“I believe in miracles, since you came along, you sexy thiiiiing,” Hot Chocolate once sang, but sadly, that’s not the ‘Miracle’ song the Maccabeats chose to cover this holiday season.
YOU GUYS: My email inbox has been blowing up. It seems the people want me to comment on the new Maccabeats video pretty badly. On Twitter, I called ‘Miracle’ (the Matisyahu version) the group’s ‘Back 2 Basics’ ala Christina Aguilera — they’re going back to what they do best, reminiscent of their start. It’s simple, fresh, yet somehow still exciting. I like it, but I don’t have a whole bunch to say about it OTHER THAN:
MY NEW FAVORITE MACCABEAT IS THE STAR KIND OF.
Look, I can pretty much assume at this point that any Maccabeat soloist I highlight will become the star of the next Maccabeats video. It’s a gift I have — and with great power comes great jew-sponsibility.
Here is my new favorite. I call him Young Maccabeat or Lil’ Beat. Sometimes I make a typo and spell Maccabeats as “Maccabears,” so in my head, he’s like a little Maccabear cub. A Baby Beat. WHERE DID HE COME FROM? GUYS I LOVE HIM. HIS SMILE IS LIKE MARSHMELLOWS. I WANT TO ADOPT HIS WHOLE FAMILY.
THREE THINGS BABY BEAT AND I COULD DO IF WE HUNG OUT:
3. We could watch a cute, non-threatening movie like ‘Definitely, Maybe’ or ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ and not cuddle.
2. We could get virgin daquiris and I could talk all about my boy troubles while he sympathetically listens and only says, “Oh my god, I know” after everything I say, or compliments my H&M scarf.
1. We could go look at puppies in the window of shops and I could take a bunch of Instagram pics of him next to a fluffy dog with Facebook captions like ‘OMG CUTE OVERLOAD WHAAAT.’
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Here’s a haiku for him:
Baby beat, Lil cub / Are you a freshman? Think so / Legal right? Jail would suck
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Further comments:
MAYIM BIALIK, LUV U BB GIRL. CUTE KIDDOS
Extra Extra! Uri has too many Newsie caps. Read all about it. <3 <3
Immanuel (deep voice!), Shefa, Ginger Jew, astronaut who I forget your name and who was the other deserving star of this video and the usual dudes, sorry if this post “ages you out” in favor of a younger ‘beat. You’re all still MILFs to me. (The “M” stands for Maccabeats.)
Other soloists who I know I haven’t given any love to in these posts: Please know I have dirty thoughts about you too. Know it in your hearts.
OKAY I’M SUPPOSED TO BE WRITING A BOOK, and instead I wrote this. No more videos until my book comes out.
Also, seriously, do I believe in miracles? Sure do, guys. SURE. DO.
Byeeeeee.
The Maccabeats: Good Jewish Boys Can Be Sexy, Too
My first piece for The Good Men Project is up! I’m so excited to be writing for them. They’re delightful.
(0:09) We open on an empty synagogue. Spooky! What’s gonna happen? We don’t know! Probably singing. (0:13) Opening Jew once again opens a Maccabeats video!
(0:16) Next up is Flip My Latkes (FML) Jew. We call him FML Jew, because that’s what you exclaim when you find out he’s married. Is that his wife? She’s so pretty! Good god, they’re young. It’s like babies marrying babies up in here. “With this pacifier, I thee wed.”
(0:24) Cut to: Funny Jew likes Justin Bieber! He’s got on a backwards hat! Spacesuit call back! Get this guy a sitcom. ‘Whitney,’ who?
(0:31) The fourth main character is….Teddy Bear Jew! We see that he doesn’t eat healthy. Cold pizza and chocolate milk: Breakfast of Champions. This video better not be about Teddy Bear losing weight or so help me. Have you ever seen a stick-thin Teddy Bear? No, you haven’t. That would suck.
(0:43) Here they all are! And whoa, who’s the new meat? There’s a different lead singer than usual. He’s so young that he’s probably married! He looks like he could be on ‘Degrassi: Next Generation.’ Here’s what I love about the Maccabeats: I keep getting older, they stay the same age. High five.
3. Get sexier!
Now that you’ve captured the hearts, minds and panties of Jewish ladies everywhere, may I suggest stepping it up a notch?
Unbutton the top button on those white shirts. Use silk sheets as your backgrounds. Start covering slow jamz. Maybe some Boyz II Men? “I’ll Make Love To You (When We’re Married)” — Something like that.
