Yiddish are Coming. 

Today we're sharing two of her best routines, one long and one short. Here are A Call from Long Islalnd from You Don't Have to be Jewish and The Opening from The Yiddish are Coming, The Yiddish are Coming.

The recordings precede the days of video and YouTube, so just close your eyes and listen and imagine the scene while you laugh.

Enjoy!

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A Joke to Start the Week - "A Very Long Password"

It's another Monday, another day for a Joke to Start the Week. This is a busy week for us, the start of our summer season of Jewish humor lectures at adult communities, camps, synagogues, and Jewish Community Centers.

This Thursday we'll be performing at the Four Seasons Spa and Country Club Community in Lakewood, New Jersey. If you're interested in one of our 18 unique hour-long programs of Jewish humor, give us a call at 201-796-9273 or email at akustan@gmail.com and we'll send you the list of programs and booking information.

Here's the setup for today's joke: The New York branch of the Israeli bank, Bank Leumi, decides to carry out an audit of the passwords their customers use to access their online accounts. And then...

Enjoy!

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Tovah Feldshuh Sings "Where's the Bathroom?" on "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" TV Show

Tovah Feldshuh, the talented Jewish actress who portrayed Golda Meir in the Broadway show Golda's Balcony, has performed in many Broadway and TV shows such as Law & Order.   

Back in 2010 we wrote about her comedy and singing talents and posted videos of her one-woman show in which she sings songs from Gershwin to Judy Collins and inhabits a gallery of hilarious characters, ages 8 to 80.

Now Feldshuh has a new role, that of the divorced and overbearing Jewish mother of lawyer Rebecca Bunch, whose romantic adventures are chronicled in the TV sitcom series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

A highlight of the show's first season was the appearance of Feldshuh, rushing into her daughter's home after a plane trip and looking for the bathroom. The song Where's the Bathroom? is hilarious and tells everything you need to know about their relationship.

Enjoy!

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Welcoming Shabbat Carlebach-Style With Israeli a Cappella Group Kippalive

Kippalive is an Israeli a cappella group that started out as a group of friends in Raanana who got together every Friday night to sing and were discovered while singing in the streets of Raanana.

We featured them previously in an a cappella song for Chanukah in 2013 and last month for Passover.

On Fridays we try to post Shabbat-related music and this week we found a Shabbat service that Kippalive recorded in the style of the late singer and composer Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach.

Carlebach-style services have sprung up in many cities and usually include a great deal of congregational singing, often with all the Friday night prayers sung in unison to melodies composed and made famous by Shlomo Carlebach.

Here's a sampling of a Carlebach-style Friday night service as sung by Kippalive.

Enjoy and Shabbat Shalom.

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A Video Picture Postcard From Israel on its 68th Birthday

Today Israel celebrates its 68th Independence Day with celebrations and commemorations from Metullah to Eilat. 

Lovers of Israel throughout the world also celebrate with concerts, festivals, dinners, and other programs to mark the day, but there's nothing like being in Israel on this special occasion when the schools are closed and just about everybody gets a day off.

Israelis celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut in a variety of ways. In the cities, the nighttime festivities may be found on the main streets. Crowds will gather to watch public shows offered for free by the municipalities and the government. 

Many spend the night dancing Israeli folk dances or singing Israeli songs. During the daytime thousands of Israeli families go out on hikes and picnics. Army camps are open for civilians to visit and to display the recent technological achievements of the Israeli Defense Forces. 

Yom Ha’atzmaut is concluded with the ceremony of granting the “Israel Prize” recognizing individual Israelis for their unique contribution to the country’s culture, science, arts, and the humanities.

Every year we look for a new video to express the joy of this special day. This year we found a new video picture postcard produced by Israel21cthat shows the beauty of Israel like you've never seen it before -- all in 150 seconds.

Enjoy!

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A Prayer for the State of Israel as it Observes Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtzmaut

Yom HaAtzmaut, Israel's Independence Day, is always preceded by Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day for its fallen soldiers. The message of linking these two days is clear: Israelis owe their independence — the very existence of the state — to the soldiers who sacrificed their lives for it.

This year Yom HaZikaron began last night and will be observed today until nightfall when the Yom HaAtzmaut festivities begin and continue through tomorrow night.

To mark these two important dates in the Jewish calendar, today we're sharing a special video of Cantor Netanel Hershtik singing the T'fila L'Shlom Medinat Yisrael (Prayer for the State of Israel). Tomorrow we'll celebrate Israel's 68th birthday with a video picture postcard of Israel as you've never seen it before.


