What's It All About, Afikomen?

Damn!
  I would have helped her look.

The Passover holiday which begins this year on the eve of Friday, April 22 is a truly magical time.  

Jewish families gather together to enjoy a lovely and traditional evening meal known as a Seder while recounting the ages old story of the very first Passover which celebrates freedom and features the needless deaths of thousands of people, including children, at the hands of pestilence, plagues, and the arbitrary whim of an often tyrannical and brutal Old Testament God.

Looks like somebody got up on the wrong side of the cloud!

But despite all this, Passover is probably the most fun of all the Jewish holidays, and one of the traditions that makes it so is the hiding of the Afikomen.

So, what's it all about, Afikomen? 

The Afikomen is half of a piece of matzo which has been broken in two early in the Seder and set aside to be eaten as a dessert after the meal. The name "Afikomen" comes from the ancient Hebrew and means "that which makes a dry and shitty dessert." 

The procedure is as follows: The leader of the Seder, known alternately as the Trebek or the Sajak, takes the middle piece of matzo out from a stack of three matzos and breaks it in half.  Nobody yells at him for this because the matzo is supposed to be broken, but his wife may yell at him later about other stuff. (Optional).

The Trebek or the Sajak then wraps the larger piece of matzo in a napkin, teaches it to answer to the name “Afikomen” and leaves the table to hide the Afikomen somewhere in the home. This enables the children, who may have become restless during the Seder, to engage in a little harmless fun ransacking the house.  It also provides the adults the opportunity to talk dirty.

To find the Afikomen, the children will search high and low, over and under, and to and fro.  They may also search hither and yon, but only if the house is zoned for it. They will empty cabinets, turn over lamps, and smash fine glassware. They will sack the house in the same manner as Alaric sacked Rome, and some may even bring in Alaric to consult. 

Here are some great places to hide the Afikomen:

1) Inside a book, especially if the Kardashians are your Seder guests.

2) Between the living room sofa cushions. Even the most intrepid youngster fears thrusting his or her hands into the change, chapsticks, combs, dentures, and whatever manner of man or beast is already lodged within. Frankly so do I.

3) In the sock drawer, where the socks may educate the Afikomen as to how to mysteriously vanish and turn up six months later wedged between the washer and dryer and covered with dust.

4)  Under the hood of the car. What Jewish person, adult or child, is ever going to look there?

When at long last one of the children locates and retrieves the Afikomen, he or presents it to the Trebek or the Sajak and in return receives a present, traditionally the tidy sum of one dollar.  With the changing times, however, that traditional present has changed. It is now a blender.

There's nothing like the delight in an 8 year old's eyes when he or she snags a four speed Waring blender!

Much as I enjoy the customs of Passover, there is a tinge of sadness of days of Afikomens gone by.  I'm no longer the child scrambling eagerly through my parents' house seeking the elusive matzo nor am I any longer the Trebek or Sajak -- or even the dad --- seeking the perfect hiding place for the next generation of Afikomens for my own kids. 

So, what's it all about, Afikomen? 

It's about memories, family, and tradition.  And for most of us, a hell of a lot better and sweeter desert at the end of the Seder than the Afikomen!

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 If you liked this post you may also like It's a Miracle!, In Search of Big Eli , and The Year We Built The Sukkah. 

If you hated this post, I hope you find yourself crossing the Red Sea, and just as you are almost fully across you hear a thundering voice echoing from on high majestically intoning "looks like you're shit out of luck, dude!"

The Return of the LOJM

The  LOJM? 

         

Of all the fearsome creatures that walk the Earth, none is more terrifying than the legendary beast known as the LOJM! (pronounced LOW-JIM) 

For the uninitiated - as well as the un-Jewish - the LOJM, also known as the "Little Old Jewish Man," is the monster that stalks Jewish males of a certain age. It's evil mission: to convince youthful good-looking sexually dynamic Jewish men that they incredibly appear 60 years old or more!  

And to my eternal damnation, I am one of its victims!

Although no one has ever seen the LOJM, it is theorized it looks like a cross between actor Mickey Rourke, the guy at the synagogue who probably knew Moses, and Nosferatu on a bad hair day. Whenever its victim looks in the mirror or has a picture taken, the LOJM leaps at blinding speed in front of the poor victim and completely obscures his handsome young face, replacing it with its hideous own!

