On Chanukah, What Happens to a Menorah Made of Dominos?

Last month during Chanukah, a crowd gathered in the entrance hall of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem to witness what may be listed in the Guiness Book of Records -- the world's largest Chanukah menorah made of 25,00 dominos falling in sequence after the first domino is pushed.

As Sivan Raviv reported in Ynet News,

The menorah was built by Nissim Lopez and Yogev Levy, who have turned the Domino Rally game into a time-consuming habit. They hope that collapsing the huge menorah will land them in the Guinness Book of Records.

"Many ask us how we ended up with this unusual habit of sitting for hours on a cold floor, placing one piece after another, just to see everything fall," says Levy.
"It all began with Nissim, who was looking for something to do on Yom Kippur, searched through his closet and found an old Domino Rally box. After arranging all the pieces, he realized it wasn't enough – and bought another box several days later. 

"One weekend, when it was too cold to go outside, I visited Nissim's house and we somehow began building a track around his living room. I think there were only about 1,000 pieces -- it was pretty short."

"We decided to turn it into something a bit more serious and bought another 1,000 pieces, and it just grew and grew -- until today's record."

Enjoy! 

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(A tip of the kippah to Sheila Zucker for bringing this story to our attention.)

When Shabbat Starts Early, Extreme Measures May Have To Be Taken

Shabbat has been starting pretty early since we moved our clocks back an hour in November and the days got shorter. Last month it started at 4:10 pm in New York. Today candle lighting time is 4:25 pm.

That doesn't leave much time to acquire the three traditional accoutrements of the day: Wine, challah, and flowers.

When time is tight, sometimes corners have to be cut in order to bring these items home before the candles are lit. That's the subject of this humorous film created by Jewish Impact Films, a fellowship of young Jewish filmmakers established in 2004 by leading Hollywood producers to empower young Jews to use creative media, specifically short internet-based films, to effectively communicate new messaging about Judaism and Israel.

Enjoy and Shabbat Shalom!

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Stu Moss Channels Barry Manilow's "I Write the Songs" as "I Own the Deli"

Stu Moss has performed stand-up comedy on tour with some of the biggest names in entertainment, and has performed on cruise lines and in Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, and Atlantic City. His television credits include Showtime, Comedy Central, Chicago Hope and NYPD Blue.

Most recently he has been a member of the Kosher Comedy act together with Peter Fogel and Sharon Daniels that has been making appearances in Florida. In April 2010 we posted a few videos from their show.

Last month they were on stage at the Coral Springs Center for the Arts, where Stu Moss sang a parody of Barry Manilow's hit song I Write the Songs. In Moss' version, the lyrics are:

I've owned this store forever, and I made the very first knish.

I put the tongue and corned beef together, I made matzo and gefilte fish.

I sliced pastrami for the whole East Side, I got the business from an uncle who died.

I make potato salad, cole slaw too. I own the deli, I'm a Jew.

And there are more lyrics. And after seeing the parody, if you really want to see the original song sung by Manilow, we've posted it below. Enjoy!

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Comedy Showcase: Myq Kaplan Does Another Round on Late Late Show

Just about a year ago we highlighted stand-up comic Myq Kaplan in a video explaining what it's like to write and perform comedy, along with an actual performance on the Late Late Show.

On Monday night he showed up once again on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson to deliver his latest stand-up routine. We weren't up late enough to see it and we assume many of our readers also missed it. So we're sharing it with you as today's comedy entry.

Myq was a Top 5 final­ist on the most recent sea­son of Last Comic Stand­ing and ended his tour this sum­mer. He has also appeared on Com­edy Central’s Live at Gotham, at the New Faces show of the 2009 Just For Laughs Fes­ti­val in Mon­treal, was voted 2008’s Best Local Come­dian in the Boston Phoenix, and won the NY’s Fun­ni­est Standup Com­pe­ti­tion in 2009.

Enjoy!

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Saintly Rabbi Grossman Dances into the Act to Promote Shabbat.com Website

Last July we posted a story about Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Grossman, founder of Migdal Ohr, a network of organizations and the Migdal HaEmek youth village that provide social and educational programs for a wide range of religious and secular Israelis. 

That story told of a unique situation during the second Lebanon war where 700 Israeli paratroopers, packed in an uncomfortable tank hangar on an army base, were invited by Rabbi Grossman to his youth village where he told the group "Guys, everyone into the pool!"  After enjoying a cooling swim, the rabbi, who is often described as saintly, joined the paratroopers in singing, dancing, a barbecue, and writing the last few letters in a new Torah scroll.

