14 Jun
2010 November-December, Arts, Culture

The Fockers Trinity

The third installment in the popular Fockers franchise comes out just in time for the holidays. Like its predecessors, Little Fockers sets out to have fun with a Christian-Jewish love story. In the 2000 original, the $500 million-grossing Meet the Parents, Jewish nurse Greg aka Gaylord or sometimes Gay Focker (Ben Stiller) wants to marry Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo) and is forced to confront uptight WASP culture as represented by her father, ex-CIA agent Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro) and his demure wife Dina (Blythe Danner). In the even bigger moneymaker, the 2004 Meet the Fockers, the Byrnes experience a dizzying culture clash as they get to know Greg’s conspicuously Jewish parents—Bernie (Dustin Hoffman) and Roz (Barbra Streisand). Throughout both films, Greg must endure Jack’s numerous tests of manhood to prove his worth. The humor...

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11 Jun
2008 November-December, Arts & Culture, Jewish World

Will the Real Shrek Please Stand Up?

Children love Shrek, the sweet green ogre and beloved cartoon character who starred, thanks to DreamWorks, in “his” first flick in 2001. What most don’t know—nor do their parents—is that the word shrek is Yiddish for terror or fear. Why would they? The word isn’t to be found in Leo Rosten’s 1971 classic, Joys of Yiddish, or any of its sequels and is rarely mentioned in other Yiddish-English compendiums. Still, it’s common Yiddish, entering the language from German. In Yiddish it is most frequently used as an adjective, shreklekh, as in shreklekh zach (a terrible thing) or shreklekh imgick (something horrible). Shrek foygl is a scarecrow. The chasm between the word’s actual meaning and today’s charming ogre can be traced to a 1990 children’s book, titled Shrek! by William Steig. Steig, who died in 2003, had...

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11 Jun
2009 July-August, Culture, Food, Talk of the Table

Jewish Fizz: Seltzer, Egg Creams & Cel-Ray

by Joan Alpert The old joke goes like this: An elderly Jewish man falls on a New York street on a hot summer day; a doctor rushes through the gathering crowd, checks the man’s pulse, and declares, “He fainted from the heat; get him water.” The old man raises his head and moans, “Make that seltzer.” In another version, he cries for an egg cream, and in still another, he calls for a Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray. Carbonated water, the primary ingredient of these three Jewish champagnes, appeared first in European spas as a medicinal drink. Natural sparkling mineral water from the springs of a German village, Nieder-Selters—the linguistic origin for seltzer—was bottled and sold as early as 1728 in earthenware jugs, according to Barry Joseph, founder of Givemeseltzer.com and author of a forthcoming book on seltzer’s history....

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25 Mar
2009 March-April, Culture, Food, History, Religion

Maxwell House Hagaddah: Good to the Last Page

In 1923, when Maxwell House Coffee signed on with the Joseph Jacobs Advertising agency in New York, it was already a legend. Theodore Roosevelt supposedly drank a cup in 1907 at the Nashville hotel for which it was named, proclaiming it “good to the last drop.” Fortune smiled even more on the brand when Jacobs conceived a plan to entice American Jews to serve the coffee at their Seders. First, he lined up a prominent rabbi to assure Jews that coffee beans were not forbidden legumes but fruit. Then he convinced his client to underwrite America’s first mass-marketed Haggadah. When it appeared in 1934, free with the purchase of a can of coffee, the Maxwell House Haggadah swiftly revolutionized how American Jews celebrated Passover. Until the coffee company moved into publishing, Haggadahs were fluid in text...

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The Sweet Story of Charoset: what it is and recipes from around the world.
25 Mar
2009 March-April, Food

The Sweet Story of Charoset

Charoset, that aromatic ensemble of fruits, nuts, spices and wine, may be the tastiest traditional food on the Seder plate, but why it is there is a matter of debate. The Torah does not command us to eat it, and, in fact, never mentions charoset at all. Nor is there a blessing for it in the Haggadah. Yet its connection to Passover is ancient. Charoset first comes up in the Mishnah, the authoritative transcription of oral laws written around 200 CE, when describing items on the Passover table: “unleavened bread and lettuce and charoset, even though the charoset is not a commandment.” David Arnow, author of Creating Lively Passover Seders, and others believe that charoset may have come to the Passover ritual through the influence of ancient Greek civilization. The Greeks held symposiums during which free...

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05 Mar
2012 March-April, History, Issues, Religion

Messiah Mania: A Short History of Four Jews and Their Legacies

Jesus Simon Bar Kokhba Shabbtai Tzvi Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson No one can verify the exact number, but to date, Judaism has rejected at least 24 Jews claiming to be the Messiah. The religion’s deep skepticism is reflected in the advice of the first-century sage Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakai, who said that if you are planting a tree and someone tells you that the Messiah has come, finish planting the tree and then go to greet him. But this hasn’t stopped the following larger-than-life men from inspiring thousands, even millions, of followers, and from deeply influencing Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Western civilization. Jesus  (4 BCE – 33 CE) During Jesus’ lifetime, there were numerous Jewish revolts against the oppressive rule of Rome. Persecution was so intense and life so difficult that some Jews believed the end of time had already arrived and...

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