{"id":30542,"date":"2023-03-28T17:36:56","date_gmt":"2023-03-28T21:36:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=30542"},"modified":"2023-03-28T17:36:56","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T21:36:56","slug":"mitzvah-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/28\/mitzvah-services\/","title":{"rendered":"MITZVAH SERVICES"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #993366;\"><strong>At big<\/strong> <\/span>bar mitzvah parties, the teens are sometimes in a room with a DJ, while the klezmer band plays in an adjacent room for the AKs. I\u2019m OK with that. I don\u2019t whine about sharing the bill. Frankly, it\u2019s rare to see a klez band in <em>any <\/em>room at a bar mitzvah. It\u2019s mostly a DJ scene.<\/p>\n<p>Hadassah \u2013 the women\u2019s organization &#8212; sponsored Simchapalooza, a bar mitzvah fair, where bar mitzvah moms shopped for DJs, balloon twisters, video guys and caterers. I had a booth.\u00a0Nobody stopped by. Maybe I reeked of herring. The Bar Mitzvah King, DJ Terry Macklin, drew a crowd. He had three exhibition tables strung end to end. He offered full-service: invitations, catering, DJ services and photo booths.<\/p>\n<p>Rock the House &#8212; mere youngsters &#8212; eventually encroached on Terry\u2019s DJ turf. Rock the House wasn\u2019t black like Macklin, but they worked on it. And they were a lot younger than Macklin.<\/p>\n<p>There was a lower-rung DJ, Joey Gentile, who advertised \u201cMitzvah Services\u201d in the <em>Cleveland Jewish News<\/em>. I sent his ad to <em>Moment<\/em> magazine, which held an ongoing contest highlighting funny real-life ads, like \u201cEaster Challah $3.99 Special.\u201d\u00a0My submission read \u201cGentile Mitzvah Services.\u201d Didn\u2019t get in.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993366;\"><strong>A man<\/strong><\/span> from the <em>Bar Mitzvah Guide<\/em>, published in New York, called and asked me to buy an ad. He was doing an Ohio version. The <em>Bar Mitzvah Guide<\/em> carried ads for everything from bottle dancers to personalized chocolate bars.\u00a0The man called me way too often. The final time, I said, \u201cI\u2019ll place an ad but I bet you won\u2019t take it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTry me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want the text to read \u2018Yiddishe Cup. If the other ads in here aren\u2019t your bag, we are.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He took the ad.<\/p>\n<p>And we didn\u2019t get any gigs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; At big bar mitzvah parties, the teens are sometimes in a room with a DJ, while the klezmer band plays in an adjacent room for the AKs. I\u2019m OK with that. I don\u2019t whine about sharing the bill. Frankly, it\u2019s rare to see a klez band in any room at a bar mitzvah. It\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30543,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30542\/revisions\/30543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}