Last week, Rabbi Grossman met and danced with a group of students touring Israel who were chosen for their future leadership potential on college campuses and communities all around the world. They were promoting the Shabbat.com website, which links visitors seeking a Shabbat meal with hosts in 1700 cities in 70 countries.

In the video below, you'll see the students singing and clapping for three minutes, at which point Rabbi Grossman couldn't resist and joined in the dancing, in another example of how it's possible for Haredi, modern observant, and secular Jews to rejoice in what they have in common.  Enjoy!

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Comedy Showcase: Introducing Jack Fuld, 9-Year-Old Chinese-Jewish Comedian

We're starting the New Year off with stand-up comedy, one of the first and most popular features at Jewish Humor Central. But there's something special about today's stand-up comedy video. The comedian is not a Catskills veteran or a regular on the comedy club circuit. It's a nine-year-old fourth grader named Jack Fuld.

We don't know much about him except that he has a Jewish father and a Chinese mother and that he uses this lineage as a way to warm up his audience. The kid is very poised and has a funny and confident delivery.

This performance was recorded at the New York Comedy Club on November 18 and just appeared on YouTube yesterday. We suspect that we'll be hearing more from him in the future.  Enjoy!

(FAMILY-FRIENDLY WORD OF CAUTION: Even though the performer is only nine years old, he does use a word toward the end of his routine that the New York Times would not consider fit to print.)

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HAPPY NEW YEAR! Reflections on New Year's Resolutions for 2012

It's time to wish all of our readers a Happy New Year and to make resolutions for 2012. But wait a minute! Didn't we just do this a few months ago on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur?

Well, yes and no. Yes to the wishing a Happy (and also Healthy and Prosperous) New Year. But we're not so sure about the resolutions part.

When you got home from shul after Yom Kippur services were over, did you get out a pad of paper, laptop, iPad, or smartphone and start making a list of specific changes you were going to try to achieve in the new year?  To be perfectly honest, we didn't. How could we, in our rush to put out the bagels, cream cheese, and other delicacies for the traditional break-fast?

Isn't it funny that on Yom Kippur we recite, over and over again, a set of 44 Al Chets, mistakes that we, the collective Jewish people, are sorry that we made during the past year, but there is no formal place in the services to list positive steps for change that we plan to take in the year to come?  

Of course, we're not going to actually write a list on the day of Yom Kippur, and there's an implied promise that we won't repeat the same mistakes next year. But unless we translate these very general categories of mistakes into a personal action plan, it's hard to think of the avoidance of general mistakes as New Years Resolutions. It's especially difficult when we have asked forgiveness for:

- the mistakes we committed before you willfully and intentionally
- the mistakes we committed before you by exercising power
- the mistakes we committed before you with eye movements
- the mistakes we committed before you with a strong forehead

Even the Al Chets that are more specific, like mistakes we committed before you with food and drink, or in business, are easy to dismiss as just another prayer in our rush to put up the Sukkah and start cooking for yet another Yom Tov.

But why write about Yom Kippur and Al Chet now, when we're starting a secular New Year?

Because there's a lesson here that we can learn from our secular friends and neighbors. The secular New Year's Day, January 1, long stripped of any religious meaning, can be a boon to us by infusing Jewish values into the New Year's resolutions that the secular world reminds us of every New Year's eve. 

For sure, nobody makes a resolution to abstain from using  a strong forehead, exercising power, or watching eye movements. But we can resolve to think through consequences (both intended and unintended) before making important decisions, we can resolve to not take advantage of anyone who is in a weaker physical or economic condition, and we can resolve to look people in the eye when having conversations and listening carefully to what they have to say before jumping in to make our point. These are just a few examples of how we can turn the mistakes (some say sins) that we renounce on Yom Kippur into positive actions if we think about applying Jewish values in making resolutions for the New Year.

So we, individually, and bloggerly (is that a word?) will be making a list of behavioral improvements for the coming year and trying to adhere to them for as long as possible.  By way of example, we came across a list of resolutions written in 1943 by Woody Guthrie, the legendary folk singer who gave us This Land is Your Land and So Long, It's Been Good to Know You among the hundreds of songs that he wrote.

