By Jonathan Miller, on Mon Jan 13, 2014 at 1:30 PM ET
Turns out that “Miller” comes from the profession of milling!
OK, that was obvious, but if you are a fellow Jew with a more interesting last name, this is a cool article by Bennett Muraskin in Business Insider:
Ashkenazic Jews were among the last Europeans to take family names. Some German-speaking Jews took last names as early as the 17th century, but the overwhelming majority of Jews lived in Eastern Europe and did not take last names until compelled to do so. The process began in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1787 and ended in Czarist Russia in 1844.
In attempting to build modern nation-states, the authorities insisted that Jews take last names so that they could be taxed, drafted, and educated (in that order of importance). For centuries, Jewish communal leaders were responsible for collecting taxes from the Jewish population on behalf of the government, and in some cases were responsible for filling draft quotas. Education was traditionally an internal Jewish affair.
Until this period, Jewish names generally changed with every generation. For example, if Moses son of Mendel (Moyshe ben Mendel) married Sarah daughter of Rebecca (Sara bat rivka), and they had a boy and named it Samuel (Shmuel), the child would be called Shmuel ben Moyshe. If they had a girl and named her Feygele, she would be called Feygele bas Sora.
Jews distrusted the authorities and resisted the new requirement. Although they were forced to take last names, at first they were used only for official purposes. Among themselves, they kept their traditional names. Over time, Jews accepted the new last names, which were essential as Jews sought to advance within the broader society and as the shtetles were transformed or Jews left them for big cities.
The easiest way for Jews to assume an official last name was to adapt the name they already had, making it permanent. This explains the use of “patronymics” and “matronymics.”
PATRONYMICS (son of …)
In Yiddish or German, “son” would be denoted by “son” or “sohn” or “er.” In most Slavic languages, like Polish or Russian, it would be “wich” or “witz.”
For example: The son of Mendel took the last name Mendelsohn; the son of Abraham became Abramson or Avromovitch; the son of Menashe became Manishewitz; the son of Itzhak became Itskowitz; the son of Berl took the name Berliner; the son of Kesl took the name Kessler, etc.
MATRONYMICS (daughter of …)
Reflecting the prominence of Jewish women in business, some families made last names out of women’s first names: Chaiken — son of Chaikeh; Edelman — husband of Edel; Gittelman — husband of Gitl; Glick or Gluck — may derive from Glickl, a popular woman’s name as in the famous “Glickl of Hameln,” whose memoirs, written around 1690, are an early example of Yiddish literature.
Gold/Goldman/Gulden may derived from Golda; Malkov from Malke; Perlman — husband of Perl; Rivken — may derive from Rivke; Soronsohn—son of Sarah.
While I have the opportunity to work out with him twice a week, you can now glean all of his wisdom in less than 200 pages. If you are like me and have made a New Year’s resolution to get it better shape, there is no better way to fulfill it than to follow Josh’s advice.
Here is an excerpt from my Foreword.
Click here to review and purchase
I can imagine one of your first questions when reviewing this book jacket was: “What in the %$#&*$ is a ‘recovering politician’ doing publishing a book about fitness and physical well-being?”
Well, from a thematic standpoint, Josh Bowen’s ‘Twelve Steps To Fitness Freedom’ fits well into the mission of our Web site, TheRecoveringPolitician.com: As our former politician contributors proceed on their own post-politics second acts, we aim to empower all of our readers to launch their own second acts, with the whole toolkit of good health, high quality of life, and overall happiness. It’s no wonder, then, that Josh Bowen’s Thursday columns at our Web site are among the most viewed by our readership.
But from a more prosaic perspective, this particular recovering politician would have never made it into his second act if it were not for Josh Bowen. When we first met about a decade ago, I had an upper back pain problem that nothing could resolve – I tried massage, reiki, energy healing, chiropractic treatment, acupuncture, you name it. So when I walked in my local gym and met a buff, tattooed physical trainer, you can imagine that I was initially skeptical. But after several months of strength training, Josh’s instruction was invaluable, and I have never since suffered that pain.