And this is exactly what happens to me.  Whenever I try to get a picture taken, my naturally boyish grin, sultry sensuous features, and smoldering sexuality are nowhere to be seen.  In their place is the vile visage of the LOJM!

And even after completing this foul deception, the LOJM is still not finished. Somehow the creature has found a way, perhaps through mass hypnosis , to convince others that the picture actually looks just like the victim instead of like the grotesque distortion that it is!

Beware the LOJM!

All of this is of special concern to me because on September 12 I will be having a birthday. I will be 35 years old, the age I always am and ever will be. Someone will want to take a picture, however, and the LOJM will make sure to ruin it all!

Last year I had a unique idea. It seemed to me that the best way to fight one legendary Jewish creature was with another, so I called on the Golem of Prague. The Golem is a mighty giant constructed out of clay to protect the Jewish people in historical times of trouble, such as when gentiles would seek to force us to eat Jimmy Dean Pork Sausages. Not only would the Golem pound them into guacamole dip, but being a Reform Golem he would also eat up all the pork sausages.

"I cannot help you, Perry," said the Golem. "But next time you're being drawn and quartered by rabid mobs of anti-Semites, ring me up."

"But this is the LOJM, damn it!"

"Now that you mention it," muttered the Golem, "I haven't had a decent woodcut made since the turn of the 17th Century."

And so I convinced the Golem to show up at my small birthday celebration. The stage was now set:  one legendary Jew v. another, neither of which was a lawyer or in show business.  It was probably a first.

At the appointed moment, my son Brandon took the picture.

"Say no cheese," he  pronounced, taking into account my life-long food aversion.

At once the Golem leaped high in the air as if to swat the LOJM to the ground, banged his head on the ceiling, and dropped onto the floor.

"Did you see him?" I shouted. "Did you get him?"

"No, but I'm pretty sure I'm hemorrhaging Play-Doh."

The Golem and I now crowded around the picture. 

"Y'know, Perry, it does look just like you! Especially the dark circles, bulbous nose, and the comb over hair."

"Some defender of the Jews you are, Golem!"  I cried.

And the Golem was gone.

Hope he's more effective combating blood libel.

So how about you, Jewish men of a certain age?  Before you know it, it will be your 35th Birthday too (and again), just as it is about to be mine.  And the LOJM will be there, of that you can be assured.  The LOJM will always be there.

Be ready. Be prepared.

Beware the LOJM!

And don't expect much help from the Golem.  Unless you've brought Jimmy Dean Pork Sausages. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

April Foolsover

In a highly unusual year of the Hebrew calendar that has seen Hanukkah fall at the same time as Thanksgiving and a new word "Thanksgivukkah" created, there falls now yet another bizarre confluence of holidays.   Passover begins tonight with the first Seder of the holiday taking place at sundown.

For the first time in six centuries, the initial night of Passover 2014 - the annual retelling of the Hebrews' freedom from bondage in Egypt - falls as one with April Fool's Day.

"Isn't that awesome?!" said Orthodox Rabbi Perry Ben Vereen, head of the prestigious synagogue Temple Beth Ostrosky in Havertown PA. "Passover is one of our most important holidays, but it's almost impossible not to want to screw with it at a time like this!"

Rabbi Ben Vereen says he has a number of "tricks up his sleeve" for this evening, including substituting a large French Bread for matzoh, hiding a rubber chicken for children to find instead of the traditional afikomen, and of course placing whoopie cushions on the seats of all the Seder guests, including Mrs. Ben Vereen.

Many ideas for April Foolsover pranks can be found on the website JewFool 2014, including a host of suggestions for making it appear Elijah the Prophet really has shown up at your house, guzzled the wine left for him, and groped several of the guests.  

"This year," laughed Rabbi Ben Vereen, "I'm going to provide the Traditional Four Questions with multiple choice answers and make at least two of the three wrong answers zany!  I'm going to pad out the original ten plagues like water turning to blood,  boils, and death of the first born with new ones like watching Tracy Morgan's stand-up and having to give an enema to Ted Nugent. 

"And finally," Rabbi Ben Vereen added, "I'm going to announce I'm leaving Mrs. Ben Vereen for a blonde shikseh!"

Better have fun tonight, Seder goers, because Passover and April Fool's Day won't fall together again until 2223.  

 April Fool!  

