Number of views, cultural significance and creativity are all factors in this roundup of the best Jewish viral videos from 5773:
10. Hasidic people being hasidic
This footage of a hasidic tisch was repurposed as a Harlem Shake video, putting it right up there with the unwitting hasidic participation in the Dougie dance from 5772.
Honorable mentions: Harlem Shake by Yeshiva University students and a Yiddish-infused Gangnam-style parody played at a wedding
9. ADL ‘imagines’ a better world
What would it look like if there were no martyrs for civil rights or peace in the Middle East? The ADL’s evocative “Imagine” ad campaign gives us a clue.
8. Israeli kids cover Taylor Swift’s ‘Trouble’
The Artik Music School went “School of Rock” — and viral — with its 50-instrument cover of pop sensation Taylor Swift’s “Trouble.” The clip earned a shout-out from Swift’s Twitter account.
Honorable mention: Swift’s ‘Trouble” covered by a goat (not Jewish, per se).
7. ‘Bubala Please’ gangsta latke, hamentaschen recipes (NSFW)
Jewish cuisine cooking served with a pinch of … umm, hard to explain. Watch two L.A. gangstas peel potatoes with a switchblade and wipe schmutz off each others’ faces. The shtick was repeated for Purim.
Honorable mention: Samurai Jack-style animated Hanukkah video and the Houston Rockets singing “Dreidel Song” (expect an improvement in 5774 with the Rockets’ off-season acquisition of Omri Casspi)
6. Orthodox men behaving badly … badly
Posted to YouTube as a Purim shpiel, “The Aveirah Song” stars Binyomin Miller (aka Dr. Dreizich) listing the many minor Jewish legal offenses he has committed. His sophomore effort, “The Frum Song,” shows the singer trying to prove how pious he is.
5. Tel Aviv woman fights City Hall with Facebook video — and wins
In February, Tel Aviv municipal workers painted a handicap parking space around a legally parked car and then towed it. The car’s owner, Hila Ben Baruch, refused to go down without a fight. Rather than pay $366 in fines and towing fees, she procured security camera footage and posted it to Facebook, earning her a mea culpa from the city.
4. Ruth Calderon Knesset speech
In one of the longer, more cerebral videos to make the rounds in Jewish circles this year, Knesset member Ruth Calderon, from the new Yesh Atid party, delivered an inaugural speech in which she argued for the importance of Jewish text study.
3. Big basketball score
Israeli rhythmic gymnast Noa Kadosh pulled off this amazing trick shot on the basketball courts of Camp Ramah.
2. The 10-second video that launched an IDF operation
Operation Pillar of Defense is believed to be the first military offensive formally announced on Twitter. The IDF spokespersons unit made social media outreach and real-time messaging a priority in the November’s conflict. This clip, showing the targeted assassination of Ahmed Jabari, was the first video released in conjunction with this effort.
1. Sam Horowitz’s bar mitzvah entrance
While not the only bar mitzvah to go viral this year, Sam Horowitz’s generated more buzz than the rest, earning scorn — and later an apology — from a popular rabbi and landing him a repeat performance on “Good Morning America.”
Honorable mention: Other bar mitzvah kid vids.
