Category Archives: humor

Coming Soon: Certified Jihadist-Free™

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A satire.

Shopping used to be simple. You bought food because it tasted good.

Today, every purchase arrives with a moral résumé.

  • The coffee is Fair Trade.
  • The chocolate is Rainforest Alliance Certified.
  • The eggs are Cage-Free.
  • The tuna is Dolphin Safe.

Soon the carton will tell you whether the chicken enjoyed equitable access to leadership opportunities.

With such established groundwork, the assertive red-green alliance / socialist-jihadi umbrella will undoubtedly develop a new standard for consumers to evaluate purchases:

Ethical Jihad Certification™

I imagine the following questionnaire for companies and organizations to complete, developed by the International Ethical Jihad Standards Council (IEJSC).

Supplier Ethics and Sustainability Review

If your organization employs child soldiers, is recruitment gender-balanced?

☐ Boys and girls equally represented
☐ Nonbinary recruitment targets adopted
☐ Diversity metrics forthcoming

If child brides are supplied, are they ethically sourced?

☐ Local
☐ Organic
☐ Family-owned supply chain

If weapons are stored among civilians, are they distributed equitably across community institutions?

☐ Hospitals
☐ Schools
☐ Mosques
☐ Balanced portfolio across all three

If hostages are held underground, are the tunnels built with recycled concrete?

☐ Yes
☐ Carbon offsets purchased
☐ Sustainability consultant retained

If civilians are used as human shields, has the organization achieved demographic representation?

☐ Women included
☐ Children included
☐ Elderly included
☐ Fully inclusive shielding policy

When invading another country, were low-emission vehicles prioritized?

☐ Bicycles
☐ Electric scooters
☐ Hang gliders
☐ Carbon-neutral pickup trucks

If rockets are launched from residential neighborhoods, has the launcher committed to Net Zero by 2040?

☐ Yes
☐ 2050
☐ Targets pending Qatari-donor approval

If propaganda calls for genocide, is the language gender-neutral?

☐ Yes
☐ Pronouns included
☐ Available in multiple languages

If a terrorist organization takes hostages, are accommodations culturally sensitive?

☐ Dietary needs considered
☐ Prayer space available
☐ Captivity experience survey administered

When returning hostages, was a positive community engagement experience provided?

☐ Parade route optimized
☐ Cheering crowds strategically positioned
☐ Children included for authentic community participation
☐ Environmentally-friendly branded backdrop prominently displayed

If civilians are murdered, was the operation at least locally sourced?

☐ Indigenous weapons
☐ Community-based perpetrators
☐ Minimal imported inputs

If rape is used as a mode of mass “resistance,” are the targets well represented?

☐ Young women
☐ Elderly women
☐ Trans-women
☐ Boys
☐ Sheep and goats

If burning a family alive in their home, what methods were used to assess environmental impact?

☐ Carbon emissions measured
☐ Certified sustainable ignition sources
☐ Recycled accelerants
☐ Ashes recycled in accordance with circular economy principles

If political opponents require corrective kneecapping, please confirm that your organization follows an equitable enforcement policy.

☐ Applied without regard to race, religion, gender, or political affiliation
☐ Accessibility accommodations provided during the disciplinary process
☐ Impact assessment completed
☐ Stakeholder feedback incorporated into future kneecappings

If political opponents are subjected to “involuntary rooftop relocation,” (tossed off of rooftops) please indicate which governance standards were followed.

☐ Community stakeholders notified
☐ Staff received annual safety training
☐ Proper signage installed
☐ Liability waivers completed

How does your organization incorporate the LGBTQ+ community?

☐ Rainbow headbands replace green ones during Pride month
☐ Local imams considering ordaining transwomen
☐ Gay men’s decapitated heads disposed of in another jurisdiction

Palestinian man, Ahmad Abu Marhia, beheaded because he was gay

Have you established regular communication with:

☐ International NGOs
☐ Foreign correspondents
☐ Western university researchers
☐ Social media advocacy networks

Has your organization retained celebrity spokespersons to improve international brand perception?

☐ Actor
☐ Musician
☐ Influencer
☐ Climate activist

Has your organization demonstrated continuous improvement in expanding the number of international agencies, committees, or special offices devoted exclusively to your cause?

☐ Year-over-year growth achieved
☐ Additional mandate secured
☐ Dedicated rapporteur established
☐ Additional entities under consideration

Before issuing historical claims, has your organization completed a Heritage Simplification Assessment?

☐ Archaeological evidence destroyed
☐ Conflicting evidence omitted
☐ Timeline reduced to a convenient starting date
☐ Approved historical narrative distributed
☐ Site renamed in Arabic with only Islamic grounding

Has your organization’s founding charter undergone an independent review for language that may be inconsistent with modern human rights standards?

☐ Terminology modernized without changing intent
☐ Currently undergoing reputation management with select NGOs
☐ Using reputational management software to block viewers from finding foundational charter
☐ We prefer not to revisit founding documents

Has your organization successfully persuaded international stakeholders that your adversaries have no legitimate historical connection, cultural heritage, or rights associated with the land?