Guthrie was not Jewish, but his second wife, and mother of Arlo Guthrie (Alice's Restaurant, The City of New Orleans) was the daughter of Aliza Greenblatt, a Yiddish poet. So, writing his list while living in the Jewish neighborhood of Coney Island in Brooklyn, he just might have been influenced by the values of his shvigger (mother-in-law) and neighbors.

Here is the actual list that Guthrie wrote and illustrated by hand:

 

Our favorites?  Learn people better, stay glad, and keep hoping machine running. 

If we've made you yearn for a few choruses of This Land is Your Land, here they are, as sung by Woody Guthrie himself. Enjoy, make a list, and have a Happy New Year!

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Real Housewives of Jerusalem: A HaHafuch Comedy Special

Reality TV programs have become so popular that it shouldn't be a surprise that the "Real Housewives" episodes are begging to be parodied. First there was "Real Housewives of Orange County," followed by New York City, Atlanta, New Jersey, Beverly Hills, and Miami.

That's where HaHafuch comes along. The English language improv and comedy troupe based in Jerusalem couldn't resist the temptation and produced a funny promotional video for a show called "Real Housewives of Jerusalem." The video, which premiered last week at HaHafuch's Chanukah comedy night, is here for your enjoyment. 

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

Scarlett Johansson and Matt Damon Get Tested on Jewish Culture

Josh Horowitz is a managing editor for MTV News and on-air personality covering the world of film. Josh hosts “After Hours” on MTV.com, a show where he and some of the most recognized names in film show a completely different side.

In the current edition of "After Hours", he interviews Scarlett Johansson and Matt Damon, stars of the new movie We Bought a Zoo, on basic questions about Jewish culture. Why? Probably because Scarlett Johansson is Jewish, and proud of it. Matt Damon is not, but he's a good sport in trying to answer the questions. For the record, we're not thrilled with the questions that Josh chose to ask, but it's all in the spirit of good clean fun, so let's go along for the ride.

Here's the interview, followed by a short clip from Israeli TV where Johansson answers questions about her Jewish ancestry, and the trailer from the movie We Bought a Zoo. 

The movie, based on a true story, is about Los Angeles journalist Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon), who, following his wife's untimely death, decides to make a fresh start by quitting his job and moving his children (Colin Ford, Maggie Elizabeth Jones) to an 18-acre property containing the Rosemoor Wildlife Park. Though closed for years, Rosemoor is still home to many animals, cared for by Kelly Foster (Scarlett Johansson) and her small staff. Mee opens his heart and his checkbook as he, Kelly and the others work to renovate and reopen the zoo.

Enjoy!

How "Bei Mir Bist du Schein," 73 Years Old This Week, Became a Smash Hit

This week is the 73rd anniversary of the sudden rise to fame of a Yiddish love song written for the Yiddish theatre by lyricist Jacob Jacobs and composer Sholom Secunda. The song, Bei Mir Bist du Schein, began as an act at Grossinger's Hotel by two black singers, Johnnie and George, who brought it to the Apollo Theater in Harlem where it was heard by Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin, who bought the rights to the song for $30.

The song's unlikely journey continued when the songwriters translated it into English and brought it to the attention of The Andrews Sisters, a new singing group.

The full story, told in All About Jewish Theatre, includes the following details:

The Andrews Sisters

The Andrews' record was released a few days after Christmas 1938. By New Year's Eve it was playing over and over again on every radio station in New York City. It started when "The Milkman's Matinee" on WNEW picked it up and played it on the all-night show. Soon there were near riots at the record stores. Crowds would line up and the song would be played out into the street from loudspeakers. Traffic would back up for blocks. By the end of January, "Bei Mir Bist du Schon" had sold more than 350,000 copies.

"Bei Mir Bist du Schon" fever spread across the land. "It's wowing the country," reported one New Jersey paper. "They're singing it in Camden, Wilkes-Barre, Hamilton, Ohio, and Kenosha, Wis. The cowboys of the West are warbling the undulating melody and so are the hillbillies of the South, the lumberjacks of the Northwest, the fruit packers of California, the salmon canners of Alaska." And it was huge hit in Yorkville: "The Nazi bierstuben patrons yodel it religiously, under the impression that it's a Goebbels-approved German chanty."

In 1963 United Artists released a record titled Yiddish Maestro Please that included a rendition of the song by the Feder Sisters, in Yiddish and in English.

There are no videos of the Andrews Sisters singing the English version that rose to the top of the charts in 1938, but other singers have tried to capture their spirit and harmony. A good example of this is The New Andrews Sisters, who, dressed like the originals, give us a good idea of what the original sisters sounded like.

