We Don't Need A Lame Jewish Equivalent To Every Popular Thing
by Lilit Marcus
We Jews are an enterprising people. Tell us we have to be moneylenders because the Bible forbids Christians from the practice, and we’ll make a ton of money at it. Tell us we aren’t allowed to keep our last names and we’ll make up pretty new ones like Rosenberg and Goldfarb. And if something in pop culture becomes a big phenomenon, you can guarantee we’ll find a way to make it our own. Sometimes, it’s easy: we get dibs on “Sex and the City” because SJP is one of the tribe. But if there’s not a Jewish angle on the next big thing, we’ll make our own kosher version of it. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean it will be any good. After all, a knockoff of a knockoff is still a knockoff. If you copy a copy of a key, it might not work well enough to open the door. And these terrible Jewish knockoffs of things that are often already terrible themselves force pop culture to turn in on itself, like one of those worms with a head at each end. I offer you the following examples.
50 Cent
50 Shekel
The most interesting part of this matchup isn’t, of course, the pure cheesiness of the latter song. No, it’s about how 50 Shekel watched The Passion of the Christ and became a Jew for Jesus under his real name, Aviad Cohen. So when you see him in the subway handing out leaflets to anyone who looks remotely Semitic, you can kick him for being annoying and for having once recorded a Jewish parody song.
Yosemite National Park
I won’t lie: this was actually funny the first time I saw it. Not that a Jew would get any closer to nature than eating dinner in a sukkah, obviously.
2 Live Crew
2 Live Jews
When you parody something that is basically a parody to begin with, a part of the universe turns in on itself.
One of the bracelets is shaped like a Birkin Bag. One is shaped like a shofar. How are we supposed to know the Jewish one from the non-Jewish one? Also, if you’re going to knock something off, try to choose something that has a slightly longer shelf life than this year’s equivalent of the Beanie Baby.
Lady Gaga — “Bad Romance”
Good thing this happened before the meat outfit, because a brisket dress would be fucking heavy.
Wine
Manischewitz
Now that I think about it, the first picture could have just as easily been cough syrup.
Baseball Trading Cards
The only thing that would make the rabbi trading cards better would be some stale bubble gum. Oh, and the inclusion of women.
Elvis
Jelvis
“Blue Suede Shoes” was totally a Jewish reference, you guys! Because Jews took out a copyright on the color blue! All this guy is missing is a peanut butter and banana sandwich, bacon on the side.
We won’t even talk about this.
Lilit Marcus, the former editor of Jewcy, is Editor in Chief of The Gloss.