☐ Global awareness campaign exceeded expectations
☐ Educational materials updated accordingly
☐ Approved terminology adopted
☐ Further stakeholder engagement required

Has your organization successfully repositioned itself from perpetrator to primary victim in international discourse?

☐ Independent observers persuaded
☐ Media narrative successfully reframed
☐ Stakeholder sympathy increased
☐ Further communications investment required

Successful applicants receive one of four ratings:

Bronze: Mass violence, in recyclable packaging.
Silver: Child soldiers recruited inclusively.
Gold: Hostage facilities powered by solar panels.
Platinum: Calls for genocide delivered with a complete ESG report.

For foods, there is an addition to the consumer label. For example:

Nutrition Facts

Calories: 140
Protein: 4g
Sodium: 120mg
Carbon footprint: Low
Gender equity: Certified
Child soldiers: Inclusive
Child brides: Ethically sourced
Weapons near civilians: Institutionally diversified
Support for genocidal jihadists: Values-aligned

May contain traces of sesame.

May also contain an entire moral civilization that has forgotten the difference between auditing evil and opposing it.

The Conspiracy They Somehow Missed

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A satire.

Every era has its favorite conspiracy.

Today, one corner of the internet insists Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t merely a criminal but part of a vast Mossad operation. It emerged in the mainstream as recently parroted by Vice President JD Vance.

Another conspiracy theory surrounds UFOs visiting Earth for decades, governments hiding crashed spacecraft, and ordinary Americans being routinely abducted in the middle of the night.

Oddly enough, these two groups have spent years talking past one another.

Until now.

Because once you’ve accepted both theories, there is only one remaining conclusion: Jews are from outer space, just as Mel Brooks told you years ago.

The conspiracy theorists spent years saying Epstein worked for Mossad and that aliens walk among us. Maybe Epstein wasn’t working for the Mossad as much as the Mossad was working for the aliens.

You think it’s a coincidence that Israel – a country smaller than New Jersey – has more technology startups per capita than almost anywhere else on Earth? Back on their home planet, Israeli cybersecurity is considered an eighth-grade science project. Artificial intelligence? Homework.

Israeli entrepreneurs don’t invent technology. They import it.

Because Israel isn’t merely a country. It’s the portal.

Jerusalem became holy because that’s where the first extraterrestrials landed. Long before Abraham, the Galactic Federation designated the site as Landing Zone One.

Humans eventually built temples there because they mistook the landing pad for sacred architecture.

The Western Wall? The only surviving section of the original intergalactic arrival terminal after the Romans demolished the rest during an unfortunate urban renewal project.

The Dead Sea Scrolls? Maintenance manuals.

The menorah? A seven-port charging station.

Moses didn’t part the Red Sea. He accidentally activated the anti-gravity system.

Today, the signals are in plain sight:

  • Cholent isn’t food. It’s fusion-reactor fuel. It cooks overnight because spacecraft recharge slowly.
  • Challah is braided because that’s the optimal shape for stabilizing wormholes.
  • The shofar isn’t a ram’s horn. It’s an beacon transmitting, “Landing corridor clear.”
  • Payot—the long curls worn by some Hasidim—aren’t a religious custom. They’re simply this season’s fashion on Planet Zion-7.
  • Hebrew reads from right to left because that’s how navigation displays work in the Andromeda Galaxy.
  • The “Chosen People” weren’t chosen by God. They were selected for the Interstellar Exchange Program.
  • “Next year in Jerusalem” isn’t a prayer. It’s the annual shuttle schedule.
  • Matzah is actually 3,500-year old space snacks.
  • Tzizit aren’t really ritual fringes. They are the remnants of the original interstellar safety harnesses.
  • Mobileye was originally invented to avoid comets.

Sounds too hard to believe? Jews introduced the world to staring up to the skies in prayer when everyone else looked straight ahead at idols.

Jeffrey Epstein and a space alien

Roswell is actually an Israeli startup incubator that experienced an unfortunate product launch.

NASA? Quietly run by rabbis since 1969.

University professors aren’t so much anti-Israel as they are frustrated that their grant proposal to study the portal was rejected.

The United Nations doesn’t pass so many resolutions about Israel because of geopolitics. It’s desperately trying to establish jurisdiction over extraterrestrial affairs.

As to Epstein being involved with underage girls: in space, it has long been legalized because of the time-gravity equation that someone that presents young on earth might in fact be quite a bit older.

Naturally, skeptics ask the same tiresome question. “If this is true, where’s the evidence?”

Exactly.

If archaeologists don’t find alien technology, that’s proof the cover-up is working. If they do find something unusual, it proves the aliens slipped up.

If experts disagree, they’ve been compromised. If experts agree, they’re coordinating.

If there is no evidence, that’s the strongest evidence of all.

As the theories converge, someone will release a multi-part podcast revealing these findings under a header “I’m just asking questions.” There will be a chart with forty-three arrows, twelve highlighted Bible verses, three satellite images, and a blurry photograph of a pigeon in Jerusalem.

Millions of people will solemnly connect the dots. They will call themselves the “idiots.”

Another voice from the void will likely ask a more subtle question: if Jews are really from space, why do they wait for the Messiah in coach in the back of the plane?