Fast-forward several years, and this middle-aged mess developed a new lower back disc issue. But of course that wasn’t all; my 40s had been plagued with all of the typical issues of my age group: low energy, less stamina, and that infamous flat tire of belly fat. A decade wiser, Josh prescribed a holistic program for me, including diet, supplements, and of course, his carefully monitored strength-training program.
Through his wealth of experiences travelling the country training physical trainers, and his voracious reading of all of the latest scientific and physiological studies, Josh Bowen is as good as it gets in helping his clients reach their fitness, health and wellness goals. I know I couldn’t have done it without him, and I expect that you will find invaluable advice in the pages that follow.
Josh Bowen’s careful instruction and deep personal concern for his clients has worked for me. And I bet this book will work for you as well. So that’s why this recovering politician has published this important book. Proudly. Enjoy.
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Jan 3, 2014 at 1:30 PM ET
Josh and me Before (2013) and After (2014). H/t Bradley Cooper
Last year at this time, this Web site launched an epic competition when I challenged John Y. Brown, III to a fitness competition.
Check out this post which chronicles the first few weeks of the competition, our bravado proclamations of early victory, the steady fitness leadership of personal trainer (and Friend of RP contributor) Josh Bowen, and how the RP Nation became bitterly divided into #TeamRP and #TeamJYB3.
My personal goals? First and foremost, to crush my bitter frenemy, John Y. Brown, III.
As a sidelight, I was under doctor’s orders to lose a little weight. And I hoped to get in better shape so that I could start feeling good again — 2012 had been a lousy year health wise.
It was an incredible journey. I have never felt better. My fitness results were not too shabby (see the chart at right).
10% of it was due to my hard work. 60% is the responsibility of the guidance of Josh — who not coincidentally was named by Life Fitness in 2013 one of the Top Ten Personal Trainers to Watch around the globe. And 30%, of course, was due to steroids. (Seriously.)
Most importantly, I crushed John Y. Although I invited him to train with Josh or one of his partners, John decided to go it alone. And the results? Well, I will let him share them with you in his next post.
Let’s just say that while I am no Bradley Cooper, John Y. makes me feel like him every day.
(And if you don’t understand the Bradley Cooper homage at the picture on top of this post, you need to see more David O. Russell/J-Law movies. Chop. Chop.)
Mel Torme was born to Russian Jewish parents. Bob Wells was born Robert Levinson.
The two were a well known songwriting partnership.
This song was born in Toluca Lake, CA on a hot July day, When Torme arrived at Wells’ house, he found a spiral note pad of paper with some words on it “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose, Yuletide Carols being sung by a choir, folks dressed up like Eskimos.”
Wells had wanted to write a song for a completely different season “to cool off.” Torme recognized the potential in the lyric, and the rest of the song was written in 35 minutes.
11. You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch
Written by Albert Hague
Hague was born as Albert Marcuse to a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany who considered their Jewish heritage a liability, and raised him as a Lutheran. This was written and recorded for the 1966 Dr. Seuss TV Holiday Special How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Seuss wrote the lyrics and Albert Hague wrote the music.
10. Holly Jolly Christmas
Written by Johnny Marks
Though he was a Jew, Marks was also one of the most famous Christmas songwriters of all time. He appears on our list no less than THREE Times.
He was brought in for this project after impressing executives with the success of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
9. I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm
Written by Irving Berlin
Born Israel Isidore Beilin, Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Belarusian-Jewish origin. This song was one of the numbers from the 1937 film musical On The Avenue, to which Berlin contributed the majority of the music.
8. Winter Wonderland
Written by Felix Bernard
Born Felix William Bernhardt to a Jewish family in New York City, Bernard was known for his great compositions.
This became one of the most popular holiday songs of all time.
7. Let It Snow!
Written by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn
Born in London as Julius Kerwin Stein to Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine, Styne was a famous American songwriter.
Cahn was born Samuel Cohen in NYC and became obsessed with music shortly after his bar mitzvah.
Although this song is associated with Christmas, there is zero mention of the holiday in the lyrics.
6. Silver Bells
Written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans
Livingston was born Jacob Harold Levison in Pennsylvania. Evans, also a Jew, stepped away from all organized religion, including his religious heritage, later in life.
