Desktop: TV and the Jewish question

Oy vey. Jackie Mason is back, and he doesn't like the iPhone.

By DAVID SHAMAH
Oy vey. Jackie Mason is back, and he doesn't like the iPhone (http://www.apple.com/iphone/). After his smash Broadway performances and a command performance for the queen (http://tinyurl.com/e2bjv), Mason now rants on politics in his inimitable style on his own radio talk show (http://tinyurl.com/3735v5). And now, he even has a "vlog" - a video blog - in which he will give you his two cents on everything from politics to Hula Hoops - to iPhones. And where can you partake of Mason's collected wisdom on modern life, getting your own on-line "command performance?" At the Yideoz Jewish video site (http://www.yideoz.com), that's where. Mason's vlogs, as well as many of the videos posted on Yideoz, can also be found on other video sites, like the mother of them all, YouTube (http://youtube.com). And while you can seek out the Jewish videos on other video sites, why bother? Most of them - and many more Jewish-themed videos - end up at Yideoz, or at the smaller and newer Jewtube (http://jewtube.com). Jackie Mason isn't the only celebrity to grace the Web pages of Yideoz; there's hassidic rapper Matisyahu, singing stars Mordechai Ben-David, Sarit Hadad, Avraham Freed, etc., and, of course, many of the "new breed" of Web celebrity - like Jimmy Justice, who goes around New York City recording abuses by traffic cops (http://tinyurl.com/2td6bp). In one scary video on Yideoz, JJ catches a racist traffic cop talking about how she does her duty, by targeting Jews for tickets. There are, of course, plenty of issue-oriented videos about the major issues affecting Jewish and Israeli life, from Islamic terrorism to politics to Torah and Jewish philosophy lectures on both sites. But one usually goes to video sites for a little rest and relaxation, and both Yideoz and Jewtube provide plenty of such naches to visitors. There are funny videos, like the Jewish way to open a garage door (http://tinyurl.com/yr4f25 ), Israeli TV clips (http://tinyurl.com/yrdzvs) and cooking with the Jewish world's own Julia Child, in the form of Bubbe (http://tinyurl.com/23k6up). There are a number of videos, like "the rabbi" (http://tinyurl.com/2geows) that can be seen on both Yideoz and Jewtube, but Yideoz, which is about a year and a half old, as opposed to Jewtube's six months, has a greater variety. Note that, as on other video sites, both Jewish-oriented ones stream their content in real time, and some of the videos can be slow. And then there are the Jewish "self-help" videos at the 5Min "Life Videopedia" site (http://www.5min.com/), which has great instructional videos to instruct you on performing all of life's important tasks, like how to make a salad, how to give a foot massage - and, on the Jewish page (http://www.5min.com/Tag/jewish), how to put up a mezuza and how to put on tefillin. Who knew TV could be so heimishe? http://www.newzgeek.com