Non Pareils and the Patriarchy

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A Satire.

Emma had never intended to start a revolution. She had only come to the University of Greater Brooklyn’s annual Confectionery Justice Week because there was free candy.

As the bowl of Non Pareils reached her table, she froze.

A roomful of students kept eating while she stared in horror.

“Don’t you see it?” she whispered. Silence.

“The chocolate has been completely covered by thousands of tiny white spheres.”

Someone shrugged. “They’re sprinkles.”

Emma slowly stood. “They’re not sprinkles. They’re a visual representation of structural oppression.”

Within hours, her video – The Hidden Violence of Non Pareils – had accumulated two million views.

Her thesis was simple. The chocolate did all the work while an elite class of tiny white spheres occupied every visible position.

Then she discovered that nonpareil is French for “without equal.” Emma gasped. “So the elite didn’t just create the system,” she declared. “They named it after themselves.”

The university immediately established the Center for Inclusive Confectionery Studies. Professors from sociology, gender studies, and food anthropology praised Emma’s groundbreaking analysis.

The chemistry department quietly suggested that the sugar beads simply adhered to melted chocolate through basic physical processes. The department was reminded that lived experience outweighs molecular adhesion.

Emma unveiled her solution.

“The beads must no longer dominate the surface,” she explained. “They should be embedded within the chocolate itself.”

A food scientist politely observed that embedding sugar beads throughout chocolate would merely produce crunchy chocolate.

Emma smiled. “Exactly.”

The major candy companies thanked her for her presentation before declining to redesign one of America’s oldest candies.

Corporate resistance only confirmed her theory. Three weeks later, Emma withdrew from the university.

“Institutions cannot reform themselves,” she announced. “Real change requires disrupting the confectionery-industrial complex.”

She rented a converted warehouse in Brooklyn and founded EquiTreat Confections.

Each handcrafted chocolate disk contained precisely the same number of interior sugar beads, certified annually by an independent Equity Auditor. Exterior beads were prohibited.

The candies retailed for $24 each. Every box included a 1,700-word manifesto explaining why.

Food critics praised the company’s moral courage. Customers quietly admitted they preferred the original Non Pareils. Emma regarded this as further proof that society still had much work to do.

The original Non Pareils continued sitting quietly in candy dishes across America.

The candy never changed. Only the story people told about it did.

DISCLAIMER

This story is a work of satire. Any resemblance to actual persons, universities, professors, students, candy companies, Brooklyn startups, confectionery philosophies, academic movements, or desserts is entirely coincidental. No chocolate, sugar beads, sprinkles, or French vocabulary were harmed, marginalized, psychologically evaluated, or denied equal opportunity during the writing of this piece. Readers who experience offense, amusement, intellectual awakening, or an irresistible urge to reorganize the dessert aisle do so at their own risk and without creating any legal, nutritional, fiduciary, or confectionery relationship with the author. Any claim that this satire resembles real events should be directed to the Department of Coincidences, whose existence should not be inferred from this disclaimer.

He Said, She Said, Rover Said

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A satire.

The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristoff caused a stir when he reported on the daily rape of Palestinian Arabs by Israeli dogs while incarcerated. Pro-Palestinians were appalled and pro-Israelis were shocked at the charge – what kind of inanity? How is this even possible?

New York Times’ Nicholas Kristoff

Let me tell everyone about the ugly reality. I have been investigating this for years. I have a mole (an actual one) as well as a source inside the Zionist security apparatus. Let me just call him Colonel Klink to protect his identity, and I will fully expose what Kristoff only touched upon.

The Israeli prisons have vast storehouses of Bamba that they crumble and smear all over their Arab captives for interrogations. The peanut butter smell drives the dogs wild as they sexually maul the exposed Gazans and West Bank Arabs. The Israeli guards allow the abuse to go on until the Arab prisoners reveal the sordid plans they have for Israeli Jews, which the guards write down and then sell to Lior Raz for plots for the next season of Fauda.

Lior Raz of Fauda during a fundraiser for the Zionist ambulance service

This is only the tip of the canine iceberg.

Israeli border collies have been herding Palestinian sheep into “open air prisons” for years. The Israel Guide Dog Center for the Blind offers the yellow Labradors and Golden Retrievers to Jews, while reserving the black Labradors for Israeli Arabs because of the deep racism embedded in Israeli society – even for blind people.

The animal cruelty knows no bounds.

ASPCA locations around the United States have been used as Mossad safe houses since the founding of the Zionist state. Dogs that people adopt have chips in them which the Israeli government uses to track millions of Americans.

The colonialists have even established an elite cat unit trained in pickpocketing, emotional manipulation, and knocking over glasses of water during hostage negotiations. One tabby roaming tourist cafes allegedly stole three passports, two vapes, and an unopened yogurt from a Scandinavian journalist.

In New York, Israeli units have dispatched Portuguese Water Dogs in Times Square where they operate Thee Card Monte tables to rob tourists. The same unit uses Standard Poodles to sell knock-off Gucci handbags while they gather intel on Muslim Halal food cart vendors, who are in turn, casing American streets for easy targets.

