And the Dreidel Will Rock

First of all, to all my Jewish friends and relatives, Happy Chanukah! In honour of the eight-day holiday, here are a few Chanukah-related tidbits.

Pictured above is Matisyahu, the musician who mashes up his Orthodox Judaism with reggae, at his concert on Sunday, the first night of Chanukah. The Rastas – and hence reggae culture — borrows heavily from Judaism,  so it was only natural that someone would borrow in the opposite direction. There’s more in this New York Times story.

Photo from BlogTO.

See the frying pan in the photo above? They’re latkes, which are potato pancakes. The story of Chanukah involves lamp oil miraculously lasting much longer than it should have, so the holiday tradition is to eat fried food – and what’s better than fried potatoes?

While I was aware of competitive hot dog eating, I was unaware of competitive latke eating until I saw this link in BlogTO to a story about a citizen of Accordion City winning one. Bodybuilder “Furious” Pete Czerwinski won by eating 46 latkes – seven pounds in all – in 8 minutes at the National Potato Latke Eating Championship in Grove Lake, New York.

And finally, a gift idea: Cool Jew: The Ultimate Guide for Every Member of the Tribe, which I gave The Missus for Chanukah this year. My favourite bit so far is the comparison between Jewish and Goyish things, especially the last item:

Happy Chanukah!