So what has happened to the song during the 73 years since it first made its appearance as a popular English song? It's been performed and recorded in many languages, but it also found a place in a parody inspired by an offhand remark by a member of the Smith Street Society Jazz Band around 1963, who referred to it as The Bear Missed the Train. They recorded the song parody and it was picked up by the legendary Jean Shepherd, king of late night radio from 1956 to 1977, who played his kazoo along with it almost every night.

The parody also has verses that start "The goat missed the boat" and "The duck missed the truck." Today it's sung by schoolchildren as seen in the following video.  Enjoy!

(A tip of the kippah to Phoebe Weisbrot for bringing this story to our attention.)

It's Time For You to Choose: Which Chanukah Music Video is Your Favorite?

Since we started our Chanukah countdown, we've posted 12 new music videos that were created for this season. Some were by groups you've seen before, and some were first time creations.

They covered a wide range of music styles, and they were sung by boys and girls, men and women, young and old. Here's an opportunity for all of our readers to get involved, take another look at the songs as we get ready to light the eighth Chanukah candle, and vote for your favorite. Only one vote can be cast, so choose carefully. Just make your selection in the column at the left of this blog post.

We'll be collecting votes for a week, ending at midnight next Monday, January 2.

Here are links to the videos, just in case you'd like to see them again before voting.

Yeshiva Boys Choir: Those Were the Nights

Aish HaTorah: Hanukkah - Rock of Ages

Los Angeles Jewish Home: "Chanukah Oh Chanukah"

The Maccabeats: "Miracle"

The Fountainheads: "Light Up the Night"

Six 13: "Chanukah Rights"

Luisa Tedoff Cohen: "Hilarious Hanukkah Medley"

Pella Singers: "Tonight, Tonight"

Jerusalem Flash Mob: "Shir BaBoker (Pitom Kam Adam)"

Hashmonaim Children: "Kung Fu Maccabees"

Tom Lehrer and Yavneh Choir: "Hanukkah in Santa Monica"

Jacob Kantor: "No Latkes"

Avi Liberman Performs Stand-up Comedy at Chabad in California

On Chanukah we sometimes get so carried away with music videos and other topics that we forget about the content that many of our readers are asking for -- jokes and comedy, usually of the stand-up variety. 

So as not to disappoint our comedy fans, we're bringing you a new, complete 23-minute comedy routine that was performed last Monday evening at a Chinese Auction and comedy night sponsored by Chabad of the Conejo in Agoura Hills, California.

The comedian is Avi Liberman, an Israeli-born, Texas-raised Los Angeles resident who delivers family-friendly humor. Twice every year, he brings a group of comedians to Israel to perform for the Koby Mandell Foundation, which works on behalf of terror victims' families and is named after the 13-year-old who was murdered by terrorists near his Tekoa home on May 8, 2001.

At the start of the routine, Liberman jokes that at Jewish functions he is often asked by a rabbi to avoid telling jokes about drugs, chairs (because women sit on chairs with a part of the body that may not be appropriate to joke about), or paper (because pornography is often printed on paper and jokes about paper could lead to mixed dancing.) But he manages to hit a lot of topics that should resonate and help to get your day started with some laughter.  They include explaining Jewish holidays to non-Jews, Israeli auto mechanics, observations on levels of religiosity, flying El Al, and how to interpret elementary school report cards. Enjoy!

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Toronto Kids on What They Think About on Chanukah - Very Cute!

Here are some beautiful Chanukah wishes from UJA Federation of Greater Toronto.

The children of Toronto's Associated Hebrew Schools Posluns Education Centre were asked a timely and simple question: "What do you think about on Chanukah?"

The answers? We're sure they'll make you smile.

Here are some of our favorites:

"Sometimes I don't like the draydel game because my brother takes away all the chocolates."

"The good guys -- a lot of Maccabees -- they're like the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Greeks are the bad guys like the Montreal Canadiens."

"Antiochus gave the Jews a time out. They couldn't pray, they couldn't watch TV, and the Jews said 'I don't want time outs anymore.'"

"The Maccabees are the heroes of the holiday, just like Batman."

"I think Judah Maccabee looks like Justin Bieber."

"You just take a little bit of brown stuff and then you smush it up and put it in a circle and then you put it in the oven and when it's ready you can take it out and it looks like a latke."

Enjoy!