In the Holy Land, Palestinian Authority President-for-life Mahmoud Abbas has accused Israel of “weaponizing pigeons” to deliberately defecate across public spaces in Palestinian cities. “This is organized biological warfare,” Abbas reportedly declared. “The pigeons target only Palestinian vehicles, Palestinian balconies, and Palestinian laundry.”

The humanitarian crisis expanded into the political sphere this week after activists accused Israel of operating what one NGO called “a sophisticated interspecies apartheid system” stretching across land, sea, air, and now apparently pollination networks, as Israeli bees are chemically treated to be unable to approach plants in Arab fields.

Speaking emotionally before reporters, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) condemned what she described as “the ongoing Animal Nakba. Not only are Palestinians suffering under the imperialist Zionist regime,” she declared, “the indigenous animals and insects are suffering too.”

One Gazan who was set free in a prisoner exchange told me that he witnessed parrots repeatedly curse prisoners in multiple languages to degrade the Palestinian spirit. Worst of all, the parrots deliberately spoke in Arabic with a lisp, which made several Palestinians admit to raping Israelis.

Students for Justice in Palestine at Harvard, having heard of this, set up in the center of the campus with placards “Polly want a ceasefire!” Brown University faculty followed launching a new course “Decolonizing Veterinary Power Structures.” Col. Klink has been drafted to be one of the lecturers. The university is seemingly unaware that he is a double agent, trashing the Jewish State to progressive audiences while simultaneously surveilling them.

Brown University online lecture about decolonizing Palestine, seeking to replicate Hamas around the world

Francesca Albanese of the United Nations said the latest findings are deeply upsetting and more evidence regarding the “occupation of bees, apartheid Labradors, militant parrots, and psychologically traumatized hamsters,” although no reports of hamsters being involved in Zionist oppression have emerged. Yet.

Anti-Israel members of New York City’s Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s team have urged the mayor to stop the Celebrate Israel Parade, which the mayor is reportedly considering. He has also suggested banning all Jews from adopting pets in the city, but his lawyers said that crossed the line into antisemitism. Zohran reportedly just shrugged and said “so what?”

In Washington, DC, President Trump has reportedly asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about deploying the specially trained animal units in the Islamic Republic of Iran and against various anti-American groups inside the United States. “Bibi” is expected to not only comply, but share data from the sleeper pet cells in millions of American homes.

A new front in the Zionist war has been exposed which runs much deeper than even the most virulently anti-Israel groups ever imagined. It’s inter-species, which Candace Owens claimed further proved that Jews aren’t even 100 percent human. (Her agent continues to state that she is not antisemitic).

Coming This Fall: “ICE” — From the Network That Brought You Cops, Firefighters, and Suddenly… Deportations

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A satire.

Television executives are simple people. Show them a uniform that polls well, give it a badge or a helmet, add flashing lights and a gravel-voiced commander, and they will green-light twelve seasons before the pilot airs.

Police dramas? A civic religion. Firefighters? Basically saints with abs. Doctors? Gods in scrubs.

So it was only a matter of time.

This fall, after decades of training America to reflexively trust anyone wearing navy blue with a shoulder radio, Fox Broadcasting Company proudly unveils its boldest procedural yet:

ICE.

Hollywood already cracked the code.

Law & Order taught us crime is endless but solvable in exactly 44 minutes.
Chicago Fire proved every blaze requires both heroism and unresolved childhood trauma.
NCIS confirmed that investigations are best handled by quirky geniuses with unlimited jurisdiction.

The lesson was clear:
If America will emotionally invest in fictional cops chasing fictional criminals, surely it’s ready to fall in love with fictional immigration enforcement agents chasing fictional paperwork.

Meet the Heroes

ICE follows a ragtag team of elite agents who don’t just enforce the law — they wrestle with it.

  • Agent Jack Pitt — By-the-book, square jaw, conflicted soul. His father immigrated legally in 1983 and he mentions it in every episode.
  • Agent Angela Reyes — Fluent in four languages, morally complicated, always reminding Jack that “it’s not black and white.”
  • Deputy Director Hank Robinson — A grizzled veteran who growls, “We don’t make the laws — we just dramatically stare at them.”

Every episode opens with a breathless reminder: “These stories are fictional… but the feelings are real.”

The Cases

The crimes are designed to pull at heartstrings.

  • A man with an expired visa… who volunteers at a soup kitchen.
  • A family missing a single document… somewhere.
  • A tense raid interrupted by a heartfelt monologue about the American Dream.

Sirens blare. Agents run. Someone yells “NOW!” even though no one explains why now is different from the last commercial break.

The Emotional Arc

Like all great procedurals, ICE isn’t really about enforcement.

It’s about family.

Every season features:

  • A wedding postponed due to a border emergency
  • A custody battle mirroring a deportation case
  • At least one episode where an agent asks, “Are we the bad guys?” before being reassured by swelling music that, no, they are not

By episode nine, viewers are crying over Form I-130 like it’s a fallen firefighter.

The Crossover Event

Mid-season, Fox delivers the event television America didn’t ask for but will absolutely watch:

Chicago Fire × ICE

A warehouse blaze. Undocumented workers trapped inside. Firefighters rescue everyone. ICE shows up. Everyone exchanges tense but respectful nods.

