Yea! Finally, a Hanukkah Special!

After years of suffering through Frosty, the Grinch, Rudolph, and the myriad of holiday specials that interrupt our regularly scheduled programming this season, our good friend Craig Taubman has come through and saved us all with a Hanukkah special! “Lights: Celebrate Hanukkah live in Concert” is produced and hosted by Craig and will premiere on PBS on Wednesday, December 3. It features a variety of artists in a Hanukkah concert including The Klezmatics, Alberto Mizrahi, Mare Winningham, Joshua Nelson, Josh Nelson, and Dave Koz. Check your local listings to see when the program airs in your area and call your local PBS station to complain if it’s not being shown in your ‘hood.  For videos, visit http://www.craignco.com/lights/video.html. 

In New Orleans, the program will air Monday, December 1, at 9pm on WYES-TV.

23 Songs in 5 Minutes show why “It’s Good to be Jewish”

Check out the video below from GhettoPlotz, a London-based “klezmer-house dancefloor mashup band” (no, I don’t know what that means, either). “Jew Many DJs” features 23 songs in 5 minutes from a huge variety of artists including Gwen Stefani, Topol, Debbie Friedman, Madonna, Borat, and the Andrews Sisters. The track listing is here.

Shabbatainment This Week 10/18/08

Shabbatainment, 10/18/08

There’s kosher bottled water, kosher floor cleaner, and kosher silver polish. But did you know you could have a Kosher cell phone?  In the Ultra-Orthodox communities in Israel, they now a kosher cell phone that can make and receive calls but can’t text message, browse the internet, or take photos—all of which can be considered leading to immodest behavior. The phones have their own Haredi-specific area code and carry a rabbinical stamp of approval.  Some Haredi newspapers refuse to publish ads with non-kosher phone numbers and some parents are worried that their children will be blacklisted by the matchmaker if they don’t have a kosher phone. The best thing about the phone is that calling G-d is a local call.

Thanks to Nextbook

 

Celebrating a birthday in the Jewish entertainment world- teen heartthrob Zac Efron of High School Musical fame turns 21 today. Tomorrow, Actor/Director Jon Favreau turns 43, and Chris Kattan from Saturday Night Live and really bad movies turns 38.

 

And finally, the headline from this article from the Jewish Press says it all- “Putting the ‘oy’ back in ‘Ahoy’,” a new book by Edward Kritzler talks about Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean and how some Jews, exiled from Spain and Portugal in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, turned to piracy on the high seas. Perhaps, the most famous Jewish pirate was Jean Lafitte, who was named after the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and played a critical role in winning the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. The book’s rather lengthy subtitle is an apt description: “How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom—and Revenge.”  Apparently the pirate ships kept kosher galleys and refrained from raiding other ships on Shabbat.  I did a little more research and found out a few other things about the Jewish pirates.

They came from the tribe of Isacharrrrrrr

They did their best pirating during the month of Adarrrrrrr

They read the torah- but only the book of Bamidbarrrrrr

They especially like the Prophet Zecharrrrriah

Their favorite holiday is Tu B’shevat—wait for it—because it’s the Jewish Arrrrbor Day.

 When they daven, they always do the Birkhot Hashacharrrrrrr

And of course, their Rabbi is certified by the ARRRRRR A

Online note: The above is much more fully appreciated when you watch the famous Pirate Convention sketch from Saturday Night Live. An excerpt of it is available on Hulu. (embedded below).