It's actually next year.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hangin' Haman

The holiday of Purim is a relatively minor though fun Jewish holiday that comes in March. There's dress-up in costumes like Esther and Mordecai and the other characters in the Purim story, a carnival with games and prizes, and a delicious pastry called hamantashen shaped like the hat of the villain, Haman, who is hung at story's end.

One additional tradition of the holiday is the amusing game called  Hang Haman, the Jewish version of Hangman.  Through this charming custom, Jewish children the world over have fun while experiencing the unvarnished delight of bloodthirsty revenge and learning all about the joys of capital punishment. 

It's Purim now in a home somewhere in America:

"Hi, Joel! Hiya, Max!"

"Dad, Happy Purim!"

"You too, boys.  Ha, ha! You guys killing Haman again?"

"Yeah, Dad!  Joel's been missing a lot of words at Hang Haman, so we've been stretching that bastard's neck all afternoon!"

"Wonderful! Look at those rope burns! And what have you done there, Joel?"

"Max missed one word so badly that hanging seemed too good for Haman. So we changed the game so that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson worked over Haman until Max got the next word!"

"Coooool!  Looks like he beat the pulp out of him! What word did you miss, Max?"

"Decapitation, Dad!" 

"That's a common word, son.  Missing that might have warranted castration of Haman instead of Dwayne Johnson knocking his head in."

"If only we thought of that!  But at least we used the word castration earlier in the game."

"Dad ... what's that?  A tear in your eye?" 

"I'm just so proud of you guys and the wanton and vicious manner in which you hang Haman!"

"We had a good teacher, Dad."

And the delightful  tradition that is Hang Haman doesn't stop there. There are various other versions of the game played around the globe such as Draw & Quarter Haman,  Play ABBA Over & Over for Haman, and  Governor Christie Sit On Haman. 

Now Haman truly was a bad guy.  In addition to trying to destroy the Jewish people, he was never around when you needed help moving  and would frequently hog the sports section even after you told him you just wanted it for a second!  He deserved what he got. 

But doesn't making his death into a spectator sport perhaps sends a bit of a wrong message? And in truth Hang Haman is just a tiny part of Purim that hopefully has been de-emphasized in recent years.  So for me,  I'm content in 2014 to forgo battering the living daylights out of Haman and just eat his hat. 

Maybe this time around, sans chapeau, he'll simply catch cold and die.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Come on in! The Coffee’s Cold and the Bagels Mummified II

Oh, you made it!  Nice to see you, thanks for coming!

Welcome to the Temple Boray Perry Men’s Club Sunday morning meeting, a/k/a “I’m so desperate to get out of the house I’d come here even if I weren’t married to a Jew!”

I'll be kicking off the formal meeting in a minute.  Damn it, I hate it when I use the expression "kicking off!" At my age, I'll be depressed all day.  

Okay, may I have your attention please? I'm president of the Men's Club Al Rothman and I just want to take few moments to welcome one and few. 

Now all of you feel free to grab yourself some coffee and a bagel. Unfortunately the coffee is about as hot as a date with Martha Stewart and the bagels feel as if they were formerly property of the National Hockey League. That’s the last time I pick up our Sunday morning nosh from a place with pictures of Ted Cruz on the wall. 

As you all know, this year we will soon be celebrating the holiday of Thanksgivukkah as Hanukkah and Thanksgiving fall together for the first time since 1888 and the last time for thousands of years. Other than Abe Vigoda, there are few Jews who will experience it all three times.

In honor of  Thanksgivukkah, I'm delighted to announce that this Friday after shul there will be a special Men's Club pageant entitled "Mayflower Mishigoss," in which the story of the first Thanksgiving will be presented with the Pilgrims portrayed as Jews. Frankly it would have been easier to put on a Christmas Pageant with everyone portrayed as Jews because at least in that scenario everybody was a Jew!

It is my privilege to play the role of Governor Bradford, the leader of the expedition. This is ironic because in real life I get nauseous playing with the boats in my bathtub. Had I been on the Mayflower, fifteen minutes out of Plymouth Harbor I would have been hanging over the edge of ship hastily reconsidering my criticisms of the Church of England.

"So I'll be a gentile!" I'd be saying to myself. "Beats barfing for the next three months!"

And so the Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock and immediately begin starving to death just as they'd been practicing for months before leaving England. Then one day into their midst strides Squanto, and Squanto teaches the Pilgrims how to feed themselves by tilling the soil and working the land.