No one mentions politics.
Everyone agrees the real villain is bureaucracy.
Ratings explode.

Merchandising Opportunities

Fox executives are already salivating:

  • ICE hoodies (“Protecting the Dream”)
  • Limited-edition badges (plastic, for children)
  • A companion podcast hosted by a former agent turned consultant turned influencer

There’s even talk of a spinoff: ICE: Special Paperwork Unit

The Moral of the Story

Television has always been America’s civics class — just with better lighting and fewer consequences.

For decades, cops were heroes.
Firefighters were angels.
Federal agents were misunderstood geniuses.

Now, immigration enforcement gets the same glow-up: dramatic music, noble intentions, and just enough personal doubt to make everyone feel good by the closing credits.

Because if you put it on TV long enough, in prime time, with the right soundtrack…

Eventually, it’s not controversial or even politics.
It’s just another show you binge on a Sunday night.

And somewhere in a Fox boardroom, someone is already pitching an ‘R’ rated version for direct to streaming.

Emotional Support Waffle Iron

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A satire.

Nothing so empowers me like a waffle iron. Forget therapy dogs, noise-canceling headphones, or weighted blankets—the true travel companion is a solid, chrome-plated Belgian beauty, TSA-approved for carry-on. The airport agent looks at me quizzically as it passes through the X-ray machine. “Sir, is this… an appliance?” Yes, officer, an appliance of the soul.

Some people bring neck pillows; I bring the mighty iron. At cruising altitude, I place it lovingly beneath my one inch thick airline-issued pillow. The faint perfume of yesterday’s batter wafts upward—vanilla, cinnamon, a whisper of baking soda—and I sink into dreams of golden grids. I drool freely, but what is drool if not syrup in prelude?

The other passengers gawk, of course. One woman clutches her pearls when I tuck it in like a child. A businessman suggests I check it in the overhead bin. Ha! Would he stow his emotional support ferret in row 22B? I think not.

My ardor is no different at my destination. Hotel rooms become chapels of carbohydrate reverence. I wake, press the iron to my chest like a knight’s shield, and murmur, “Today, we make batter.” Sometimes I don’t even plug it in—I just listen to the hinge creak as my choir during morning prayers.

Do I need professional help? Perhaps. But waffles are the architecture of joy. A perfect grid to hold the chaos of toppings—syrup rivers, butter mountains, berry avalanches. And in the geometry of those squares, I find order in the universe.

So yes, I sleep with a waffle iron under my pillow. Some dream of sugarplums. I dream of brunch.

A favorite from Key and Peele:

UNESCO Protects the Hamas Charter as Endangered Cultural Artifact

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A satire.

In a bold step to preserve humanity’s “most fragile treasures,” UNESCO voted to add the Hamas Charter to its list of endangered cultural artifacts. The decision came during the organization’s annual heritage summit, which initially convened to safeguard vanishing African oral traditions, disappearing tribal instruments, and lost languages. But the spotlight quickly shifted after the State of Palestine—recognized as a full UNESCO member—submitted the 1988 Hamas Charter as a candidate for protection.

Delegates debated the proposal with solemn reverence, as though they were discussing ancient scrolls or fragile clay tablets. “This is not merely a document,” intoned one UNESCO official, “it is a vibrant example of humanity’s enduring talent for mixing medieval theology, paranoid conspiracy, and genocidal intent into a single cultural artifact.”

Hamas founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, standing before children

Hamas, which currently holds 58% of the Palestinian parliament and continues to govern Gaza with an iron fist wrapped in a prayer shawl, celebrated the recognition. “We thank UNESCO for finally appreciating the poetic quality of our prose,” said one Hamas spokesperson, pointing to passages citing Jews as orchestrators of every global evil, from wars to stock market crashes. “It is art. Dark, sinister art, but art nonetheless.”

The Islamic Republic of Iran, a member of UNESCO with a keen eye for heritage preservation, reportedly helped prepare the submission. Delegates noted the Persian calligraphy used in the cover page of the proposal as “an exquisite touch of cultural diplomacy.”

Critics, however, were less charitable. Human rights groups asked why UNESCO would protect a text calling for the eradication of an entire people while ignoring actual endangered communities being eradicated in real time. UNESCO officials brushed off such concerns. “Our mission is not to judge,” said one diplomat. “If we can safeguard Stonehenge, we can safeguard Stone Age thinking.”

The vote passed overwhelmingly, though with several European countries abstaining in embarrassment. The document will now be digitally preserved and inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, alongside such treasures as the Magna Carta, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and the forgery Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

As the session closed, one delegate mused: “Perhaps one day humanity will look back on this charter the way it looks at medieval torture devices—an artifact of cruelty, once revered, now displayed in a museum of shame.”

For now, however, UNESCO has declared the Hamas Charter an endangered cultural jewel which must be preserved. Its continued existence may be a threat to peace, but, as the organization reminded the world, “heritage must be protected, even when it is heritage of hate.”

My Big Fat Passover Program – US Edition

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A satire.