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New Music Video Finds a Solution to a Latke-Free Chanukah

Jacob Kantor, a member of Ohr HaTorah Synagogue in Los Angeles, had a vision of the consequences of a friend being deprived of his latke entitlement on Chanukah. 

Within a week, he turned the vision into a music video telling the whole story. Amazingly, the video production was done on an iPhone in just two days. After another two days of editing, Kantor posted the video on YouTube, where it joins the growing panoply of Chanukah music videos.

The characters in the video go through a series of disappointments when they are offered a baked potato, mashed potatoes, knishes, french fries, and tater tots, all of which they reject.  Why, oh why, can't they get the latkes that they crave?  

Finally, the singer gets his latkes. But only because he bought them at Gelson's (a Los Angeles supermarket chain.)  Enjoy!

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Oldie But Goodie Revived: Tom Lehrer's Hanukkah in Santa Monica - The Original and as Covered by Yavneh Academy Choir

Twenty-one years ago, Tom Lehrer, our all-time favorite musical satirist, penned and performed the classic Hanukkah in Santa Monica. In December 2009, our third month at Jewish Humor Central, we searched the internet for a video of his performance to share with our small group of readers. It was available on YouTube for awhile, but then it disappeared. So we went with a high school glee club and their rendition of this song.

Today, as our email subscriber list reached and passed the 2,000 mark, we did another search and found that this gem is back. So before it disappears again, we're bringing it to you now.

It's also very satisfying to see that Lehrer's wit is being transmitted to a new generation. After the original version as sung by Tom, we're also including a version that was performed just a few days ago by the choir of Yavneh Academy of Paramus, New Jersey in front of the Williams-Sonoma store at the Garden State Plaza shopping mall.

We think that this song, one of the few inventive Chanukah parodies before the genre exploded last year with offerings by the Maccabeats, Fountainheads, and others, remains one of the best.

Enjoy!

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Shlemiel the First, a Klezmer Musical Comedy, Called Better Than Any Broadway Show

"Better by far than anything currently on Broadway." That's what John Lahr, senior theater critic at The New Yorker magazine, and son of legendary actor Bert Lahr, has to say about Shlemiel the First.

Shlemiel the First is an award-winning klezmer musical comedy based on a play of the same name by Isaac Bashevis Singer, about a holy fool sent on an ill-conceived errand that subsequently transforms the inhabitants of Chelm, his impoverished village. It features a live band, on-stage costume changes, and cross-dressing necessitated by the fact that many of the actors play multiple roles (some of the men even play their own wives). 

Here's John Lahr's review from the December 12 issue of "The New Yorker."

All fans of the American musical who are sick of boulevard nihilism, movie retreads, choreographic cliché, dopey lyrics, and banal librettos, your ship has come in: “Shlemiel the First,” the terrific 1994 klezmer musical, adapted by Robert Brustein from Isaac Bashevis Singer’s, is being revived, Dec. 13-31, at the Skirball.

David Gordon’s elegant production, set in the surreal shtetl landscape of Chelm, jolts an audience out of the habitual. Shlemiel, its eponyous beadle hero (Michael Iannucci), is a “crazy fool,” according to his wife (Amy Warren). He is called upon to spread the wisdom of Groman Ox, the wisest man of the village council of sages, who earned the laurel by solving a sour-cream shortage. The musical (with splendid lyric by Arnold Weinstein, and music by Hankus Netsky) is a wacky, inspired recounting of his hapless missionary journey. In its artfulness and eloquence, Shlemiel the First is better by far than anything currently on Broadway. It returns the musical to its playful, populist roots. Miss it at your peril.

Shlemiel the First is now playing in Manhattan at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at Washington Square through December 31, the longest run of a single show for the 2011-12 Season.

Shlemiel has been significantly reworked since it was originally co-produced by the American Repertory Theater in 1994. This current production comes courtesy of a collaboration between NYU Skirball, The National Yiddish Theatre-Folksbiene, Theatre for a New Audience, or TFANA and Peak Performances at Montclair.

During the last week of rehearsals at The New 42nd Street Studios,  a video was made of the Shlemiel cast and crew. In it, they describe their specific roles within the overall production. The individuals featured are (in order of appearance): Kristine Zbornik, Amy Warren, Jeff Brooks, Michael Iannucci, Aaron Netsky, Stephen Cain and Michael Larsen. 

So watch the video and get tickets while they're still available. We'll be attending the December 26 performance. Enjoy!

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