Lessons which save the colony but didn't stick with most of  us Jews all that long.

Thanks to Squanto, the year's harvest is as rich as the doctor I hope my daughter Gretchen will marry, and the Pilgrims decide to have a celebratory feast, fully catered.  The feasting lasts days and ends only when everyone present, Pilgrim and Native American alike, is plotzed-on-the-sofa-in-front of-football-on-TV-open-mouthed-snoring-like a-son-of-a-bitch! 

Crap!  Guess I should have announced a Spoiler Alert.  Oh well, come for the free nosh anyway.

Thanks, gentlemen!  

Say, anybody wanna run out to Wawa and get us some real coffee?  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here Comes Thanksukkah/Hanusgiving!

As most of you now know, this year through some bizarre confluence of the Hebrew Calendar with the Western Gregorian Calendar, many people are looking up the word "confluence." Additionally for the first time since 1888,  the usually close-to-a-month apart holidays of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving will strikingly coincide.

This unique situation presents a singular opportunity for two traditional underdog holidays both regularly overshadowed by Christmas to team up and take on the champ. Think of it as Rocky times two vs. Apollo Creed.  And together as one, Thanksukkah/Hanusgiving* have more than enough seasonal goods to give Christmas a run for its over commercialized money.

There's 12 collective days of holiday if we count Thanksgiving as four, great food, presents for the kids, interesting backstories, spinning dreidels, shoes with adorable buckles, Hannukah Gelt, lots of pie, and a common and well resonating message of religious freedom and tolerance.   The only drawbacks are the six or more days of leftover turkey forced feedings associated with Thanksgiving and Hannukah Gelt itself, which tastes only marginally better than the gold wrapping in which it comes.

Interestingly enough, there have been at least five other relatively recent instances in which  two usually widely time-disparate holidays have managed to coincide:

1)  Christmas and the Fourth of July.  Of course many of you aren't old enough to remember when Christmas and the Fourth of July fell together on the same date for the first time in 56 years in 1974.  It was a banner year for the City of Philadelphia as pilgrims worldwide converged on the Quaker City and led light stick processions to Independence Hall, many of them wearing small replicas of the Liberty Bell around their necks.  The Pope that year held a special Christmas Eve Mass in which he mentioned all four Philadelphia sports teams by name.

It seemed in 1974 that there were carolers on every street corner favoring seasonal fireworks shoppers with old favorites like "Rudolph, the Red, White, and Blue Nosed Reindeer," and '74 was the year that Santa Claus and Uncle Sam --- long suspected to be one and the same --- were finally outed when Uncle Sam  forgot to tightly fasten his 490 pound fat suit before diving down the chimney of one Ralph Merkle of Jersey City NJ, as captured in the now mega-familiar photo at right.

2) Mardi Gras and Labor Day. When these two holidays fell as one in 1952, Labor Day with its ever depressing augury of the end of summer knocked Mardi Gras for a loop from which it almost never recovered.  Jazz bands remained unbooked, drunk and disorderly arrests were down sharply nationwide, and many people reluctantly went out to buy notebooks for the new school year.  In New Orleans, the bars were closed.

 3) Memorial Day and New Year's Day.  These two holidays have already coincided three times in this century alone but it being that both holidays fell the day after New Year's Eve, no one ever noticed.

4) Groundhog's Day and Valentine's Day. The unusual confluence of these two holidays in February 1911 proved a bitter pill for their two putative iconic symbols, Puxatawney Phil and Cupid, rumored to hate each other almost as much as Adam Sandler hates being funny. Tirelessly working the small town of Puxatawney for 24 hours in 11 degree weather in an effort to show up his laconic rival, Cupid had to be treated for severe hypothermia and partial loss of a wing after producing only a handful of engagements and one lukewarm seduction while Phil for his part saw his shadow and promptly received over 7,000 proposals of marriage.

5) Simchat Torah and Shavuos.  Simchat Torah normally takes place in the early fall and Shavuos takes place in late spring.  Unfortunately no Jewish person other than the most extreme among the Orthodox knows enough about them to write a halfway decent joke here.

So will Thanksukkah/Hanusgiving come out swinging this year and finally deck the holiday that "decks the halls?"  I dunno.

We'll have to see what Santa has up his sleeve. 

 Or Uncle Sam in his fat suit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*aka Thanksgivukkah  (I actually wrote this piece before I heard that term.)