This year’s Passover excursion kept us in the United States. American programs tend to be much larger and more expensive since the law of large numbers doesn’t seem to apply to matzah. This one was the same: 1,300 people spending $25 million, while complaining about the yeshiva tuition and shidduch crises.

Despite the price tag for a single room which could have purchased a small car (pre-tariffs), my family couldn’t pass up the opportunity to spend ten days with 33 extended family members, including 14 children under 10 years old. The challenge of migraines versus memories was too enticing to pass over.

Our small tribe descended on the destination “resort” nestled 47 minutes from civilization in desert foothills with panoramic views of ugly sand and rocks. The 99 degree heat baked every living thing except for snakes which blended into the brown landscape. We ran inside to escape the sun and scenery.

The hotel “lobby” had a couch and two chairs, insufficient for my immediate family let alone 1,300 other guests. It appeared that we were going to be left with few choices for hanging out together: either in the dining room, tea room, shul or our own rooms.

We grabbed keys and programs and headed to our rooms to unpack 75 outfits.

All of the rooms were essentially “suites” with a small living room which looked great for late night reading. However, the bathroom was so small that the door bumped into the toilet seat, so one needed to shimmy around the door and place a foot in the bathtub to enter. As I extended my hand to grab the shower door for balance, I actually grabbed a fistful of curtain. I let out a small shriek and heard someone next door do the same. A chorus of “a shower curtain?!” could be heard echoing through the halls.

Our horde unpacked and changed for the first of forty meals. On American programs, people seemed extra intent on getting their money’s worth by gorging non-stop. It was especially true at this location, as rooms normally go for $109 per night.

The first dinner was set up as a barbeque outside. The pieces of steak were larger than our plates to make us forget that the program lacked vegetables. It was delicious and set the stage for a carnivorous vacation theoretically focused on small tasteless pieces of flatbread.

We awoke early the next day and rapidly learned who was going to attend prayer services and who was tasked with looking over small tykes while their wives slept. We created a mini-WhatsApp group apart from the broader family chat to notify each other about minyan times and where to grab a nosh. There was a short back-and-forth about whether to label our chat “The Minyan 7” or “Tallis Toters” and settled on The “XYs” as none of the women attended other than for yizkor.

The conference room turned shul could seat 500 people, so the 70 men and 3 young women who came home from seminary in Israel had plenty of room, if not heat or decent lighting. The first ba’al tefillah launched prayers with “she asani aved” thanking God for making him a slave, dropping the important “not” in the blessing, making people wonder whether he had sold a kidney to pay for the program or was trying to set the mood for the Passover story of liberation.

The hashkama minyan flew by quickly, allowing people to enjoy another four hours of breakfast. It was our chance to see our family’s designated table for the holiday which occupied one-third of the dining room, a behemoth square of 28 feet a side. We had the staff reconfigure the table for the other meals so we could hear each other, but the reality of eating in a room with 1,000 other people including screaming children made a conversation beyond five feet impossible anyway.

The buffet in the center of the large hall was arranged as follows: wine table, omelet or carving station depending on the meal, various hot dishes, omelet/carving, hot dishes, omelet/carving, hot dishes, omelet/carving, hot dishes, and at the very back of the room, a small salad table with hearts of palm and shredded carrots. Perhaps the caterer didn’t want to check vegetables or wanted all-brown meals like the desert outside.

On rare occasion, there was plated food when we arrived, once consisting of gefilte fish with horseradish together with seared tuna and wasabi. If it was intended to placate both the Ashkenazi and Sephardi crowds it didn’t work as my Syrian niece threw up at the sight.

For some reason, despite the enormous quantity of cooked animal flesh at lunch and dinner, the dessert table only had 20 cookies. Everyone assumed we were being encouraged to head to the tea room for sweets so the staff could set up for the next meal.

We obliged and ran over to see what was in store.

Regrettably, it seemed that some guests had paid off staff to seize all the Bisli for their entourage. The rest of the attendees made due with “tropical” ices that tasted like antifreeze and various chocolate snacks that varied more in shape than flavor.

When snack time was over we were at a loss for what to do. We went to one of the pools to watch the water evaporate before our eyes. We then hunted for shade and were informed that the indoor cabanas were already reserved by guests for $12,000 for the week, a pretty penny to watch White Jews combust but many seemed content to do so.

My wife went looking for one of the shadchanim “matchmakers” to discuss our boys and various single friends. The boys refused to engage in the “meat market” and opted to sit at the poolside barbeque and talk to girls there.

People were kvetching that the program last year in the Caribbean was much nicer in terms of hotel and food quality. As one person voiced her disagreement, she was cut off by a loud thump of an older couple tripping on the broken cobblestone pathway, crashing to the ground. It would be the first of seven hospital calls during the holiday. By the last day of chag, thirteen orange cones dotted the heavily-trafficked walkway.

For shabbat, we were handed a few velcro strips to disable the electronic door locks. Later in the week, I saw some men using them to extend their belts to accommodate their bulging waists.

