Dave’s Gone By Interview (8/7/2021): ROBERT DUBAC & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with playwright and actor ROBERT DUBAC, who stays on and plays the Today/Yesterday trivia game with David Sheward and Leslie (Hoban) Blake

Topics include: theater, The Book of Moron, The Male Intellect: An Oxymoron, stand-up comedy. 

Segment aired Aug. 7, 2021 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/podcast program #810 hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2021 TotalTheater Productions.                                                   

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

More about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com

Dave’s Gone By Interview (7/31/2021): TIMOTHY DOUGLAS & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with director TIMOTHY DOUGLAS, who stays on and plays the Today/Yesterday trivia game with Vicki Quade and Leslie (Hoban) Blake

Topics include: theater, directing, Restoration Playhouse, August Wilson, The Gospel at Colonus. 

Segment aired July 31, 2021 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/podcast program #809 hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2021 TotalTheater Productions.                                                   

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

More about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com

Dave’s Gone By Interview (7/25/2021): LILLIAS WHITE & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with actress & singer LILLIAS WHITE

Topics include: Get Yourself Some Happy, cabaret, The Life, Cy Coleman, How to Succeed, racism.

Segment aired July 25, 2021 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/podcast program #807 hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2021 TotalTheater Productions.                                                   

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

More about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com

Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #170 (7/24/21): BEN & JERRY’S

(This Rabbinical Reflection first aired July 24, 2021 on the Dave’s Gone By video podcast. youtube link: https://youtu.be/2l4v4oXw2Xc)

Rabbi Sol Solomon offers his Rabbinical Reflection on a cream-curdling decision by Ben & Jerry’s.

Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflections are heard on the long-running Dave’s Gone By radio/podcast program (davesgoneby.com) and then archived as text and audio on the Rebbe’s blog, Shalomdammit.com, where a transcript of this Reflection may be read. 

Rabbi Sol is also the creator of the stage show, “Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon,” which played in NYC in Nov. 2011 and Aug. 2012.

© 2021 TotalTheater Productions. All Rights Reserved.

TRANSCRIPT:

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for July 24, 2021. 

I scream, you scream, we all scream — at Ben and Jerry’s!

Back in the late 1970s, a couple of underachieving Jewish slobs, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, raised $12,000 to open an ice-cream store. Combining their very different skills and sensibilities — did you know Ben Cohen has no sense of smell? Finally, someone who can sit next to old men at the synagogue on Yom Kippur. But in a couple of years, Ben & Jerry’s became a serious brand and, eventually, a world-famous hoo-ha.

To their credit, these nice boychiks always tried to be socially conscious. They donated to oodles of charities and non-profits. They made their packaging more eco-friendly and objected to using growth hormones in their cows. For a while they had a policy that nobody at their company could make more than five times what the lowest-paid worker made. That didn’t last. But Ben & Jerry’s stood as a model for visionary capitalists who could create something people want, be funny and hip about it, improve the world, and still make a bundle. The most conservative, right-wing neo-fascist could sneer at Cherry Garcia and Chunky Monkey — but they still ate it and had to marvel at the company’s success.

Messrs. Cohen and Greenfield sold Ben & Jerry’s to Unilever two decades ago. it is said that they have no connection to the company beyond their first names still being on the buckets. So the horrible things I’m about to say are, I assume, not directed at them. But they certainly are to current CEO, Matthew McCarthy. Well, he can kiss the blarney stone’s tuchas for his leftist, radical, stupid decision-making. He wants gender equity in the workplace? Fantastic. He wants to give black people reparations for slavery? He’s welcome to write a check. But his decision to stop selling ice cream in East Jerusalem and the settlements in the West Bank is more “half-baked” than their most popular flavor.

In a statement last week, Ben & Jerry’s said that selling their product in the “occupied” West Bank was, quote, “inconsistent with our values.” So boycotting a country that annexed land it won in a war against perpetual enemies and then building citizens’ houses on that land, is inconsistent with the values of making people obese and giving them heart disease?  