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New Comedy Series Depicts Orthodox Singles Life in New York City

Srugim is a popular award-winning TV series produced in Israel about the lives of a group of Orthodox Jewish singles living in the Katamon section of Jerusalem. It ran for 45 episodes in three seasons between 2008 and 2012.

But there are also Orthodox Jewish singles in the USA, and many of them live and date on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Modern Orthodox filmmaker Leah Gottfried took the concept and created a new series in English called Soon By You about these singles and their dating adventures. The first episode, The Setup, was released this week.

As Sarah Trappler Spielman wrote in Tablet this week,

The Setup, a short film about Jewish dating by 25-year-old Modern Orthodox filmmaker Leah Gottfried, was described by its producers as “Friends but with Jews” and “Srugim but in New York.” The film, which won an audience award for Best Short at the Washington Jewish Film Festival, also serves as the pilot episode for Soon By You, a new web series that depicts the lives of six Modern Orthodox twentysomethings dating in present-day New York City.

We watched the first 16-minute long episode and we think it has potential as a long-running series that gives insight into the unique challenges that young single Orthodox Jewish professionals face in a largely secular multicultural environment such as New York City.

Enjoy!

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A Joke to Start the Week: "A Trip to the Shoemaker"

It's another Monday, and time for another Joke to Start the Week. Bob Hertzendorf, our favorite Certified Hypnosis Counselor, is back, this time with his old friend and golf partner Bob Sachs to do a 50-year-old skit, A Trip to the Shoemaker.

Yes, we know it's old, but so are all the jokes that we run on Mondays.

Sachs is an accomplished actor who had leading roles in Barefoot in the Park, Guys and Dolls, and Brighton Beach Memoirs.

Here's the setup: A customer walks into a shoe repair shop with a seven-year-old ticket. And then...

Enjoy!

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A Mother's Day Special: "A Yiddishe Momme" with Neil Sedaka, Itzhak Perlman, and Yitzchak Meir Helfgot

Today is Mother's Day and we're dedicating today's post to our mothers - past, present, and future - with a beautiful rendition of the classic A Yiddishe Momme.

The song  was written by Jack Yellen (words and music) and Lew Pollack (music) in 1925. It was first recorded by Willie Howard, and was made famous in Vaudeville by Belle Baker and by Sophie Tucker, and later by the Barry Sisters. 

Sophie Tucker began singing My Yiddishe Momme in 1925, after the death of her own mother. She later dedicated her autobiography Some Of These Days to Yellen, "A grand song writer, and a grander friend". Sophie Tucker made `Mama' a top 5 USA hit in 1928, English on one side and Yiddish on the B-side. Leo Fuld combined both in one track and made it a hit in the rest of the world."

The song, in English and Yiddish, sadder in the original Yiddish than in the English translation, the mother implicitly symbolizes a sense of nostalgia for the "old world", as well as guilt for having left it behind in assimilating into American society.

In this video, violinist Itzhak Perlman and Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot perform this popular Yiddish classic with vaudeville roots with a preface by singer and composer Neil Sedaka explaining the song's history. 

We wish a happy Mother's Day to all of our subscribers and casual viewers.

Enjoy!

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The Minions Help the Ein Prat Fountainheads Celebrate Shabbat

The Fountainheads, the Israeli singing and dancing group from the Ein Prat Academy for Leadership, have released many music videos in recent years. But we haven't seen any new videos from them lately. 

We count them among our favorites in performing Jewish music, so we were very pleased to see that a couple of weeks ago they released a new music video featuring "The Minyans", actually members of their ensemble dressed in costumes to evoke the happy feelings that the yellow Minions creatures populating three recent movies produce. And the focus of the medley of song parodies is the joy of Shabbat.

It's good to see the Fountainheads back in action again, with a new group of students joining the original group. We're looking forward to seeing some more productions from them.

Enjoy, and Shabbat shalom!

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A Yom HaShoah Special: The Inspiring Story of the Founding of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra

Today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, so we're postponing the Woody Allen standup comedy routine that we had scheduled as today's Throwback Thursday post for next Thursday.