If there’s one thing we know you’re good at, it’s changing lyrics so Jew-ing up some Twista or Luda should be well within your wheelhouse.
Get it done!
2. A Maccabeat of the Month calendar
Wait! Hear me out! You assign each Maccabeat a month and then have them pose for glamour shots, create it on CafePress, sell it and make a fortune.
Picture this: A few of you on a bima, facing away from the camera except for your turned heads, with one of you winking as if to say, “Join us for an aliyah?” How about one where you’re all shirtless and under the picture the caption says, “A great miracle DID happen here.”
How does that sound? I’ve been watching ‘Mad Men’ lately so I’m gonna assume it sounds great.
1. Don’t be mad at me!
Everything I’ve written about you all is out of nothing but love. It’s also probably some kind of desperate attempt to understand my own attraction to this type of guy.
There’s a weird misconception that Jewish men are all awkward nerds or nebbish-y Larry David types. That they can’t be sexy. So I thought the more over-the-top aggressive I was in the post, the funnier it would be.
But also, I’m telling the truth! The e-mails I’ve subsequently gotten from guys who read it have expressed that many of you didn’t know you were sexy! This is astonishing to me. If there’s another moral to the Maccabeats video, it’s that religious Jewish boys are just as worthy of being drooled over as anyone else.
To those walking the street with a yarmulke; you’re killin’ it! While you’re showing pride for your religion, you’re also showing pride for how hot Jewish boys can be. Go out there and represent for your people. You’re probably starring in some shiksa lady’s fantasy right now and I could. not. be. prouder to call ya’ll my own.
As for the Maccabeats, sorry if I embarrassed any of you! I’d like to make it up to you guys sometime.
How about a slumber party?
…Too soon?
Listen, I went to a secular hedonistic homo-loving feel-goodery for college. I dated an Irish Catholic who I lived with IN SIN for two years. Turkey and cheese sandwiches complete me.
But I have to admit it. These Yeshiva University boys singing about Chanukkah are literally everything I want in a man.
I have resisted this type of guy for a long, long time. But I think there’s some kind of insane, innate switch in a Jewish girl’s bosom that, no matter how much she wants to rebel and date people who are different than her and experience the world or whatever, makes her turn to absolute mush around a dude with dark eyebrows and a yarmulke.
This Maccabeats acapella group is like porn for girls with Adam Brody fetishes. I’m also fully aware that all Jews know each other and I’m bound to be writing about someone’s cousin’s nephew’s brother who went to seminary with someone’s rabbi’s daughter, but whatever.
Let’s pick favorites (in no particular order):
5. Opening Jew
This Jew opens the whole video and what a wise choice that was. Shalom, opening Jew. I bet you’re that soft-spoken guy buried in this week’s Torah portion in the YU library every week night. Your girlfriend wears a long skirt and you guys live together with a cat named “Rabbi Akiva” or some shit. I bet you blush when you pass a Victoria’s Secret billboard. Come talk Torah to me, mmmm.
4. Bumbling Jew
Oh, I get it. You’re like, the funny one, right? So cute. Oh, you also spent some time in Israel on a Ramah seminar? You own like, 15 pairs of Teva sandals? I’m so turned on right now. Listen, I’ve got some Maneschevitz and a Sarah Silverman DVD at my place. Let’s head back, put on a Woody Allen movie and see what develops.
3. I Flip My Latkes In The Air Jew
Baruch hashem, I just want to put you in my pocket and carry you around forever. Your eyebrows, your yarmulke, your dance moves that you probably honed at all those United Synagogue Youth dances over the years. Be mine, please. Let’s take walks around Brooklyn and not hold hands until we’re married.
2. Ginger Jew
Your title makes you sound like a Pokemon — “A wild GingerJew appears!” “It uses Bagel Force!” “It’s super effective!” But you make this list because of your adorable, shy singing voice. Look at you. You don’t want to be in this crazy video. You want to be at synagogue, tutoring Bar Mitzvah students on their haftorahs. What a goddamn mensch.
1. Teddy Bear Jew
You don’t have any solos in the song but you look like a freaking Jew teddy bear with those sad droopy eyes. What’s eating you, Gilbert Grapeowitz? Did you burn your latkes? Destruction of the second temple got you down? Upset that you lost your copy of ‘The Chosen’? Come to mama.