This famous duo is also behind the classic standards and Academy Award winning numbers, “Buttons and Bows” and “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be).”
5. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Written by Johnny Marks
Marks’ second appearance on our list! Let’s start with the fact that Rudolph was originally named Rollo, or Reginald! The story of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer was created in 1939 by Robert L. May, a copywriter for the Chicago-based Montgomery Ward department stores, as a promotional gift for customers. The stores had bought and distributed coloring books every Christmas and saw writing their own story as a way to save money. Marks was May’s brother in law, and after developing the lyrics and melody for it, the song was first released in 1949, selling an astonishing 2 million copies that year.
The following article — torn, yellowed, matted, and framed — has hung on my wall my whole life. I think it gives a pretty good sense of who the Millers are supposed to be, and it launched my fascination with the writer, J. Soule Smith.
Published in 1899, it is an incredible piece of satire triggered by the Christmas Eve vandalism of my family’s store (Miller Brothers, at the lower left of the photo) in Lexington, Kentucky. The Millers had dared to violate Blue Laws by opening the doors to local children when Christmas fell on a Sunday. My guess is that the Starbucks now in that location will be open on Christmas Sunday 2011.
A JEWISH CHRISTMAS
By J. Soule Smith
The Gatling Gun, 1899
The accursed and despised Jew continues to get in his work. Like Shylock, he not only wants his pound of flesh but insists on taking the trimmings of blood, etc., along with it. He not only supplants his Christian neighbor in business, but he has been trying to vie with him in patriotism, and at last has begun to rob him of his Christmas. We ought to do something with the unregenerate Jew. In England they convert him at a guinea a head, and a thrifty Polish or Russian Jew can make a fair start in business by backsliding every time he gets strapped and being converted some more. Now and then they convert one in this country, and send him around to tell the country churches how they could convert the whole remnant of Israel if they would only put up enough money. So soon as they put up enough money, he invests it in a clothing store and fills the windows with cheap goods worth $2.00, but labeled “Marked down from $8.00 to $6.99.” Then the suckers come and buy, and the smart Jew laughs at the credulous Christian who converted him.
But some of the unregenerate, and unconverted, Jews persist in practicing Christian virtues while stubbornly adhering to the Jewish faith. They insist on living decently, practicing charity, and loving the human race – well knowing that these things are the peculiar prerogatives of Christians. They ought to be ashamed of themselves for acting so, but they are not. They seem to forget that by all our laws of fiction and philosophy, the Jew ought to be grasping and avaricious and the evil demon of his fellow-men. And one Jew, to my knowledge, got up a regular Santa Claus Christmas. It happened here in Lexington, in the heart of the Blue Grass region, where, according to the Northern idea, we kill “niggers” for breakfast and have cold roast pickaninny for supper; yet nobody killed the Jew. He is still alive, and selling ready-made clothing at the old stand.
Christmas of 1898 came on Sunday, as we all know. That is, it did in the United States, though in England some of the clergy decided it was not Sunday at all, since the prayer-book gave no form of worship for such a day; and of course it would be wrong to worship God except according to the prayer-book. But it was Sunday here – worse than a Puritanical Sabbath. The women had all the saloons closed, and toothless virgins stood on the street corners smelling the breath of every passing male. It had been decreed in England that the day was Christmas – a season of rejoicing – not the Sabbath, on which everybody had to be uncomfortable and make everybody else feel the same way. But the male and female old women, here, decided that nobody on earth should have any fun on that day if they could help it. But this unsalivated Jew had all the fun he wanted, and nobody dared stop him. He celebrated Christmas with a real Santa Claus.
That Jew sent out emissaries through the town for a month before, and sought for and found all the poor children – white, black and speckled – who had no parents or friends able or willing to give them Christmas presents. He docketed them by serial and sexual numbers, so that when entered on the books he knew the age, sex, and previous condition of servitude of each one. The Jew always has method in his madness. Then he gave each one of them a card of invitation to his store on Christmas day, and, with malice aforethought, and that diabolical cunning which is characteristic of the Jew, he purchased a present suitable for each child. He had no charitable organization to assist him, so far as I know, except a soft-eyed, sweet-voiced, large-hearted little Jewess – his sister – who, not so very long ago, perpetuated the memory of a dead brother by furnishing a room for poor patients in a Christian hospital. Maybe it would have been more Christian-like for her to have erected a marble mausoleum, but she did not see it in that light.
