“The Hummus Challenge”, inspired by the Ice Bucket Challenge, involves rubbing hummus on your face. If it wasn’t an industrial packaged hummus, we might considered participating.
The Hummus Challenge is the the more comic, somewhat less coherent, version of the Ice Bucket Challenge which ןד a campaign aimed to raise awareness to ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease).
Initiated by IDF reserve soldiers stationed near Gaza, the Hummus Challenge is aimed to raise awareness to the fact that hummus is delicious and hamas is evil (much like our favorite Elon Gold sketch “Voting for Hummus“). So instead of dumping a bucket of ice on your head, it involves rubbing hummus over your face while explaining the cause – or contributing a sum of $100 to an NGO that supports Israeli soldiers.
One might ask how come an annual defense budget of nearly $20 Billion is not enough to support the needs of man who risk their lives for their country. Many time, regardless of their own political opinion, which differs from those who sent them to fight. Read more
A Greeting for Jewish New-Year, with a few words of explanation [Read the explanation, than watch the video].
Rosh Hashana is the Jewish New-Year, which according to ancient tradition is the day when all creation started. It is also the day in which our good and bad deeds are weighed and calculated, up in the sky, and everybody gets their “sentence” for next year. Of course, that’s a “popular” explanation of more complex ideas in Jewish Philosophy, that is useful for people who have children.
Nevertheless, the bottom line is that a new year is an opportunity for new beginnings, and a time to set thing strait with both god and other people. So, in the days before (and after) Rosh Hashana, Happy New Year greetings usually come with words of apology and appeasement.
It is customary to celebrate Rosh Hashana night with a festive meal that include some symbolic dishes. The symbolism is not always easy to explain to non Hebrew speakers, because in most cases it’s pun based. For example, it is customary to eat something with carrots because the Hebrew word for carrot (“Gezer”) sounds a little bit like the word for sentence (“Gzar din”). Easier to explain is the custom to dip apples in honey, as a blessing for better, sweeter year.
Got to admit, though, that I like (the video aboves’ creator) Asaf Billet‘s interpretation better:
Just in case you wondered – we go over YouTube and other video sites in search for new stuff on a regular basis. Rarely do we find anything exciting that is suitable for this blog.
Elahn Zetlin‘s recent video was a pleasent surprise. Not only because it’s main theme is Abu Hassan, the hummus guru from Jaffa, but because it really captured the Jaffa’s (and Tel Aviv’s) special atmosphere. Watch this superb video, than go on reading.