Random question: I've heard that nobody in Britain prints hekshers on their food labels, so everyone who wants to buy kosher food wanders around with little booklets that list kosher-certified brands/products (I hope y'all have an app for this now!). This seems to me like a horrible move on the part of food manufacturers--why would you make it harder for your customers to choose your product, to pioneer new certified products, and simultaneously reduce the number of non-Jewish people who seek out a kosher product (in the US, a large portion of the kosher market is non-Jews who are allergic to, say, dairy, and like being able to buy parve things, or who have some silly notion that kosher food is "better for you")? The only company I know of doing something like this in the US is Kellog, which is under supervision by some Vaad in MA but insists on printing only a K on their boxes. So I suppose my questions are:
1. Why don't they print hekshers and make everyone's life easier? 2. If you're a kashrut-observant Jew in Britain (or anywhere else that has a similar practice vis a vis labeling kosher food), what do you think about this? Does it bother you? Do you like it, and if so, why? Do you think everyone Stateside is crazy for having printed hekshers on our food? 3. What are the packaging labels for things like halal/vegan/gluten-free/non-GMO food like in Britain? Are those clearly labeled, or do you have to look that up, too?
So my mother had an odd request for me last night and I know this group is the place that can help me if anywhere can.
She is looking for the lyrics to "Chad Gad Yah" in Yiddish (as opposed to the aramaic). I have found a few YouTube videos and I have found a fe sites with general info in yiddish, but I have yet to find the complete song in Yiddish in text format. I searched for the operative phrase "געקויפט אַ ציגעלע" (bought a goat) and even "געקויפט אַ ציג". But nothing was quite right.
Can anyone help here? Do we have some yiddish experts in our midst? It probably doesn't help that while I can understand the language for the most part, and I can read hebrew, I have a hard time reading yiddish. So who knows, I might have already found the lyrics I just couldn't read enough words to quite make it out.
I encourage everyone to take 90 minutes sometime to watch this PBS Great Performances documentary, which is free online. Amazing interviews and clips, and you'll never listen to "It Ain't Necessarily So" the same way again!
I've seen the occasional photo of a cool looking kittel, but surely there must be somewhere out there that one can order a modern style of kittel (without it being ostentatious or expensive), no?
4. THE TREE MUST BE BRIGHT GREEN. BRIGHT RED, OR A MIXTURE OF GREEN AND RED, IS ALSO ACCEPTABLE FOR A XMAS TREE(10), BUT BROWN IS NOT. THERE MAY BE ONE BROWN SPOT NEAR THE BOTTOM OF THE TREE,(11) BUT IN THE TOP HALF OF THE TREE, EVEN ONE BROWN SPOT WILL PASSUL THE TREE. A TRULY PIOUS PERSON WILL MAKE SURE TO BRING ALONG A XMAS TREE EXPERT WHEN HE GOES TO LOOK FOR HIS TREE.(12)
. . .
3. THE "HOLIDAY PARTY", IN ORDER TO BE DONE PROPERLY, REQUIRES A GREAT DEAL OF RITUAL DRINKING AND DEBAUCHERY. "AD'LOYADA" - ONE MUST DRINK AND CONTINUE DRINKING UP TO(28) THE POINT HE CANNOT TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HIS FAT DUMPY WIFE AND HIS GORGEOUS 22 YEAR-OLD BLOND SECRETARY.(29)
(28) In this case, "up to" means "ad v'lo ad b'clal" - "up to but NOT including" the point when he cannot tell the difference. Once one has reached this point he is excused from further drinking. See next note for more details. (29) The example above presumes that he is a male, and his secretary is a female. However, if his secretary is male, and he has reached the point where he cannot tell the difference between his fat dumpy wife and his handsome 22 year-old blond male secretary, then he is forbidden to drink any more alcohol until Purim.
4. ALL BANKS AND OFFICES MUST CLOSE AT NOON(30) ON THE 24TH OF DECEMBER SO THAT EVERYONE MAY BE ABLE TO GET HOME IN TIME TO TAKE CARE OF THE LAST MINUTE PREPARATIONS.
(30) Retail establishments remain open until 4 PM on Erev Xmas, and Toys 'R' Us until midnight. Denny's never closes.
Edit: OMG I'm having flashbacks to the Maxwell House Haggadah:
VI. The festive meal 1. AFTER TZEIS HAKOCHAVIM, THE FAMILY GATHERS TOGETHER FOR THE EREV XMAS MEAL. THERE ARE VARIOUS OPINIONS AS TO WHAT IS TO BE EATEN AT THIS MEAL. ONLY FISH IS TO BE EATEN AT THE EREV XMAS MEAL.(31) ITALIANS HAVE THE MINHAG OF EATING 12 FISHES(32) AT THIS MEAL CORRESPONDING TO THE 12 DAYS OF XMAS.
(31) When Erev Xmas is on Friday, and the seudah coincides with the first Shabbos meal, only gefilte fish may be used. (32) Even on Shabbos, one can easily reach 12 different kinds of gefilte fish: Rabbi Yosi HaGlili said, How can we show that four different fishes can make twelve different dishes? Because we ate four different fishes in Egypt, (whitefish, pike, carp, and whitefish-pike,) but we are now able to buy them three different ways. We can buy them ready-to-eat in jars, frozen in loaves, or ground raw at the fish store. Now, it follows that if there were four different species, then there are 12 different gefilte fishes. Rabbi Eliezer said, How can we show that each of the twelve fishes is actually eight dishes? Because they can be made with or without salt, with or without sugar, and with or without matzo meal, and there are eight combinations of those three options. Thus, if there are twelve fishes that can be prepared eight ways, then there are a total of 96 dishes! Rabbi Akiva said, How can we show that each of the twelve fishes is actually sixteen dishes? Because each of Rabbi Eliezer's eight recipes can be made either cooked or baked. Thus, if there are twelve fishes that can be prepared sixteen ways, then there are a total of 192 dishes!
Sometime around 2000, I was doing research for a medical ventilator website, and I found that American companies sold to Israel and European companies sold to Arab countries, and as I recall, no one was selling to both.
This matched something I'd heard about sanctions against Israel a good bit earlier, but googling only turns up more recent references going back to 2005 or 2008.
Anyone know about earlier sanctions against Israel?
A very long time ago in good ol' Bais Yaakov I remember learning/hearing something about camels (at least I think it was camels) and their sexual habits. Something along the lines of camels being modest or private in how/where they get it on, or perhaps not modest in comparison to some other species. I guess there was some lesson or relevance in this.
Does anyone know the details of this, or (ideally) the source? It's the sort of thing I could imagine being in a rashi or something.
Looking at the Golem fable, and how it shows up in other references, I noticed that אמת (truth) and מת (death) tend to be transliterated into English as "emeth" and "meth" respectively. Does anyone know why the h is added on the transliteration? It's just a hard t in the Hebrew.
I just got this e-mail from a friend: "I was wondering whether I could ask you a few questions about resources/overviews of Judaism: history, religion, culture, state of Israel, and Judaism in America. I have a 10th grader who's supposed to generate 3 pages of notes/a powerpoint...and as his tutor, i'm helping him through it. we can find plausible details...but we're working on appropriately introductory "works consulted." "
I was about to recommend The Idiots Guide (which I actually quite like...) when I saw it had to go on a works cited page. I got nothing. Anybody here know any decent general overview type books about any of the above that wouldn't look totally absurd on a bibliography?
weirdjews
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