So this Jew and his sweet-hearted little sister perfected their plot against the Christian children. If they had tried such a game in Spain, three hundred years ago, they would both have been burned at the stake and their goods confiscated. It was well known in those days that Jews at Christian children for breakfast, and picked their bones over, cold, for supper. There was reason to suspect a similar intent in this case, for the children were required to be washed clean before they came. But even then they were not entirely palatable, for the Jew and his sister failed and refused to eat any of them, white or black.
But this Jew and his honey-hearted little sister had their fun all the same, and broke the Christian Sabbath into fragments, not knowing that one Jesus, a Jew, would have done just as they did had He been situated just as they were. He had spoken a parable – something about going into the highways and the by-ways for guests to a supper that was spread – but these unregenerate Jews knew nothing of that. I believe that Jesus is (not was) the Christ, the Son of the living God, and Himself living, to-day, in the hearts of those who worship the living God. I believe with the Brahmin, in the words of Krishna: “Of all Yogas, I respect him as the most devout who hath faith in me and who serveth me with a soul possessed of my spirit.” But this is not orthodox Christian doctrine as taught in the churches and the Temperance Unions and Young Men’s Christian Associations. And, therefore, these ignorant Jews conceived the notion that it was well to make people happy on Christmas day. Poor, foolish Jews! did they not know that the “Christian Sabbath” is a day of groaning and lamentation, and that Jesus Himself would be put in the workhouse for vagrancy if He applied for a Christmas gift at the door of a coal-oil millionaire’s house? Christ, on Euclid avenue, would be collared by the police before He had worked a miracle.
All Saturday night the good Christians of this town bombarded the front of this wicked Jew’s store with Roman candles and Chinese fire-crackers and sky-rockets and dynamite bombs, and other Christian devices for converting unregenerate Jews who obstinately refuse to become converted at a guinea apiece. Most of the Christians were drunk, but the obstinate Jew remained sober, and, finding he could transact no business, went home and went to bed. I suppose he dreamed of eating Christian babies barbecued, or broiled on toast like quail. He never told me his dream, because I did not ask him; but from what I know of Jews I suppose they eat Christian babies – in their sleep. I know they don’t eat them while awake.
Christmas was a bright and breezy Sunday – the atmosphere was clear and could bite without the assistance of a dentist. I went down to this Jew’s store to see how his iniquitous scheme would work out. The scene was unique. There were some Christian bums, left over from the night before, up and down the street, trying to batter their way into the side doors of saloons to get a bracer. Not a drop could they get, though some of them fell by the wayside. They were melancholy and unhappy, and the virtuous virgins and mincing children who passed them on the way to Sunday school drew aside from them in scorn and looked as stolidly miserable as the bums did. They went to church and called themselves “miserable sinners,” and I think they hit this combination about right.
This Jew was a sinner, but I don’t think he was miserable. He was busy in the back part of his store breaking the “Christian Sabbath” that these church people talk about, just like that other Jew, Jesus, broke the Jewish Sabbath – by doing good. In front of the store were two or three hundred children, white, black, yellow and albino – some too little to come by themselves – waiting for Santa Claus to come. At the appointed hour Santa Claus came in his yellow wagon – there was no snow, so he kept his sleigh in Lapland – and forced his way into the store through the excited crowd of youngsters. In the back part of the building he ascended his throne and waited for the little folks to come. A few policemen at the front door, some of them Irish – and every good Protestant knows that an Irish policeman is nearly as bad as a charitable Jew – admitted these little ones, a few at a time, so that there should be no crush and no confusion. These wicked policemen actually smiled and looked happy when they gave those Christian children into the clutches of the ravenous Jew. They were very ungodly police, else so ignorant that they did not know how sinful it was to be happy on the “Christian Sabbath.”
