May 20, 2009

To Jew or not to Jew?

Just got home from a private party for the Hebrew school staff at an Upper West Side synagogue. We're old pros at this shul: three Hanukkah parties, a Purim bash, and now this. And we've appeared at a handful of other houses of Jewish worship, as far afield as New Jersey and Massachusetts, not to mention a Jewish summer camp in Pennsylvania. I guess there is a conspiracy.

The BQT has made a little boutique business of Jewish-themed quiz shows (even branding it "The Big Jewish Quiz Thing" at times), which is apropos, since we cover all three types: I'm Ashkenazi, EDP is Sephardic, and DJ GB is a Catholic who married a Jew.

Tonight's show was typical in that it included a melange of BQT trivia, sprinkled with the Semitic content. We had fun with a video round, "Jewish Foods on Parade" (YouTube link forthcoming), a "Rock Stars of David" audio round (with bonus points for naming the artist's Jewy birth name), and a handful of other delights. Such as:

Q: What word do these things have in common?: Purim, and something that was illegal in the United States till the 1960s, but is now popular in 42 states.

Q: Even though it ends with none of the stereotypical Jewish suffixes, what is the most common clearly Jewish last name in the New York phone book?

Q: In the late ‘90s, a Jewish man named Bill Goldberg became one of the top names in a field of entertainment not many Jews participate in. What was his profession?

This is good; I've been a lax Jew through most of my adulthood (with the shrimp and the not going to temple and the massive tattoo of Henry Ford crawling up my arm), but I feel like this carries the banner in some small way. Right, Grandpa?

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