This piece also appeared in the Broad Street Review on November 6, 2013.  They went with my original title even though they knew better.
 

Pain Free Fast at Last

The Jewish High Holy Days are truly a special time of year, but to many Jewish people and especially those who enjoy the act of consuming food, there is one part of the Days of Awe that can be somewhat less than awe-inspiring.  That’s the day-long fast that takes place during Yom Kippur.

I have always wondered why any protracted period of time without food is called a fast because there’s nothing like a fast for making time go slow. And by sundown on Yom Kippur time has proceeded so slowly for many Jews that not only does it seem as if they are back in tenth grade Geometry class,  some actually hand in homework to their old teacher.

How to handle the Yom Kippur fast so your digestive system doesn’t beg you to atone for what you’ve done to it?   Here are a few suggestions:

Eat to excess prior to the holiday.  This is one you’ll love: eat not only as if food is going out of style but eat as if whatever comes into style to replace food is also going out of style. Start around late August and do not stop until sundown of the eve of, the day of, the fast of.  You will gain weight until you resemble the love child of actress Kirstie Alley and actress Kirstie Alley, if such were possible, and when the holiday comes your food forbearance will seem like a miracle akin to manna not dropping from the heavens.

Associate food with enemies of the Jewish People.

Food is not your friend!  In every day and every age, food has risen up and sought to destroy the Jewish people by inducing diabetes in our ancestors from wicked excesses of added sugar. Associate all baked goods with the doughy pastry engendered by Haman's tri-cornered hat, keeping in mind if you ever wore a stupid hat like that you'd have to forget about getting any fine women and set your sights on Mayim Bialik as she looks in The Big Bang Theory.  And try mentally linking all middle Eastern food with Pharaoh, whose heart was hardened not by God, but by excessive levels of the bad cholesterol.  

Reflect upon how the act of fasting will build your character. Yes, you are like Gandhi in your strength and commitment! From this day forward you will face the world with new confidence, dignity, and purpose!  There you are sitting in a lotus position clad in a towel after many hours of reverential fasting .... and .... and .... there you go ripping your way to the refrigerator, knocking over whoever's in your way,  and feeding like a horse in a trough from the vanilla mint chip!

Yep.  Ain't nothing like confidence, dignity, and purpose.

Imagine you are in the movie “The Exterminating Angel.” This is a classic movie by director Luis Bunuel in which guests at a fancy dinner party are inexplicably unable to leave the party no matter how hard they try. Imagine you are in the same predicament at Uncle Morty and Aunt Sarah’s last Passover where the matzoh balls were like hand grenades and somebody apparently stuck a soapbox under weird Uncle Harris who calls Sean Hannity "a flaming liberal."

And you can't leave.   Still feel like pounding down the brisket?

Realize Things Could Be Worse. Back in Biblical days the Jewish people used to practice animal sacrifice with goats, sheep, or any animal that couldn't outrun them, most Jews admittedly not being track stars.  If going a whole day without chowing down is your idea of animal sacrifice with you as the animal, imagine if each and every Yom Kippur you were required to go forth unto the land and slay something. Unless it were slaying 'em at the Palace, I'd say having to postpone your bagel and cream cheese until sundown would be a lot more copacetic than kicking the crap out of cow.

Fantasize about fasting leading to a wonderful occurrence in your life. As you leave the synagogue, imagine that the woman of your dreams weak from hunger passes out directly into your arms.  Romance ensues.  Hot sexual union is consummated faster than you can say "Shtupping!, " if in fact, you can say "shtupping" at all.

Yes, thank you, Day-Long Fast, thank you! 

That is, unless your wife is around to witness the above referenced wonderful occurrence, leaving you embarrassed,  deflated, and all set with some heavy ass atoning to do next Yom Kippur.  

And also, not to mention, hungry! 

Happy New Year, Everyone!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Happy Birthday, Planet Earth

"Happy Birthday to you,  You have millions of zoos ...."

This year, by some quirk of the Hebrew Calendar, the Jewish New Year comes early and falls around the time of my birthday on September 12. Since the period of the New Year lasts from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, this year September 5-14, and the New Year celebrates the anniversary of the Earth's creation (just go with it, folks),  in 2013 Planet Earth and I are celebrating our birthdays together!

That is, if you can call my birthday at this fakakta age anything to celebrate.

"Happy Birthday to us, Happy Birthday to us .... Hey, Planet Earth, Happy Birthday!

