The RP in the HuffPost: How Adam Sandler Saved the Jews

The RP is back in The Huffington Post this week with a provocative column crediting Adam Sandler with saving the Jewish people.  Sort of…

Here’s an excerpt:

But as silly as his lyrics were on the surface, Sandler’s sing-songy outing of pop culture icons with Jewish blood was sort of revelatory to his fellow Chosen People. Who knew that James Caan — Sonny Corleone! — lit the Hanukkah menorah?  And while the Jewish-ness of Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) was well-known (we all learned in Hebrew School that the Vulcan hand salute was a tribute to a rabbinic blessing gesture), the Hebraic faith of Captain Kirk (William Shatner) was a welcome surprise. And Harrison Ford being a quarter Jewish? Not too shabby.

(Actually, Harrison Ford is fully half-Jewish. And contrary to another Sandlerian stanza, baseball Hall-of-Famer Rod Carew — whose wife and children were Jewish — did not convert: The former California Angel and Minnesota Twin was never a Member of the Tribe.  But who’s kvetching?)

I remember picturing myself as a child in the ’70s, literally the only kid on my block (with my sis) without a Christmas tree. What I would have given to have known at the time that the epitome of coolness — The Fonz himself (Henry Winkler) — had a Bar Mitzvah! I imagined millions of other children learning the same way that many of their celebrity idols spun the Hanukkah dreidel, just like they did.

Click here to read the full column at The Huffington Post.

And have a Happy Chanukah!