Today we're sharing an inspiring video clip from Orchestra of Exiles, a documentary shown on PBS that is now available for rental from Netflix. This documentary focuses on Polish violinist Bronislaw Huberman, who rescued hundreds of Jews from the Holocaust and founded the Palestine Symphony, the globally renowned orchestra that would eventually become the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

The Palestine Symphony Orchestra was made up of Jewish musicians from the top ranks of orchestra and chamber music groups across Europe. Nearly 80 musicians joined, with only a few already living in Palestine. Those who moved from Europe brought their families, which meant Bronislaw Huberman’s efforts to found the orchestra under the threat of a pending Holocaust ultimately saved nearly 1,000 lives. 

It was not an easy decision for musicians to leave their homes and professional associations in Europe and move to Palestine, a desert land in political transition since the end of World War I. But particularly in Germany, Jewish musicians had lost positions in orchestras because of their ethnicity. As early as 1933, Hitler ordered the firing of Jewish musicians and his anti-Semitic policies increasingly became laws that stripped Jews of their civil rights.

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Melbourne Jewish Comedy Festival - The Bubba on Moses' Leadership in the Wilderness

Jack Felman is a medical doctor in general practice in Melbourne, Australia.  He has been writing and performing comedy for 30 years. 

Twenty years ago he created the Bubba, everyone's favorite Jewish grandmother, a character who loves to give unwanted advice and who is well known to Melbourne and Sydney audiences. 

Last year saw the inaugural of the Melbourne Jewish Comedy Festival, which brought together some of Australia's funniest Jewish comedians.

In his role as the Bubba, Felman  offered a heavily accented account of how Moses led the Jewish people through the wilderness for 40 years (Led? no. He was farblunget!)

Enjoy!


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The Great Jewish Comedians: Jean Carroll, a Pioneer in Standup Comedy

Jean Carroll was the first famous female standup comic. She died in 2011 at age 98. Until now, video of her has not been available.

Carroll was born as Celine Zeigman on January 7, 1911 in Paris, France. She began her career as part of the comedy dance team Carroll and Howe, with her husband, vaudevillian Buddy Howe, who later became her manager. 

She appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show more than 20 times and had her own short-lived sitcom, The Jean Carroll Show (also known as Take It From Me), which aired for one season (1953–1954).

In November 2006, she was honored with an evening at the Friar's Club in New York City. The emcee was Joy Behar and the main speaker was Lily Tomlin. In 2007, Carroll was featured in the Off-Broadway production The J.A.P. Show: Jewish American Princesses of Comedy, which includes live standup routines by four female Jewish comics juxtaposed with the stories of legendary performers from the 1950s and 1960s, Belle Barth, Pearl Williams and Betty Walker, Totie Fields, and Carroll herself. She was later featured in the 2009 PBS documentary, Make 'em Laugh.
 
Here's a good sample of her rapid-fire delivery in a routine about travel to Florida and life with children.

Enjoy!

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A Joke to Start the Week - "A Rabbi's Prayer"

Two days ago we said goodbye to Passover 2016 and we'll be glad to wait another year to see another matzo. So what better way to get off to a new start than with a joke to start the week.

Today we're dipping into an expanded collection of new old jokes from Old Jews Telling Jokes. The joke teller is 78-year-old retired attorney and dentist Bill Reyer.

Here's the setup: Jacob the patriarch has died and his three sons are at the graveside. And the rabbi says "I would like to do a prayer to include all the boys. And then...

Enjoy!

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Yid Life Crisis - Searching for Yiddish Speakers and Second Hand Items in Old Jaffa

We've been following the Canadian comedy duo of Jamie Elman and Eli Batalion as they travel the world in search of funny situtations involving Yiddish culture, language, and food.
 
Their web series, YidLife Crisis, was recently nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for best original digital media series.

They have taken their act on the road, performing a live version of their show in Krakow, Tel Aviv, Toronto, Montreal, Los Angeles and Birmingham, England.

The pair has also received a prestigious grant from the Natan Fund and have created a series of five travelogues featuring their impressions of Tel Aviv. In the last two months we posted their funny Valentine’s Day episode guest staring Mayim Bialik and the first of a series of Tel Aviv episodes, Canadians in Cabs Getting Kishkas.

There's a lot of Yiddish in some of the episodes and some of the English includes coarse language that we avoid in our family-friendly posts, so we pick the episodes that we share with you very carefully.

Today we're posting another one of their Tel Aviv episodes . In it, they search the markets in Old Jaffa for used items (alte zachen in Yiddish) and for Yiddish speakers in the street.

Enjoy!
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