No More Sukkah, Time for Hanukkah and the Spinagogue
By Dan Friedman
Proving that Jewish consumer culture is devouring the calendar every bit as voraciously as any other culture in America, Modern Tribe has just sent out notice of the home they have built for the dreidel — the “Spinagogue.”
Homelessness and hunger are indeed terrible problems in our world. Glad that Sarah Silverman and Modern Tribe are turning their attention to them. Viva Tikkun Olam.
Plans for Kislev?
By Dan Friedman
What are your plans for Kislev 5769? People around the world are lighting the candles in a multitude of different ways, but always left to right, others have chosen to show communal solidarity on 28th and 29th Kislev by volunteering at hospitals and soup kitchens.
President Bush celebrated Kislev by flying to Iraq and dodging a pair of shoes. But Brad Cohen, author of the book “Front of the Class” — and de facto spokesman for Tourette’s Syndrome — anchored the White House Hanukkah Reception for him while he was away. Tourette’s is a serious and generally misunderstood syndrome but, in the same way as it’s okay to envy a man’s wheelchair seat at a five-hour march, it would be great to meet the leader of the free world — or her husband — and have carte blanche to say anything you wanted to her.
December 15, 2008, 9:46pm
Faux Hasidim, Real Hasid Unite on Network TV…
By Daniel Treiman
…to sing a dreidel song on “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.” The real Hasid is Bostoner Hasid/rapper Y-Love. The fellows in the fake beards are Erran Baron Cohen (brother of “Borat” comic Sacha) and his band. The song is from Erran’s new album “Songs in the Key of Hanukkah.” The motley crew’s performance can be viewed here — at the end of the show. (It was, by the way, a very Jew-y episode of “Late Night,” with the dreidel song preceded by a fun appearance by perennially popular comic matador Don Rickles.)
UPDATE: Turns out Y-Love is no longer a Hasid. Back in June he told Jewcy: “I am no longer Chassidish. I converted Chassidish and I davened in Chassidish shuls until like 2005. But my rav is Sephardi.” Oops.
Hanukkah Shopping With Rod
By Dan Friedman
There are only five more shopping days until Hanukkah and the country is slipping into the deepest recession in nearly a century. What to buy your loved ones? Well, taking their cue from what appears to be a Jew-free scandal, the folks at Funny or Die have a furniture suggestion.
December 12, 2007, 2:48pm
Only in New York: Hanukkah Subway Attack Was a Multi-Ethnic Mash-up
By Daniel Treiman
I never thought that there would be a Hanukkah-related brawl on my favorite subway line — let alone one that would dominate the front pages of New York’s tabloids.As the alleged victims of the attack tell the story to the Daily News, the four of them boarded a Brooklyn-bound Q-train after celebrating Hanukkah at a bar in Manhattan. They were carrying a menorah and dreidels. A larger group of young straphangers shouted “Merry Christmas” at them, to which 21-year-old Angelica Krischanvich responded, “Happy Hanukkah.”
Next, Krischanvich told the News, “[One woman said,] ‘You can’t say that, we are Catholic.’” Krischanvich continued: “That’s when two guys stood up and showed us their Jesus tattoos. They started yelling at us and telling us we have no savior.”
“I started to yell back when one of them spat in my face. I didn’t let it bother me, and I told him, ‘Jesus turned the other cheek,’ and that is when the fight started.”
“They said, ‘You dirty Jews, you killed Jesus on Chanukah, you should all die,’” Baruch College student Maria Parsheva told the News. She said a member of the other group pulled a knife and waved it close to her face.
The News reports that three of Hanukkah revelers suffered bruises and cuts in the fracas.
The Daily News reports that police wound up arresting 10 members of the larger group, charging them with various offenses, including assault, menacing and inciting a riot. The police are reportedly still investigating whether the incident was a hate crime.
Here’s where the story turns crazy New York multicultural:
December 7, 2007, 3:01pm
Hanukkah Special: Petite Smoked Ham, Only $6.99 Per Pound
By Daniel Treiman
Manhattan grocer Balducci’s had a holiday treat for Jewish shoppers: Hanukkah hams!Novelist NancyKay Shapiro happened upon the discounted hams and snapped some pictures of the store’s signage. Following up on Shapiro’s discovery, the Daily News reports:
A Balducci’s official was so verklempt about the error he didn’t want to speak on the record. He fessed up that “it was a mistake,” blaming it on a stock clerk who normally doesn’t work the meat department.
December 6, 2007, 5:01pm
Hanukkah Dichotomy: Miracles vs. Maccabees
By Daniel Treiman
As I noted earlier on this blog, atheist firebrand Christopher Hitchens finds Hanukkah wholly objectionable, whether it’s the miracle or the Maccabees’ Hasmonean dynasty. The JTA’s Ami Eden takes him to task for lumping the two aspects of the holiday together:
By emphasizing the miracle of the oil, the rabbis in the Talmud were essentially attempting to write the Hasmonean rulers that Hitchens so detests out of the story. Yes, the rabbis’ narrative is still an anti-Greek one, but even from Hitchens’ perspective, this shift in emphasis should be seen as progress.
Over on Jewcy, cartoonist par excellence, Eli Valley, and his iconoclastic collaborator, David Kelsey, offer their own comic take on Hanukkah, combining the acid assessment of Hitchens with Eden’s nuance.
Hitch: The Hanukkah Miracle Is for 'Credulous Peasants'
By Daniel Treiman
“God Is Not Great” author” Christopher Hitchens hates Hanukkah. And Christmas, too. No surprises there. One wonders though, how he feels about Chrismukkah?
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