In response to Ben & Jerry’s BDS bullshit, the Israeli government is very likely to do what all Jewish people do when threatened — call their lawyers. They did it three years ago when airbnb, the company for people who don’t think they’re good enough to stay in hotels, airbnb banned listing properties in the territories. Benjy Netanyahu got on the phone to Moskowitz, Moskowitz, Moskowitz, and Flywheel. They put up a flurry of lawsuits, and airbnb reversed its policy. To save face — well, one of their faces — airbnb promised to take any money coming in from those properties and funnel it to humanitarian aid. I just hope the CEO of airbnb gets AIDS.

But I digress. In current times, when even ice cream is politicized, Ben & Jerry’s is facing a backlash over its anti-Zionist actions. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called them “the anti-Israel ice cream.” South Florida politician Lavern Spicer tweeted, “I will never buy Ben & Jerry’s again. They might as well change their name to Hamas and Adolf’s.” A little hyperbolic Lavern, but appreciated nonetheless. 

The BabylonBee satire magazine created a new Ben & Jerry’s flavor: Push the Jewish into the Sea Salt and Caramel. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has as much reason to eat his feelings as anyone, says he’s reluctantly giving up Cherry Garcia. And right here on Long Island, Town of Hempstead Supervisor Don Clavin bashed Unilever in a speech. He vowed to remove every Lipton teabag and Hellman’s mayonnaise jar from government offices. And let’s not forget Breyer’s ice cream, which is for people who don’t think they’re good enough to eat Super Fudge Chunk. 

Uniloser has opened up a pint of worms with its decision to punish Israel simply for treating land in Israel like Israeli land. It’s time for Unilever, airbnb, and all these suddenly “woke” enterprises, that have no trouble doing business in China, Russia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia; it’s time for them to think real hard about who the good guys and the bad guys really are in this world. Until then, it’s up to us reasonable people to boycott them. Ben & Jerry’s go peddle your lumpy shit-cream elsewhere. We won’t buy it, we won’t eat it, and we’ll make sure your economic future hits a very rocky road.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Whatever happened to Sealtest?

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Dave’s Gone By Interview (7/17/2021): ANN GREYSON & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with author ANN GREYSON, who stays on to play the Today/Yesterday trivia quiz with Leslie (Hoban) Blake and David Sheward

Topics include: ballet, horror fiction, writing

Segment aired July 17, 2021 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/podcast program #807 hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2021 TotalTheater Productions.                                                   

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

Dave’s Gone By Interview (7/10/2021): JOSE RIVERA & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with playwright JOSE RIVERA, who then stays to play the Today/Yesterday trivia game with Stuart Zagnit and Leslie (Hoban) Blake.

Topics include: writing, Lunar, Motorcycle Diaries, Puerto Rico, Diff’rent Strokes

Segment aired July 10, 2021 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/podcast program #806 hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2021 TotalTheater Productions.                                                   

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

Dave’s Gone By Interview (7/3/2021): CLIFF EBERHARDT & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with musician CLIFF EBERHARDT who then stays on to play the Today/Yesterday trivia quiz with panelists Leslie (Hoban) Blake and David Sheward.

Topics include: folk music, Bob Dylan, John Gorka

Segment aired July 3, 2021 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/podcast program #805 hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2021 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

Dave’s Gone By Interview (6/19/2021): MICHAEL GOTCH & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with actor & playwright MICHAEL GOTCH

Topics include: Tiny House, Delaware REP, theater, Hamlet

Segment aired June 19, 2021 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/podcast program #802 hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2021 TotalTheater Productions.                                                   

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

Dave’s Gone By Interview (6/12/2021): RACHELLE ELIE & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with comedian RACHELLE ELIE

Topics include: stand-up comedy, French, Canada, hellgig, fringe festivals, religion.

Segment aired June 12, 2021 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/podcast program #802 hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2021 TotalTheater Productions.                                                   

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

Dave’s Gone By Interview (6/5/2021): PETER STAMPFEL & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with Peter Stampfel, who stays to play the Today/Yesterday trivia quiz with actress Vicki Quade and theater critic Leslie (Hoban) Blake

Topics include: The Fugs, The Holy Modal Rounders, Sam Shepard, speed, dysphonia, Jeffrey Lewis, music.

Segment aired June 5, 2021 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/podcast program #801 hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2021 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com