And those poor heathen children – niggers, negroes, mulattoes and white – were happy. Each one presented a card, and Santa gave a present – numbered as the card was. Then the child passed out the side door, with joy in its heart and the present in its arms. Most of them hurried home to tell of their good luck. Some stopped to peep into the bundle. The wicked Jew stood by Santa Claus, and actually gloated over the happiness of these poor creatures, as if a Jew had any right to share the joy of Christian children. His little sister shrunk back into an obscure corner behind the railing of the cashier’s desk and watched the procession of God’s poor, as it passed by, through what looked to me like tears of joy, filming her soft eyes so that their long silken lashes could not hide the gleam. What passed in that little lady’s soul I do not know; there are gray threads in her hair, but never a fibre in the warp and woof of her life that is not sweet and pure and gentle and lovable. For more than twenty years I have known her, and her heart is virgin and her hand is free. No man has ever touched the sanctity of her inner life. But I suspect that even she dared to be happy on this Christmas day while the truly good people were calling themselves “miserable sinners” at church. Alas! so easily corrupted am I, and so seductive the wiles of these wicked Jews, that I am afraid that I, too, was happy when I saw them doing Christ’s work and shaming the churches with their JEWISH CHRISTMAS.
Terrific piece from Beth Reinhard in the National Journal about political class warfare in rural America. Here’s an excerpt that features our own RP:
Kentucky’s governor, Steve Beshear, is the only one in the South to have embraced Medicaid expansion and set up a state-based health insurance exchange. And for that, he’s being hailed as a Democratic leader who is paving populist inroads for his party among blue-collar whites. If enough of those so-called Reagan Democrats benefit from Obamacare, the thinking goes, they may start to view the Democratic Party as a friend to working people instead of as an enabler of welfare cheats.
“Kentucky is the 47 percent,” said the state’s former treasurer, Jonathan Miller, a Democrat who served in Beshear’s administration after unsuccessfully running against him for governor in 2007. “It’s been a very hypocritical electorate that wants those entitlement programs to protect their families but at the same time doesn’t want big government or elites in Washington interfering in their lives. But I think Beshear’s passion for this issue might start turning the tide.”
It’s a tough sell, however, to those who feel government has never done anything but screw them over. Rupe was disgusted when a follow-up letter about his Medicaid application included a voter-registration form. “I guess that’s the really important thing on their mind,” he grumbled.
In fact, the politics of Obamacare are so volatile that Lundergan Grimes refuses to say explicitly whether she supports Medicaid expansion in Kentucky. As a Democrat trying to navigate this Obama-wary red state, she has cautiously cast herself as more critic than cheerleader for the health care law. “As Alison has said for months, there are parts of the Affordable Care Act that need to be fixed, and the law is far from perfect,” Norton said. When addressing the struggles of low-income Kentuckians, Lundergan Grimes prefers to focus on the more popular cause of raising the minimum wage.
Indeed, the coming debate in Congress over the minimum wage will give Democrats another chance to try to win over the blue-collar whites who have long viewed them as sops for a welfare state beholden to minorities. If Lundergan Grimes, for example, can peel some of those voters away from McConnell, she has a chance to oust one of the most powerful Republicans in the country.
Republicans don’t have to trash the safety net to win elections. Congressional candidate Vance McAllister threw his support behind Medicaid expansion and trounced an Obamacare-bashing fellow Republican in a special election last month in Louisiana. Even Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu hailed McAllister’s victory, saying it proves that opposition to expanding Medicaid is a “political loser.”
“It’s unfair to say Republicans don’t care about poverty, but they should be held accountable for coming up with proposals,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economic adviser to 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain and the president of the American Action Forum, a center-right think tank. “I expect they will have to if they want to be seen as solution-oriented problem solvers who win elections instead of just opposing Obama’s agenda.”
If Louisiana hadn’t rejected the additional Medicaid money available under Obamacare, about 400,000 poor people would be eligible for government-funded health insurance. Across the country, an estimated 5.4 million people would have qualified for Medicaid coverage, but they live in Republican-run states that closed the door to them.
