Art School Rabbi Episode 1

Rabbi Simcha.com is pleased to present the Art School Rabbi Comic. The first of a ongoing satirical series about Rabbi Simcha’s life as campus chabad.

In this weeks episode Rabbi Simcha meets every Jewish mothers nightmare. Please use the comments form below we welcome all feedback and look forward to hearing your ideas for future storyline.

Read more

Two Candidates Walk Into A Bar…Comedy and Presidential Politics

For days after the Al Smith Memorial Dinner, the media buzzed with clips of Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama delivering hilarious routines that put many professional comedians to shame.

Barack Obama deadpanned: “Contrary to the rumors you have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father Jor-El to save the Planet Earth.” Read more

Speaking Engagements

Author Rabbi Simcha Weinstein is one of North America’s leading experts on Jewish popular culture and spiritual & ritual renewal.

Rabbi Simcha is also famous for his engaging speaking style. Audiences come away from his talks enlightened and entertained.

His most popular topics include:

Up, Up and Oy Vey!: How Jewish History, Culture and Values Shaped
the Comic Book Superhero
Shtick Shift: Jewish Humor in the 21st Century
What Do You Mean You Can’t Eat In My House? Anatomy of a Jewish
Spiritual Seeker
Meals and Memories: Food and American Jewish Culture.
More Money than God: Judaism and Wealth

To book Rabbi Simcha to speak at your synagogue, book festival, corporate engagement, college, university or non-profit organization, contact Simcha directly by clicking here

Cell Phone on Vibrate: Ari Gold takes on Yom Kippur

Emily Gold: You want me to lie?
Ari Gold: That is the beauty of Yom Kippur, as long as you apologize before sundown it doesn’t matter what you do!
Entourage (Season 3, “Return of the King” 2007)

Pity poor type-A Hollywood agent Ari Gold on the show Entourage. He’s forced to fidget and sweat throughout Yom Kippur, unable to use his mobile phone to broker a major driven deal.

Ari Gold’s pushiness, sarcasm and neurosis conform to Hollywood’s popular notions of Jewish behavior and priorities. Even this flashy, success-obsessed character’s surname, “Gold,” is perfectly apt. Nasty stereotypes about Jews and their relationship with money die hard, because they got their start centuries ago. Since biblical times, Jews have been engaged in finance — and the complex relationship Jews have with money goes back almost that far. Myths depicting Jews as moneygrubbers were popular in medieval and Renaissance Europe. Medieval Jews weren’t permitted to own property or enter “respectable” professions, but they were allowed to act as moneylenders. Christian and Muslim rulers said lending money at interest was a sin, but they were happy to pawn off this “necessary evil” on their Jewish subjects. Read more

A Jewish Joker: From the Catskills to Gotham City

The release of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, will inevitably be overshadowed by the untimely death of one of its stars, Health Ledger, who played the Joker. The talented young actor had devoted himself to creating an original, multifaceted portrayal of the iconic character, arguably the most compelling villain in the Batman canon.
 
The distinctive look and feel of this latest film was inspired by Frank Miller’s revolutionary graphic novels of the 1980s, which unveiled a more complex and cynical Batman character than the caped crusader who debuted in the pages of DC Comics in 1937.
 
Batman was the brainchild of Bob Kane and Bill Finger, two young Jewish bruisers who first crossed paths at De Witt Clinton High School in the Bronx during the Great Depression. Read more

Spirituality in Spandex

If you’ve taken public transportation lately, glanced at a supermarket magazine rack or simply turned on the TV, by now you know that one very popular, web-slinging superhero is about to swing back into your friendly neighborhood multi-plex.

In the third and latest installment of the Spider-Man movie franchise, everyone’s favorite arachnid hero is seduced by his shadow side. As the Spider-Man motto puts it, “With great power comes great responsibility”, but this time around, Spider-Man and his good guy alter-ego Peter Parker discover that it also comes with great temptations to evil. Spider-Man is about to go off the derech. Read more

Jewperheroes!

For most of my life, I lived a Clark Kent existence: that of a Jew residing in Manchester, England, intent on blending into the modern, secular world. I kept my Hebrew name a closely guarded secret; my desire to assimilate required no less. A degree in film history led to a job scouting movie locations. My work was exciting, even a bit glamorous, but something was missing.

Seeking to fulfill needs that were not met by MTV and materialism, I set out to meet my great-great-grandparents and finally learn about my Jewish heritage. Trips to Israel followed, where I enrolled in the life-changing Mayanot Institute, a Chabad yeshiva in Jerusalem. I eventually reverted to my Hebrew name (from Simon to Simcha). My transformation was complete. Read more

Is it a Bird, is it a plane …. it’s you know who!

Over twenty years since he last flew across the big screen, a beloved superhero finally comes home this summer with the release of the blockbuster movie, Superman Returns.

This latest installment in the Superman saga begins when the man in tights comes back to Metropolis at the end of a cosmic quest, investigating the facts behind the destruction of his home planet, Krypton. And things at home have changed. Lois Lane, the love of Superman’s life, has moved on in his abscence. Worse, his old nemesis, Lex Luthor, is plotting to render the Man of Steel powerless once and for all — then destroy the helpless world. Read more

Last Men Standing

The 2000 movie X-Men and its smash 2003 sequel proved that comic book sagas with complex storylines and characters are still relevant in today’s world. This summer, the uncanny mutants are back with X-Men: The Last Stand.

The X-Men movies are based on the comic book series launched by writer Stan Lee and illustrator Jack Kirby in 1963. The scenario is deceptively simple: an overabundance of the “X gene” has caused random mutations, spawning a race of superhumans. These powerful mutants are treated as outcasts by ordinary humans, who view them with suspicion and who wouldn’t be afraid of strange looking individuals with names like Beast, Cyclops and Professor X? Read more

Shtick Shift Reviews

“Simcha Weinstein is one of the freshest, boldest, and funniest voices writing about American
Judaism today. Shtick Shift is the latest addition to his impressive body of work. It will have you
laughing in your latkes and repeating jokes in services.”
– Bruce Feiler, author of Walking the Bible and Abraham Read more

Next Page »