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 #805 (7/3/2021): CLIFF HANGER

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Here’s the 805th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning July 3, 2021. Info: Davesgoneby.com.

Guests: musician Cliff Eberhardt, theater critics David Sheward and Leslie (Hoban) Blake

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with musician Cliff Eberhardt; Today Yesterday trivia quiz (July 3 w/ Cliff Eberhardt, David Sheward & Leslie (Hoban) Blake; Rabbi Sol Solomon Reads the Papers; Greeley Crimes & Old Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Creede).

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (the 3rd of July)
00:26:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES
00:58:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Cliff Eberhardt
01:41:00 TODAY/YESTERDAY Trivia Quiz (July 3 w/ Leslie (Hoban) Blake, Cliff Eberhardt, David Sheward)
02:47:00 Friends of the Daverhood
02:52:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON READS THE PAPERS
03:12:30 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED
03:16:00 DAVE GOES OUT

Cliff Eberhardt
David Sheward
Leslie (Hoban) Blake
Rabbi Sol Solomon
Creede, CO

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 SKIT: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #169 (4/30/21): MERON

Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #169 – MERON

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RABBINICAL REFLECTION #169 – Meron

(https://davesgoneby.net/?p=26212. on youtube: https://youtu.be/JANamY6kZZs)

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for April 30, 2021. 

Happy Lag B’Omer everybody! And if you’ve ever had your Omer logged, you know just how delightful that can be. 

Lag B’Omer is a relatively minor holiday on the Jewish calendar, but our people appreciate it because it is a happy one. Well, not completely happy. God won’t let a Jewish holiday be completely happy. And this festival, in particular, is about putting a bookend on a time of gloom.

Some say Lag B’Omer is celebrated because that day marked the end of a terrible plague in the Jewish community. No, not bad drivers. Rabbi Akiva, who was a great sage — and a mediocre parsley — had a lot of disciples who started dropping dead between Passover and Shavuoth. Somehow, on this date, they stopped dying. Maybe it was Pfizer, maybe Moderna — whatever. Suddenly it was time to rejoice. 

Now, a completely different explanation for Lag B’Omer involves one of Ravi Akiva’s disciples, Shimon bar Yochai. Lag B’Omer is the day he kicked the b’ucket. So who celebrates a death? Well, this Yochai guy was something of a mystic. By writing the Zohar, he started the Kabbalah ball rolling. He told his followers, now that I’m leaving my body, all my teachings and good deeds belong to the universe. So don’t mourn; go have a wedding, do a dance, get a fun haircut, light a bonfire because of all the light I’ve brought into the world. And marshmallows.

So that’s what Jews have been doing — taking a break during a somber time on the calendar, when everyone’s worried about the harvest, and having a party. And if you happen to be in Israel, you can go visit the tomb of Shimon bar Yochai, which happens to be in a town called Meron. I think you know where I’m going with this. 

Year after year, hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Jews make a pilgrimage to Meron for feasting and fun. It’s like Woodstock — only Jews don’t take acid; we get acid reflux. The Yidlach gather for this festival — sometimes 400,000 people show up for this Lag B’orgy.

April 2021, because of COVID, only 100,000 came. Easy-peasy, right? Except, a few people slipped, folks behind them couldn’t go backwards — voila! Stampede. 45 people crushed to death like grapes in a Manischewitz pulper. 150 more wounded. It’s the worst peacetime disaster in the history of Eretz Yisroel. I know you’re waiting for a joke but no…that’s the emmes. 

Who’s to blame? Everybody, of course. First of all, you have the insular Orthodox, who don’t think the greater community’s rules apply to them. We saw this with the Haredis in Brooklyn, who were holding massive, unmasked weddings and funerals when the governor was begging everyone: don’t even hold small unmasked weddings and funerals. Were Cuomo’s restrictions draconian? Did the Orthodox exacerbate a health crisis? Or vice versa: by disregarding protocols, did they prove that, at least for people under 60, we’ve all been going overboard with a punishment that’s worse than the disease?