Because Kentucky did take the cash, 308,000 poor people are now eligible for health insurance in the Bluegrass State. Over the 11 months leading up to the election, McConnell and other Republicans opposing Medicaid expansion will be hard-pressed to explain why they want to take health insurance away from needy constituents who belong to their own party.
The sign language interpreter used at Tuesday’s memorial service for Nelson Mandela, and whose image was broadcast around the world as he shared a stage with world leaders including President Obama, was being called a “fake” by the Deaf Federation of South Africa…
The Associated Press also reported the allegation Wednesday, saying that three sign language experts who watched the broadcast said the man was not signing in South African or American sign languages.
“It was horrible, an absolute circus, really really bad,” Nicole Du Toit, an official sign language interpreter, told the AP. “Only he can understand those gestures.”
USA TODAY was not able to independently confirm the allegations, which if proved true would be an enormous embarrassment to South African officials at a time when the nation is looking to celebrate the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela.
South Africa’s government said it is preparing a statement.
Collins Chabane, one of South Africa’s two presidency ministers, said the government is continuing to investigate the matter.
By Jonathan Miller, on Fri Dec 6, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET
If there was ever a figure that embodied the ideal mission of The Recovering Politician, the world lost him yesterday after his gracing us with his strength, faith. and compassion for more than 95 years.
Indeed, Mandela’s experience makes the absurd 21st century U.S. politicial debate that we’ve discussed ad naseum here — from debt ceiling collapses to fiscal cliff freefalls — seem so miniscule in comparison. This was a man who was the leading force in turning a country from a ruthless, discriminatory apartheid system, into a majority rule democracy, albeit imperfect like all forms of government turn out to be.
But more significantly, once he secured power, he did the impossible: Mandela forgave the white rulers who had imprisoned him, who had tortured and killed so many of his friends, his allies, his people. Mandela’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by fellow Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu, was perhaps the greatest historical example of a moral value that so many of us try and fail to accomplish — forgiving those who have wronged us, moving forward in a spirit of reconciliation and peace.
Mandela’s example truly embodied the treachings of Jesus, whose challenge to “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemies” are potentially the most difficult religious teachings to truly follow. And as my fellow Jews reflect upon our own transgressions every Yom Kippur — the Day of Atonement, where we are taught that before we can earn God’s forgiveness, we must forgive ourselves and atone to our neighbors — we’d be wise to reflect on Mandela’s historic achievement.
Mandela’s life will be celebrated here at The Recovering Politician with a day and weekend of rememberance. Our contributors will share their thoughts on the man and his legacy. But we are also opening our virtual pages to you, our readers. If you have any thoughts to share, please send them to us at Staff@TheRecoveringPolitician.com. We will be publishing the best of your submissions today and over the weekend.
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Nov 28, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET
Over the past few weeks, politicians, comedians, and the lamestream media have joined in what can only be referred to as The Shandah of the 21st Century: the trenchant desecration of the sacred holy day of Thansgivukkah.
In case you missed the Stephen Colbert satire, the Bostonian turkey-shaped menorah, or even the Presidential shout-out; millions of Americans have been exposed to the rare and historic confluence of Thanksgiving and Chanukkah with snide laughter and tweeted snarkery, treating Thanksgivukkah as just some ironic day of mock-celebration — akin to The O.C.‘s lame interfaith mashup, “Christmukkah,” or the brilliant, yet secular Frank Costanza inspiration of “Festivus.”
Indeed, while Thanksgivukkah has been only celebrated formally twice before in our nation’s history — in those extraordinarily rare cases in which a late November fourth Thursday coincided with an early winter Hebrew lunar calendar — the holiday once served as an integral thread that wove together the Jewish and American fabrics.
And yet, there is a dark, forgotten undercurrent to this Festival of Turkey Light.
I’m here to set the record straight and remind my fellow Jews and my fellow Americans of the secret, sordid history of the holiday of Thanksgivukkah:
NOVEMBER 1621
Shecky Howard
In a global conspiracy rivaled only by the fake Moon landing, the coverup of Paul McCartney’s death and the transparently fabricated long-form birth certificate of our Kenyan-born President, the anti-Semitic textbook industry has scrubbed all records of America’s first Jewish citizen, Shecky Howard.