During shabbat and yomtov prayers, the program auctioned off aliyahs for different charities. It got more people to attend the earlier hashkama minyan in hope for a better deal. Az Yashir went for $5,000 at hashkama, but the winner didn’t realize he had to hand the aliyah over to the program’s rabbi. It crushed the fundraise for the next much larger minyan and people wouldn’t go above $100. I suggested bridging the tzedakah gap by bidding out the right to be the sole person to yell “ka’eleh” during the second torah reading, as the masses cannot keep themselves from drowning out the ba’al koreh.

The night activities alternated during shabbat and yomtov on talks about Israel at war, antisemitism and rabbis put into herem for heresy. Very uplifting and spiritual. During chol hamoed, the nights alternated between unfunny young comedians ripping off older comics’ material, to a couple of Sephardic singers singing the same popular four songs that they didn’t write. The band behind them pretended to play various instruments while their prepared music mix blared for the stablehands six miles away. It was the Israeli version of Milli Vanilli.

And the kids loved it. They cheered their Instagram star despite his lack of stage presence and joined the 45 year old bearded male singer when he asked for girls under 14 years old to join him on stage.

For some reason, I think I was the only one to find the spectacle creepy.

As the three-day shabbat-yomtov continued, people bemoaned their Wordle streaks ending. The various right-wing speakers suggested to all that it was a perfect time to terminate their New York Times subscriptions.

People slowly became aware that the entire hotel was not reserved for the Passover guests. Loaves of bread were in the hallways and a Christian wedding party which booked the second weekend created a stir. A ruckus broke out when the hotel insisted that all Jews leave the pool area for the wedding. Fewer men complained the following day when tall blonde women came out in their bikinis.

The Latin staff seemed nonplussed by everything and kept smiling. The Jewish staff looked perpetually perturbed by the incessant demands of one thousand over-entitled kvetches from friends and neighbors.

Overall, the holiday was a win. Getting so many family members together for a week is an accomplishment in itself, and there were no major blowouts. We had a chance to meet some nice new people and collectively discover why Jews left the desert over 3,300 years ago.

Related article:

My Big Fat Passover Program (April 2023)

UNCircumcized Trademark

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Satire.

Many people waited for the United States Supreme Court to rule on a case of trademark infringement before leaping into the market with their own parody products. The case involved a dog toy named ‘Bad Spaniels’ that mimicked Jack Daniel’s Whiskey. The justices came back with a unanimous 9-0 ruling in favor of BS arguing that no one could possibly confuse a ‘poop-themed’ dog toy for the alcoholic beverage.

One of the first new products to hit store shelves was “U.N.Circumcized”, which sported the United Nations global body logo, with a tagline which offered “protection for the world’s bodies, except for Jews.”

Another person opted to open a store across the street from the United Nations called Hunter College Store for Jihad. It had highly flammable Israeli flags, a map of all Jewish institutions in America following the format of the Massachusetts Mapping Project, and several life-sized effigies in nooses with masks of various Jewish and Israeli personalities.

Lawyers doubted these would withstand scrutiny, as people associate the United Nations with rape and Hunter with Jew hatred.

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My Big Fat Passover Program

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A satire.

I was excited to head out to the Passover program with my family this year. I had done extensive research on six WhatsApp and Facebook groups devoted to the subject with thousands of nit-picky Jews from around the world just like me over the prior five months. My choice was carefully balanced between nice hotel and physical facilities, good food, and whether I cared more about talented speakers, mixed swimming or a relatively cheap price.

Programs can generally be lumped into three groups: those under 250 people; 250 to 600 people; and a bazillion people. The tinier programs tend to get small families and Europeans, while the enormous programs get the nouveau riche who bring twenty-seven kinsman and a nanny. We opted for the middle one, assuming a Goldilocks outcome.

My cheap (prefers “frugal”) spouse insisted on taking two flights to get to our destination, to save a total of $400 for a family of five, on a program that cost in excess of $80,000. While he said the extra four hours of travel time were about principle, I’m sure he figured it would keep my mother from joining us, who could never manage the transfer in a large airport, thus avoiding both needing to pay for her and having her company for ten days.

Fortunately, only one suitcase went missing on our arrival, with all of one son’s yom tov clothing. He managed to get by with loaners from a friend on the program, who was only two sizes larger than my 20-year-old. He’s “in the freezer” and not dating yet anyway, so looking shlumpy wasn’t a big deal.

We arrived at the hotel to have a young snotty woman wearing a Vasser shirt tell my other son that she was triggered by his “NYPD” T-shirt, and demanded that he change it immediately. He laughed at her and told her to “go to a woke non-Orthodox program next time.”

Not a great start.

Our rooms were pretty nice with ocean views, but our three adult children with nine large pieces of luggage could barely fit into their shared room. We had opted to not splurge for a third room, in a ridiculous approach of pretending we weren’t spoiling our kids rotten.

By the time everyone unpacked and showered, there was very little time to call family members at other programs around the world. I opted to just post a quick family pic on the broader family’s WhatsApp. Everyone else did the same, including my brother who was unhappily at home with his in-laws, who posted a GIF of a young boy crying.

The boys ran off to minyan while the women followed a comfortable 30 minutes later to not appear too frum. The boys used the opposite approach, tucking four sefarim under each arm to “frum signal” to other bochrim on the program. Personally, I thought the white shirt, dark suit and 4-foot long tzisit dragging behind them was sufficient but I’m old school.