Even if that were true, and Governor Cuomo was erring on the side of caution — well, not with his schmeckel but with everything else — what the Haredi were doing was unbelievably selfish and thoughtless. “We follow American laws to the letter…up until the moment we don’t happen to agree with them. Who needs police? We police ourselves.” So elected officials who crave the Orthodox vote look the other way when rules are bent. 

Sometimes that’s fine — sometimes it enables catastrophe. Wifebeaters and child molesters keep on beating wifes and molesting childs while the Rabbis try to fix things behind the scenes. Ask the Catholic church how well that works. And it’s this entitled arrogance of the Haredi attitude that tells Bibi Netanyahu, “We’re gonna put a hundred thousand people on a road meant for 30,000. HaShem will be our crowd control.” But they forget: God likes crushing things. Look what He did to Samson.

Jews have good reason for being wary of outsiders. From Roman soldiers to Spanish inquisitors to Cossacks — if a goy was on your doorstep, he wasn’t holding a check from Publishers Clearing House. However, when it comes to legitimate concerns about public safety — whether you’re spitting corona droplets on your cousin or getting pushed so close to a stranger your quarter shoes land on his forehead — it would be nice if my brethren would show a little consideration for the bigger picture.

Besides, what’s so wrong with a few more weeks of distancing? We’re Jewish. We shouldn’t be going to mass.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches.

Dave’s Gone By Interview (4/3/2021): ANDREW FARRISS & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with musician ANDREW FARRISS

Topics include: INXS, religion, music, the West.

Segment aired April 3, 2021 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/podcast program 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 (3/6/2021): BOB DISHY, JUDY GRAUBART, & Rabbi Sol Solomon

click above to watch Rabbi Sol Solomon’s phone interview with Bob Dishy and Judy Graubart.
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Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with actors BOB DISHY and JUDY GRAUBART

Topics include: Marlon Brando, Marcello Mastroianni, Broadway, The Electric Company, Morgan Freeman, Judaism. 

Segment aired March 6, 2021 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/podcast program 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 #786 (2/20/2021): MASS A PIEL

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Here is the 786th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, Feb. 20, 2021. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Guest: playwright John Pielmeier, theater critic David Sheward

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with playwright John Pielmeier; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Fort Carson); Wretched Pun of Destiny (coup); Today/Yesterday trivia quiz (Feb. 20); Greeley Crimes & Old Times.

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (Grape Nuts, personal banking, Red Hook waitress, snow in Texas)
00:59:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews John Pielmeier
01:47:00 TODAY/YESTERDAY trivia quiz (Feb. 20 w/ Leslie (Hoban) Blake, John Pielmeier, David Sheward)
02:53:00 Friends of the Daverhood
03:03:00 WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #90 (coup)
03:06:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES
03:28:30 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Fort Carson)
03:30:00 DAVE GOES OUT

Dave’s Gone By #784 (2/6/2021): WILD ABOUT HARRY

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Here is the 784th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, Feb. 6, 2021. Info: davesgoneby.com

Guests: entertainment journalist Harry Haun, theater critics Leslie (Hoban) Blake and David Sheward, teacher Charles Nelson, Dave’s wife Joyce
Featuring: Dave chats with theater critic Harry Haun; Rabbi Sol Solomon reads the papers; Today/Yesterday trivia quiz (Feb. 6 w/ Harry Haun, Charles Nelson, Leslie (Hoban) Blake and David Sheward; Greeley Crimes & Old Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Weston).

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (snow story, horse rescue)
00:41:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES
00:57:30 RABBI SOL READS THE PAPERS
01:15:00 GUEST: Harry Haun
01:49:00 TODAY/YESTERDAY Trivia Quiz (Feb. 6 w/ Leslie (Hoban) Blake, Harry Haun, Charles Nelson, David Sheward)
02:55:30 Friends of the Daverhood
03:00:30 INSIDE BROADWAY
03:21:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Weston)
03:23:30 DAVE GOES OUT

Harry Haun
Charles Nelson & Harry Haun
Leslie (Hoban) Blake
David Sheward
Weston, CO
Hal Holbrook
Christopher Plummer
Rabbi Sol Solomon

Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #166 (1/28/2021): MAKE THEM HEAR ME

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #166: Make Them Hear Me

(airs as part of the New York Theater Workshop/Poetic Theater Productions “Let Them Hear You” virtual open mic night, Jan. 28, 2021. watch on youtube: https://youtu.be/u6laq_dzYA8)

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, founder and spiritual leader of Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. And this is a Rabbinical Reflection, a mini-sermon, as part of the virtual open-mic night, “Make Them Hear You.” CAN YOU HEAR ME? Good.