You're not going to wish it back to me? Oh, the awful singing. Sorry!

So you're 5774 years old now, Planet Earth? You don't look bad for your age. A few fissures here and there, you're losing some rain forest, you're a bit flabby in the Governor of New Jersey Department, but not too bad overall.  Definitely better than Joan Rivers.  Umm, aren't you going to repay the compliment? 

What's that? I look like crap for 63? Thank you very much! Y'know some people say you lie about your age, you're actually billions of years old.  Fuck me?!!!  That's not very nice, but what can you expect from a planet that houses ABBA!

Cheap shot?  Yeah, but you deserved it!

By the way, Welcome to Virgo, Planet Earth!  It's the lamest possible sign of the Zodiac for a guy.  Oh! You're a chick! I should have realized - Mother Earth. But Virgo the Virgin isn't such a great Zodiac sign for women either. Why? Because it implies you're .... But you're not, you're not!  I think Europe is especially fetching. Tell me, what kind of year did you have when you were just a kid at 5773?

I see. Middle East. Shootings. No gun regulation. Tornadoes. Hurricane Sandy. Tea Party. Ben Affleck as the new Batman. Jesus, you had almost as bad a year as I did!

So, how do you plan to celebrate your birthday? Having some people over? A couple of million? I'll have to bring out the folding chairs then. Who's coming? Mostly Jews? Why's that? Oh, because they buy into your age fetish.  Gee, guess you don't reminisce too much about the Pre-Cambrian Period when they're around!

Me? Gonna spend a quiet birthday writing.  How's my writing career going? Hey, nice of you to ask, Planet Earth!  Not bad, don't have a lot of fans, but I think I'm on my way to some kind of success. What's that? They'll solve global warming first?  Thanks, you spherical shithead, I hope you fry you ass off! 

After I'm dead of course." 

So I kid Planet Earth.  He's ... I mean she's ... been around for 4 or 5 billion years, or at least 5,000 or so if you're a Jew. Either way, she can take it.

Happy Birthday, Planet Earth!  Hope you have a Happy and Healthy Year!

For all our sakes. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Summertime for the Secular, or Jewish Enough?

Nobody's that desperate!

For we secular Jews who are long on Jewish heritage but short on religious practice, the summer can be a strange time. 

 There are no major Jewish holidays from June to September to ground us religiously, which tends to leave some of us feeling ... well ... not quite Jewish enough! 

"Charlie, glad you came over, " I said to my similarly secularly-oriented friend last Friday night. "What would you like to do?"

"How about we watch The Daily Show?" said Charlie.

"Nah," I answered.  "That John Oliver is good, but it just isn't the same without Jon Stewart."

"I agree.  Maybe there's a good film we can watch.  You know, I'd like to see a Judd Apatow movie, maybe Funny People is on HBO?"

"You mean the one with Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, and Jason Schwartzman?   Pity, doesn't look like it's on."

"Crap!  Well, we could catch some re-runs of Seinfeld.  They're always on."

"No, they seem to be off. "

"There's gotta be something to watch!" grumbled Charlie.

"Oh my God!"  I gasped. "I just realized something!" 

"What is it?"

"It's summer, and I don't feel Jewish enough!"

"You're right!  What can we do?"

"I'll check the cable listings again.  There's got to be a Ben Stiller movie on!"

"Yes, he comes out with one  every couple of weeks."

"I can't even find DodgeBall, the Movie!  No Ben Stiller movie.  What are the odds?"

"Larry King!  Check out Larry King!"

"Don't you remember?  He was replaced by Piers Morgan."

"Then look up Maury Povich!  Jerry Springer!  Donny Deutsch!"

"Charlie, nobody's that desperate for a Jewish experience."

"Well then put on C-Span.  Maybe we can luck into Chuck Schumer or Barbara Boxer.  I'd settle for Eric Cantor!"

"Oh no, look!  It's a meeting of the North Dakota Congressional Delegation.  You can't get more gentile than that. "

"I think I've got an idea, Perry."

"Anything! Out with it!"

"Why don't we go to synagogue?"

"You know ... that's a pretty good idea.  And look at this."

"What?"

"When we get back, there's a Three Stooges film festival at 10:00!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Purim's Red Carpet

Sure Passover is more meaningful and at Hanukkah you get presents for eight nights if you work it right, but only at Purim do the Jewish people have both a Pageant and Carnival! 

