Weekly Quiz - Pre 2019
Chanukkah Songs
It’s often said that Christmas music far surpasses the quality of Chanukkah music, thanks to the many Jewish composers who wrote such beautiful songs as White Christmas (Irving Berlin), The Christmas Song/Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire (Mel Tormé and Robert Wells), and I'll Be Home For Christmas (Buck Ram and Walter Kent). Adam Sandler has elevated Chanukkah music with lyrics such as “Guess who eats together at the Carnegie Deli, Bowser from Sha Na Na and Arthur Fonzarelli” while also debasing Chanukkah music with lyrics including “So drink your Jaegerbomb-ukah and smoke your medical-chron-ukah.” Though most of us only sing a few Chanukkah songs (Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel, Maoz Tzur, and Chanukkah Oh Chanukkah), there are many more Chanukkah songs to be sung. Which of the following are actual lyrics from a Chanukkah song?
A. From the song Hanuka Gelt:
Hanuka, Hanuka, ‘Leven and Seven!
Hanuka Geltula, Dance me to Heaven!
Tickle me! Feed me a pickeldy peach!
Makes me love myself, self, self!
B. From the song Hanukah Dance:
Jump real high! Happy Hanuka!
Jump jump high! My little fruitcake!
On your toes! Happy Hanuka!
And around and around you go!
C. From the song Hanukah Bell:
Dinga lingle lingle, I ring your bell
Knocka knock knockie knock at your door
The week of Hanuka now is here
And you must be sad no more
D. From the song Hanuka’s Flame:
Now as I light my first and my last
Of all nine candles to guide you past
Through these winds of blowing snows
To take you to your Hanuka home.
E. From the song Honeyky Hanukah:
It’s Honeyky Hanukah, kiss me some more,
We’ll sing and go dancing around on the floor,
Your kiss is nicer than cakes from the store,
It’s Honeyky Hanukah time.
Fast Food Chanukkah
A fast food chain is offering a special Chanukkah menu item in Israel. What is that item?
A. Based on the Chanukkah tradition of eating fried foods such as latkes, McDonald’s is offering the Big Mac-abees, a traditional Big Mac that is dipped in the deep fryer prior to being served.
B. Chick-fil-A, a company whose culture is driven by the Southern Baptist beliefs of its founder Truett Cathy, is offering an interfaith special. Instead of on a bun, they are serving their chicken sandwich on egg bread which is topped with sesame seeds that have been dyed red and green. The sandwich is called the Deck the Chick with Boughs of Challah.
C. Burger King is offering the SufganiKing, their homage to the traditional Israeli sufganiyah, the fried jelly doughnut. The SufganiKing is a burger with all the trappings (well, all except the cheese), sandwiched between two pieces of fried dough, with a squirt of catsup on top representing the jelly.
D. For the duration of the year, Starbucks has rebranded its Chai Latte as To Life, To Life, Chai Latte. The drink is served in a seasonal blue and white cup featuring the Starbucks Siren lighting a menorah.
E. Jamba Juice is offering a Chanukkah smoothie, known as the Jamba Jews, which is described as a blend of oil, grated potatoes and chopped onions, with a boost of flaxseed, sufganiyot, whey protein, rabbiflavin and crumbled Chanukkah gelt. The drink is pas Yisroel, pareve, Cholov Yisroel, milchig, glatt, mevushal, fleishig and non-kitniyot. It is gluten-free, dairy-free, rennet-free, gelatin-free, nut-free, peanut-free, and tree nut-free; however, because of the inclusion of sufganiyot, the smoothie is not doughnut-free. It is certified kosher by O-U, Kof-K, Diamond-K, Scroll-K, Star-K, O-K and Not O-K. And it is guaranteed not to have been boiled in its mother’s milk. Though you will pray for a miracle that the Jamba Jews will only affect your digestive system for one day, it is guaranteed to last for eight days and nights.