This sermon, this event, is all about joy and the future. No matter what side of the political fence you are impaled on, we are coming out of a dark period. And as the father of six teenage daughters, I have seen some dark periods. It’s like I live in a Kotex factory. 

But here, we are talking about a nation riddled with division, disease, and dismay. And last May wasn’t great, either. 

How do we get through this? How do the newly unemployed keep emailing resumes that never get read? How do playwrights get up and scribble their hearts when they couldn’t get produced when theaters were open? How do I keep writing these Reflections even as my prostate fills my shoes with urine?

The answer lies in the great Samuel Beckett paradox, “I can’t go on. Meh, I’ll go on.” We go on because the alternative is jumping out a window. Or going to a New York nursing home, kissing an old person, and waiting.

But death is not the answer. Well, it is, if the crossword clue is “Blank of a Salesman.” But otherwise, death deprives us of the three Ps that make life worth living: pastrami, porn, and pharmaceuticals. So to stop spiraling downward, we aspire upward. Old hippies and politicians call this “hope.”

And once you’ve drunk that Kool-Aid–or, in my case, Dr. Brown’s CelRay—

you ascend to the next level of hoping that ha-olam coolo (the whole world) will unify to build a better tomorrow. Kumba-yada-yada-yada: the great pipe dream of promise. 

We are like the barflies in The Iceman Cometh, all of us, from Bernie Sanders looking so jolly at the inauguration to the dingdongs who stormed the Capitol thinking a home invasion would save America, to the BLM window smashers who thought looting would change America, to the putzes who think wearing a mask during a pandemic is fascism, to the yutzes who stand outside and risk pneumonia to get a shot for COVID. We are all idiots programmed to be hopeful. It is our human DNA.

Emily Dickinson once wrote, “Hope is the thing with feathers.” I don’t know what the fuck that means, so I wrote my own poem and here it is: 

“Let’s take a moment while the year is still newish

To hope for the best, be you black, white, or Jewish

May landlords and tenants avoid going broke

May Covid-19 go the way of New Coke

May Israel make peace with more Arab nations

May God put less blood in my girls’ menstruations

Health and good fortune from this little Hebe

To all–except Mitch McConnell and Rashida Tlaib

We’ve come through this crisis much older and wiser

May 2021 be our mood stabilizer

We have to be hopeful. What else can we do?

If not, we’ll be shtupped in 2022.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon. Shalom, and shana tovah.

(c)2021 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

Dave’s Gone By #776 (12/12/2020): WILLING AND KNABLE

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Here is the 776th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday, Dec. 12, 2020. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Guests: musician and playwright Jim Knable, theater critics Leslie (Hoban) Blake & David Sheward, Dave’s wife Joyce

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews musician Jim Knable; Today/Yesterday quiz w/ Jim Knable, Leslie (Hoban) Blake, David Sheward; Potato News; Wretched Pun of Destiny (gorillas); Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Fowler); Greeley Crimes & Old Times.

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (spoilage, baby hippo, toilet corn)
00:45:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES
01:08:00 WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #87 (gorillas)
01:10:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Jim Knable
01:49:00 TODAY/YESTERDAY (Dec. 12, trivia quiz w/ Jim Knable, David Sheward, Leslie (Hoban) Blake
02:59:00 POTATO NEWS
03:12:00 Friends of the Daverhood
03:19:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Fowler)
03:22:30 DAVE GOES OUT

Dec. 12, 2020 Playlist: “People Change” (01:11:30), “Everything is not All Right” (01:32:00), “Holocaust Survivor Beauty Pageant Cutie Pie” (01:45:30) & “Won’t Drag Me Down” (03:30:00; Jim Knable)

Jim Knable
Fowler, CO
Leslie (Hoban) Blake
David Sheward
Rabbi Sol Solomon