And this year Purim --- the Feast of Esther commemorating the victory of the Jews over the evil Haman in ancient Persia ---  falls squarely at the same time as the 2013 Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Annual Awards.  Ya know, the Oscars! 

And so this year, we're ... 

LIVE ON THE RED CARPET

 At the 2013 Academy Awards &
Purim Pageant & Carnival Celebration!

"Hello again, everyone!  I'm Lara Spencer from ABC's Good Morning, Insipid America! Tonight on the Red Carpet we'll  meet and chat with the A-Listers starring in the Academy Awards Purim Pageant and Carnival's retelling of the the story of Esther!

It's gonna be a BIG MEGILLAH!*

Vashti! Vashti!  Get over here!  Ladies and Gentlemen, here's Jennifer Lawrence as King Ahasuerus' ill-fated first wife Vashti!

"Hi, Lara!  Hello, everybody! My first year as Vashti, this is so epic!

"Yes, it is a big year for you, Jennifer, what with Silver Linings Playbook and The Hunger Games." 

"Forget those, Lara!  Here at the Purim Carnival we've got Carnival Games!  Including bean bag tosses!"

"Of course, Vashti is banished by King Ahasuerus for refusing to appear naked in front of his drinking buddies.  See that kind of modesty starting a trend in Hollywood, Jennifer?"

"No way, Lara. Ever watched Girls on HBO? Next thing you know Jonah Hill's gonna be droppin' trou!"

"Well, good luck with the banishment, Jennifer --- I mean, the banishment from Hollywood if you don't win the Oscar!"

"And this next  face needs no introduction: The Legendary Bobby DeNiro!"

"Great to be back here as the King, Lara!  Haven't played  Ahasuerus since 1995 with Jimmy Woods as Mordecai!"

"How does the role of Ahasuerus  compare to your other great roles, Bobby?"

"I see King Ahasuerus as Don Corleone minus 75 IQ points.  Here's a guy with a hot wife in Vashti who wants to take off her clothes only for him, and he trades her in for a Jewish wife who wants to take off her clothes only for the alterations person at Bloomingdales!"

"So true, Bobby!  Tell me, are you going to make an uncomfortable rambling speech at this year's Purim Pageant?

"Of course, Lara, it's my trademark." 

"We'll look forward to squirming through that!" 

"Here's that guy  --- Mordecai!  And it's everyone's favorite perfect guy, Hugh Jackman!'

"Great to be playing a steadfast, stalwart, square-jawed, handsome, heroic, noble, save-the-day, Supermanish type, Lara!  Again." 

"Is there nothing you can't do, Hugh?"

"Make all the other guys in the world feel less insecure?"

"And now ... could it be ... yes, it's the annoying sound of hundreds of groggers!  Sounds like a swarm of bees that's just had lunch at Lance Armstrong's buttocks.  And here's  our Haman, none other than Christoph Waltz!

"It's wonderful to be here, Lara!  My first time out as Haman, so happy to be playing another great anti-Semitic villain."

"You've got big shoes to fill, Christoph, the role having been played by Mel Gibson for many years."

"Yes, it's a tough act to follow. And me with Jewish children yet!  If you don't mind, Lara, gonna go love me some hamentaschen!"

"And now all the way from the Princess Diaries to Queen Esther herself --- Anne Hathaway!"

"Oh, Lara, it's wonderful to play the Queen at Purim!" 

"Gorgeous gown, Anne! How have you been preparing for this big role?"

"Married me a Jewish guy this past year, Lara, and for the last month I've done nothing but play Hang Haman!"**

"That's our great Purim Pageant cast, Ladies and Gentlemen!  The Pageant is going to be starting momentarily; for those of  you who want to watch the actual Academy Awards, it's on line somewhere, look it up.

And tomorrow on GMIA, we'll have exclusive coverage of me, Josh Elliott, and Christolph Waltz rockin' those Carnival bean bag games! 

You won't wanna miss it!

Now if you don't mind, folks, gonna go love me some hamantaschen!

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If you liked  this post, you might also like Purim: You Are Who You Eat,  Go Down, Twitter, and It's A Miracle.

If you hated this post,  I hope you have a lousy Purim!

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Not a Member of the Tribe? 

* Big Megillah --- a big deal
**Hang Haman --- Purim version of Hangman. Yep, we make it personal, folks!