Germany and Jews
The past year has seen a rise in anti-Semitic incidents and attitudes across Europe. In Germany, home to the world’s fastest growing Jewish community, the Munich-based European Janusz Korczak Academy recently launched a program to support the Jewish community there, promoting dialogue with non-Jews, and fighting anti-Semitism. What is this program called?
Germany by Thomas Roche is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
A. The program is called “The German/Jewish Alliance,” with a tagline “Learn From the Past/Change the Future.”
B. The program is called “Jews and Germans Together,” and their symbol is the German national flag with its black, red and gold stripes, featuring a Star of David in the middle, similar to the Israeli flag.
C. The program is called “Frieden/Shalom,” (“peace” in German and Hebrew).
D. The program is called “To Life/L’Chaim/Zum Leben” with a tagline “Where Jewish and German Lives Matter.”
E. The program is called “Rent-a-Jew,” with the tagline “You never forget your first.”
Dolly Parton
While the Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee was spared by the wildfires that consumed thousands of acres in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the death and destruction resulting from the fires has moved Dolly Parton to help those left in need. With funding from Dollywood as well as her Dollywood Foundation, she has established the “My People Fund” which will donate $1000/month to families who lost their homes in the disaster. Earlier in Dolly Parton’s life, she did something that provided an inspiration to someone in the “Jewish” world. What was that?
Dolly Parton by Eva Rinaldi is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
A. In 1996, Parton established the Imagination Library to distribute free children’s books in Sevier County, Tennessee. The program has grown and now provides free books to children in over 1600 communities in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Philanthropist Harold Grinspoon learned of the program and helped establish a branch in Western Massachusetts. This became his inspiration to create the PJ Library which has distributed nearly 10 million Jewish children’s books to families throughout the United States and in Jewish communities around the world.
B. In 1980, Dolly Parton starred in the movie 9 to 5, about three working women and their sexist, somewhat crazy boss. Following the success of the movie, Parton was instrumental in the creation of the 9 to 5 Foundation, which worked to empower women in the workplace, fighting discrimination and providing training to enable women to advance in the corporate environment. In 1984, an Israeli delegation from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel visited the United States to learn about organizations which were helping women, and they met with Parton and representatives from the 9 to 5 Foundation. As a result, they set up an Israeli NGO, Tisha Ad Chamesh (Nine to Five) with a particular focus on helping Sephardic women who had immigrated from Arab countries and who were struggling with cultural and educational issues that prevented them from working and succeeding in the workplace.
C. One of Parton’s biggest successes as a composer and performer was with the song Coat of Many Colors, written in 1969. The song is about a coat which her mother had stitched together from rags, and which her mother described in connection to the story of Joseph’s coat of many colors in the Bible. Though the other children laughed at her ragged coat, Parton was not ashamed, because this coat was made by her mother with such pride. When Parton performed in Tel Aviv in 1981, the producers of the show organized a coat drive called “Dolly’s Coats of Many Colors,” and concert goers donated more than 5000 new and gently-used coats which were distributed to Israeli families in need.
D. In 1980, there was an incident in Sevier County, where Dolly was born. A gay teenager attempted suicide, leaving a note that he felt no one loved him. After visiting the boy in the hospital, Parton founded a non-profit agency to support young gay people, and named the organization the “I Will Always Love You Foundation,” after her most famous song. In 1994, following a similar incident involving a gay Orthodox boy in Jerusalem, an Israeli businessman who was familiar with Parton’s organization started a social service agency in Israel providing support to gay Orthodox teens in a confidential setting. The organization is called Ahavah l’Yeladim (Love for the Children).
E. In 1986, Dolly Parton took over the amusement park called Silver Dollar City and reopened it as “Dollywood.” She was pleased to expand the park, bring more jobs to the area, and highlight the history, culture, food and music of the part of Tennessee where she grew up. In 1997, an Israeli entrepreneur visited Dollywood and was inspired to do something similar in Israel. He opened an amusement park in the Galilee with a theme built around the chalutzim, the pioneering founders of the state. The park offers rides, animatronic figures including David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann, and a music venue featuring Israeli performers and an original musical about the founding of the state. The park is called Zum Gali Gali Wood.