Escaping religious persecution as a Jew in late 16th century Europe, Shecky pretended to convert to Christianity, and chose the faith with which he seemed most comfortable — the big black hats, mother-inspired guilt-trips, and victimization of Separatist Puritanism.
OK, not a great choice for a guy fleeing religious persecution…
But Shecky made the best of a bad situation. And after serving as the mohel, pediatrist and the stand-up entertainer on the Mayflower (Sample joke: “Take my wife’s apron…please!), Shecky was primarily responsible for the early peaceful entente reached among the Pilgrims and Native Americans in Plymouth, after he quietly confided to the Indian leadership that he too was a Member of the Tribe. Perhaps most poignantly, the Puri-Jew Shecky convinced both sides that turkey was the appropriate protein of choice (and carved the first bird with his circumcision tools), by arguing that pork chops would be inappropriate…because…uh…well…applesauce hadn’t been invented yet.
NOVEMBER 1863
The official American holiday of Thanksgiving was first declared in 1862 by our first Jew-ish President, Abraham Lincoln.
(OK, I said Jew-ish, not Jewish. Read the difference here and consider his black hat and beard, his über-protective wife, his passion for minority civil rights, his Kentucky birthplace (we’re all Jewish here), and most of all, HIS NAME WAS ABRAHAM, FOR MOSES’ SAKE!)
It’s no wonder, then, when the second official Thanksgiving coincided with Chanukkah, Lincoln invited Shecky Howard’s great-great-great grandson Mordechai to officiate the very first Thanksgivukkah ceremony at the White House.
And it was then that the Thanksgiving dinner as we now know it took formal shape — a family event loaded with Jewish influence — mothers insisting that their children eat every last morsel of food (THINK OF THE STARVING CHILDREN IN AFRICA!); participants guilted to travel long distances to spend agonizing hours in cramped quarters with their neurotic extended families; even the dreaded cardboard folding Kids’ Tables, a remnant of overcrowded Passover seders.
The Black Friday shopping tradition arose from the rush to purchase Chanukkah gifts before the Jewish Sabbath began that evening. And most significantly, the modern mythical ethic of Thanksgiving — the Pilgrims’ supposed quest for religious freedom — was lifted by one of Rand Paul’s ancestors directly from the story of Chanukkah’s brave Maccabees: Archeological evidence recently revealed that the Mayflower was actually a Gilligan-esque three hour boat tour gone horribly, horribly wrong.
NOVEMBER 1899
The most recent Thanksgivukkah occurred on the eve of the 20th century, when an elderly Mordechai Howard took the invitation of President William McKinley to introduce merged holiday themes at their White House celebration: turkeys stuffed with sweet potato latkes, jelly doughnuts filled with pumpkin sauce, hora dances circling piles of green bean casserole.
But alas, the ceremony went totally, awfully awry. Mordechai’s three toddler grandsons were playing a robust — some say vicious — game of Spin the Pilgrim Dreidel. After losing all of his cranberry sauce-flavored gelt, the oldest son poked the youngest in the eyes, then banged him on the head with a Star of David engraved musket, accidentally knocking over the brown gravy-fueled menorah, setting fire to the White House curtains, and ultimately killing Vice President Garret Hobart.
The Howard children
With the pogroms furiously raging in Eastern Europe, and the wave of Jewish immigrants desperately finding refuge at Ellis Island, an anti-Semitic backlash was rearing its ugly head, and the notorious Thanksgivukkah fire added (brown gravy) fuel to the hatred. A multifaceted coverup ensued; even the history books were altered to claim that Vice President Hobart died of “ill-health.” (Look it up here.) No one knows what happened to the three Howard children, although one colorized picture of them remains and is posted here.
===
So alas, we come to today, as we celebrate Thanksgivukkah for the last time apparently until the year 79,811. I urge my fellow Americans — particularly my fellow Jews — to refrain from the easy jokes, and instead honor the great Howard family…Shecky, Mordechai, even the three clownish grandsons..and remember what this holiday is truly about: religious freedom, family togetherness, delicious food, and most soi-tenly, the miracle of laughter.
