Forget the Egypt elections, forget the American presidency, this is the one that counts, the chance to choose the next Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and the Commonwealth! (Naturally, the Commonwealth gets no say in the matter)
Now, this is not the most democratic of elections. Vladimir Putin has given it his seal of approval. A bunch of men (with a few token women, labelled ‘women’s representative’) sit in a darkened room, knocking back the slivovitz until white smoke is seen above Hendon, and not just coming out of the volvos. The key requirement is for someone who will change absolutely nothing. Someone, who, when asked by the beth din to jump off a cliff, replies ‘how far, and how many bagels would you like me to bring’?
So Jewdas wishes to give the search committee a helping hand, and help find those hard-to-reach candidates who are learned and pious but too modest to put themselves forward. So we present:
Where What When?
Thursday September 6th,
7pm till late (bar until 1am)
Tickets £5 in advance or £7 on the door.
Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club
42-44 POLLARD ROW
LONDON E2 6NB
Various rounds will test the REAL qualities needed by Chief Rabbis including Beard Growing, Yiddish Karaoke, Banqueting, Propagandising, Chair Dancing, Volte-Facing and Platitudinating.
Candidates need not be male, though obviously they should be circumcised (a back room will provided for this purpose). Candidates need not be Jewish but those who are excessively sporty, attractive or neat at eating risk immediate disqualification. Candidates need not be human. Pigs are especially encouraged to apply. All candidates should display fluency in Talmud and/or The Book of Mormon. Particularly the pigs.
The winner gets the right to issue pronouncements, laws and excommunications from jewdas.org. It is expected that the Jewish community will take as much notice of them as they do the current chief rabbi.
As this is clearly going to be hugely competitive its best to get a head start with the campaigning. Send us your manifestos – in video, text, image form, to jewdas (at) gmail.com or post to geoffrey’s facebook page or twitter feed.
To set the ball rolling, and to demonstrate the high standard expected, we enclose Rabbi Geoffrey Cohen’s application:
Name: Lord Viscount Colonel Sir Rabbi Geoffrey Cohen of Wherever-the-Simchah is
Rabbinic Training: Yeshivah Shel Malah, Yoreh Yoreh, Yadin Yadin, Beigel Beigel
Spouse: Yentl Timtum, ‘married’ for 35 years, with a 3 year break from 1984-7 for ‘fun with Lady Jakobovits’
The Sacks era is over. Enough of the smooth talking, philosophising and hobnobbing with the goyim. Enough of substandard beards.
Geoffrey Cohen promises a back to basics approach. Rabbi Sacks has often been seen in synagogue on Shavuot, Tish Ba Av and other obscure Jewish festivals. Rabbi Geoffrey, a man of the people, will instead restrict himself to weddings, barmitzvahs and ‘doing security’. Rabbi Cohen will be the chief Rabbi of austerity. In this difficult time, Rabbi Cohen will shun a high salary. He will instead be paid in unlimited quantities of doughnuts, borscht, cream cheese, gherkins, latkes, strudel, fishballs, hamentashen, egg salad, kneidalach and almond pudding. In a further cost-cutting move he will move the seat of the Chief Rabbinate from St John’s Wood to Upper Clapton, where ‘its cheap, more people speak Yiddish, and you’ve got less chance of running into a Sephardi’.
– Rabbi Geoffrey promises to move beyond denominational squabbles and implement ‘fishball and whisky’ Judaism, where less emphasis is less on where Jews go to pray and more on where they go for Kiddush.
– Rabbi Cohen will work to reverse British Jews ‘excessive’ interest in Israel, and pledges to reinvigorate our connection with Bournemouth and its many excellent kosher hotels
– In recent years, The United Synagogue has made great use of new technology such as websites, apps, and social media. Rabbi Geoffrey will reverse all of this. His more heimishe approach will see a return to photocopies, preferably illegible ones. Rabbi Geoffry says ‘If the kids don’t like it, they can fuck off”.
I’m in! While I was running the notorious M-16 yeshiva in Stamford Hill, I started the first ever ultra-orthodox gangsta rap band, FWA (Frummers With Attitude)
sample lyric:
Listen up yeshiva-boches, to what I’m putting down,
say compared to ours your rabbi is a clown
Ours is wise, he’s holy, he’s so damn good
He knows the most Talmud in da neighbourhood!
So where do I sign?
Just turn up on the night Gerry – and prepare a 1 minute speech!
Name: Honathan Joffman
Nominated by Reverend Jim Ignatowski, Seconded by Watchful Iris
Rabbinic training: Yeshivot of Life, Department of Hasbarafia
Married: Amber….no, no I mean Leah….no, sorry I mean Yvetta….well, whatever her name is, I have unrestricted access to her wardrobe. Happily for 30 years but it’s looking a bit rocky at the moment on account of the amount of time I’m spending on the streets with cabby Garfield and Redoubtable Indispensible Dicky Millet.
I stand squarely on the simple platform, ABGC. Anybody But Geoffrey Cohen. I was outraged at the suggestion that the Chief Rabbi need not necessarily be a Jew. If this “Cohen” person gets elected, before you know it, we will have Goys making the tea at the Jewish Chronicle. And Goys being put up to stand against me in ZF elections, thereby undermining the long established tradition of my getting elected unopposed.
Get your stop Cohen buttons from the Joffman Chronicled online shop! The PSC is selling them too, but their postage rates suck.
I promise a more Jewish community, and don’t go thinking that just because someone’s name is Cohen, Liebler, or Lieberman that they are proper Jews. Some of the best Jews I ever met were called Lake, Robinson, Carroll and Moore. You should have seen how these EDL guys rattled through my proper Jews test, and that was after countless pints in a Monmouth Street pub. I’d like to see Rabbi Geoffrey Cohen give it a try:
1. Examples of active participation in synagogue services over the last six months
2. The number of mezuzot in your home
3. Fluency in reading/speaking Hebrew
4. Participation in rabbinical shiurim in the past six months
5. Positions held within the Jewish community
6. Extent of kashrut observance
7. Examples of active support for Israel in past six months
8. Frequency of synagogue attendance
Within 4 hours of my election:
Bournemouth will be nuked.
Stephen Pollard will be knighted.
Dan Sheldon will be more substantially circumsised so as to remove any semblance of doubt.
An online subscription account will be opened to buy cabbie Garfield a stretch limo.
Adam Levick will be given a job, and Redoubtable Indispensible Dickie Millet will be given a life. All Deputies will be required to take the proper Jew test thereby exposing the AsaJews among them (the overwhelming majority). Rabbi Geoffrey Cohen will be sent to Gitmo. Brucie Queen of Renegade Jews Levy will be sentenced to writing out 10,000 times “ISM/PSC want to kill Jews like me” (in his own blood).
These are solemn inalienable promises. But don’t worry, as is well known, when I lie, I apologise.
Honathan Joffman, Esq.
My nomination can be seen here: http://hoffmanchronicled.wordpress.com/honathan-joffmans-application-for-chief-rabbi/
‘Geoffrey Cohen’ = ‘Richard Armbach’ = Robin Bagon
Why does Bagon not slander Community leaders in his own name?
I think we should be told
This woman is anything but a rabbi. She puhesd the US Presbyterian Church for boycotts againt Israel and lost. She would protect the life of 1 muslim arab over 1000 jews. Stay in your reform church.