The Ashkenazi and Sefardi minyanim both started at the same time, with about the same number of people, however the Ashkenazis got the ballroom while the Mizrahis only got to pray in the hallway. Quite a strike in a program hosted in an Arab country, native to many of the yet-again-abused Jews.

The men looked for someone to talk to about the minyan situation, only to discover that there was no one from the program operator on premise for the first days of yom tov, presumably attempting to avoid yenching Jews. In any event, it sorted itself out, as both groups were ultimately placed in small windowless rooms, and the Sefardi minyan shrank in size as many people abandoned the long atonal davening of their Mizrahi brothers and joined the Ashki crowd. Little did they know that the Ashkenazi minyan had been taken over by a group of Five Towns’ guys who only gave aliyahs to friends and family. Worse still, the American and French families who had made aliyah let their small kids run around like lunatics, seemingly preparing them for a future of hooliganism.

The food on the program was great. If only the people treated the seder and meals with a modicum of respect.

We entered the dining room to see a woman throwing a fit, tossing platters of food to the ground when she found out that the program wasn’t gebrochts. Men stalked the buffet with full plates of lamb and steak in each hand, and then asked the Muslim waiters – who had fasted all day for Ramadan – to bring them burgers and fries without a second thought. Concurrently, two American mothers stormed the kitchen demanding that their kids are the most special, and needed white meat chicken without salt, and dessert that contained no chocolate, nuts or gluten. ASAP.

We made the mistake of taking our food before finding our table. Carrying full plates, we had to walk back to the entrance to look up our table number, an astonishing #86. The high number wasn’t the issue; we were trying to figure out the logic as the prior highest number was 44, a bizarre gap. Worse, the table numbers in the dining room were completely random with absolutely no order or logic. Even more curious, table #86 didn’t exist. We ended up grabbing an empty table next to the kitchen entrance to enjoy the incessant flow of dozens of waiters shuttling back-and-forth with plates and food, overwhelmed by the hungry Jews who remarkably ate every two hours.

Things slowed down to a normal pace after the first day, with relatively few outbursts. The “Vasser woman” switched to a PETA shirt for the remainder of the chag, alternately yelling about the 200-pound tuna flopped near the barbeque which was carved up each meal, and the seventy foot-long buffet of charred animal meat. One girl complained to management that she saw a swastika design in one of the carpets, while a few boys got into a mild fight about whether Shraga is a real yeshiva. Yet no one complained about the small children who kept playing in the lobby fountain, kicking the spotlights to squeals of delight, waiting to get electrocuted.

Two hundred pound tuna to be carved up for barbeque

The Israelis celebrated a single day of yom tov even though they left the holy land at precisely the time they are supposed to be there. One Israeli woman with fake breasts that looked like goiters if her gigantic botoxed lips had not lowered them into correct orbit, brought her kids horseback riding, not pondering the strange small gold hamsa hand dangling between her legs from a chain around her waist. I wasn’t sure if she was proclaiming abstinence or complaining about the effects of the ride.

The prayers were short and unmelodious. While the large programs hire talented chazanim, the smaller ones get men who claim they have yorzeit for their mothers-in-law and torture the prayers in their memory. Shir HaShirim was completed in 300 seconds to a round of high fives. Even at breakneck speed, davening always seemed to end five minutes after breakfast closed down. For the evening services, the self-anointed gabbaim, who showed up to every minyan twenty minutes late, shouted with the authority of geonim about the right time to recite the omer, seemingly based on nothing more than it was a few minutes later than the last screamer.

While the Facebook groups had daily photos of program dinners from around the world, my spouse kvetched about breakfast which no Jews seemed to care about. One complaint was regarding the lack of the ultimate yin yang Pesach food, something which is both the opposite and complementary at the same time: chocolate covered matzah, which reenacts the battle scenes of the movie “300” in Jewish intestines. The hotel must have been familiar with the dietary ramifications of the holiday, as every room attendant had a toilet plunger in a holster.

One group of guys took no chances on the program’s kiddush and shlepped their own to the resort: tequila and foie gras from Europe. As they sliced the gelatinous mound onto Pesadic crackers, I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the expiration date on the goose liver was 18 months earlier. Perhaps I secretly wanted the Vasser girl to claim a small victory.

A friend on the program let me in on an observation both too early and too late: the busboys were only rubbing the dirt off the cutlery and not washing it. I found myself drinking soup straight out of the bowls and eating fruit by hand during the second days.

During chol hamoed, some people went on group tours while others hired their own guides – to do the exact same tours as the rest of the group at five times the price. Still others stayed on premises and attempted to poach workers to bring back to the United States for new help.

In all, we had a great trip that cost roughly five percent of the country’s GDP. My family around the world also enjoyed their programs seemingly more than people’s posts on WhatsApp and Facebook groups would suggest. My sibling who stayed home with in laws was glad it was over and that no one fell down (or needed medical attention!)

While the tradition of saying “Next year in Jerusalem” concludes each seder, I wonder whether people ended the holidays saying “next year I’ll find a program where I can do something to get a Passover trip for free.”

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