| נשלח ב-11/4/2004 06:02 |
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חרדישע רינגלינג בראדר סירקס אין די נייעס
 מצורף קובץhttp://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/09/nyregion/09CIRC.html
With Cotton Candy and Potato Kugel, Circus Goes Kosher
Here's how to make the circus kosher for Passover:
Sell hot dogs without rolls and buy two brand-new cotton candy machines — uncontaminated by any leavened products — so thousands of observant Jewish children can have this circus treat.
Insist there be no female performers, including the Lycra-clad star aerialist and horse trainer Sylvia Zerbini, a k a the Circus Siren, since the most rigorously observant Jews require modest dress of women.
Hope that the New York Rangers don't make it into the hockey playoffs (not really a problem), so that Madison Square Garden would be available yesterday — the only day such a special performance could be held on this year's quirky Passover calendar.
That's how an Orthodox group in Brooklyn made it possible yesterday for 19,000 men, women and children to exult in the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus at the Garden, and fulfill the Torah commandment to be joyful on Passover.
It was Ringling Brothers' first kosher performance.
But was it a real circus without the Circus Siren? "It's not because we don't like ladies," said Rabbi Raphael Wallerstein, a yeshiva principal in Brooklyn who has become the reigning impresario of such Orthodox holiday events. "I'm married with 13 children and over 30 grandchildren. We love ladies. It's out of respect for them."
The Greatest Show on Earth had its ethnic flourishes. The band started the afternoon by playing "Dayenu," a rousing song at the Passover Seder that children love. And David Larible, the master clown they call the Prince of Laughter, wore a yarmulke to perform a miracle that more than one youngster must have thought was right up there with the parting of the Red Sea and the Ten Plagues: he turned another performer into a goat for several heart-stopping seconds.
But mostly the children shrieked, gasped, guffawed and gazed in wonder like all children who experience a circus, maybe more so because most of these children don't have televisions and have never even seen a circus program.
"It was very scary," said Lazer Schlesinger, a 12-year-old from Flatbush with side curls, after seeing the lion tamer, Jason Peters, put his head in a lion's mouth. "I was scared he was going to rip him up and eat him."
For several years, Rabbi Wallerstein has booked Passover or Succoth events at RexPlex, a sports complex and amusement park in Elizabeth, N.J. But he wanted this year to be different from all other years. In addition to RexPlex, he planned to rent the stadium where the Staten Island Yankees play, and was looking for a major-league circus to perform there.
"So we said, 'Why not give Ringling Brothers a call,' " Rabbi Wallerstein recalled. "They're the biggest and the best. You never know."
Circus officials, he said, thought it over and decided, in his words, that "maybe it's a good idea if you come to us in the Garden," pointing out the expense of moving the Big Top to Staten Island and insuring the lions and elephants.
The circus also agreed to the special accommodations, letting the organizers bring in their own food, including potato kugel, and reserve areas in the Garden for those men and women who want to sit only among members of their own sex.
Circus officials said they had performed for private groups before, but that yesterday's show was the first in the circus's 134-year history that has restricted female performers. Rabbi Wallerstein also asked that the music be less hard-driving and that Crazy Wilson Dominguez, who crosses himself as he begins his gravity-defying walk on the whirling Pendulum of Pandemonium, do so out of audience view.
Tim Holst, Ringling Brothers' vice president for talent productions, said that as a result of these requests, the show had to be restaged in spots and extra rehearsals held. But the performers, he said, were "very respectful to the requests of this audience."
The Torah commands Jews to enjoy themselves on Passover and two other festivals and the more observant do so with a vengeance. During the four intermediate days of the eight-day Passover holiday, when they can travel and spend freely, Hasidic and other rigorously Orthodox Jewish families stream through the Bronx Zoo, ride bicycles and navigate motorized sailboats in Central Park, fill seats at the baseball stadiums and frolic through the region's most adventuresome amusement parks. But there probably has been no holiday event on the scale of yesterday's extravaganza.
The event could not have taken place without a divine alignment of the stars. The first two days of Passover, this year on Tuesday and Wednesday, are particularly sacred days when vehicular travel is forbidden. Today is a day of fevered preparations for the even more restrictive Sabbath. And Sunday is the eve of the final two sacred days, when travel is again forbidden. But, until a few weeks ago, yesterday was out because the Garden was reserved for a possible Rangers playoff game.
"However, since we made that deal with them, the Rangers lost every game," Rabbi Wallerstein said, embellishing slightly. "And they're accusing us of praying against them, but it's not true. I happen to be a Ranger fan. They'll win the Stanley Cup next year because they let us have our circus."
The rabbi said it cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for the circus and the catering. He said the charitable organization he runs more than made up the cost of staging the event through sales of tickets that ranged from $20 to $100.
Rabbi Wallerstein is the head of Chol Hamoed Events, which in Hebrew refers to the intermediate periods of the Passover and Succoth festivals. The money raised helps finance two yeshivas he runs in Brooklyn as well as tuition and summer camp for children who are poor, learning disabled or from broken homes. He basked yesterday in the congratulations he received from as far away as Israel for letting thousands of Orthodox families see the circus within the strictures of Jewish law.
Of course, seeing a circus sometimes opens new worlds, as Elliot Zimet can testify. He grew up in an observant home in Riverdale and was enchanted by visits he made to the circus as a boy. Now 21, he was at the Garden yesterday, not in the audience, but as a regular carrot-haired clown, making a dove fly out of the fist of a delighted boy named Shimy.
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| נשלח ב-20/4/2004 01:34 |
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די חרדישע רינגלינג ברידער האט עפעס מיט די בעלזער/באבאווער משפחה רינגלינגס?
(איך ספעל עס גיט?)
וויפיל ברידער זענען זיי?
ווי הייסט דער עלטסטער?
וואינט איינער אין וומ"ב אין איינער אין מאנראו?
דער יונגסטער אין ב"פ אין דאווענט אויף 15
ביזט זיכער אז די בעלי הצירקוס הייסען רינגלינג נישט עפעס אנדערש ?
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| נשלח ב-11/4/2004 06:09 |
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נאך
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040409-124328-6919r.htm
Ringling Brothers go kosher, for a while
NEW YORK, April 9 (UPI) -- The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus made Hebrew history this week at New York's Madison Square Garden with a show that was totally kosher.
Brooklyn Rabbi Raphael Wallerstein, a yeshiva principal who organizes family activities for Orthodox Jews, came up with the idea, the New York Times reported Friday.
The circus agreed to let Wallerstein sell kosher hotdogs (without buns) and potato kugel and use two new cotton candy machines uncontaminated by leavened products. They also created reserve areas in the Garden for those men and women who wanted to sit only among members of their own sex.
Not only all that, but the circus even agreed pull a leotard-clad acrobat known as the "Circus Siren" -- the first time in the circus' 134-year history they did not have any female performers.
It was a huge hit with the Orthodox: Wallerstein said 19,000 Orthodox men, women and children attended Thursday's show, and they had a great, righteous time.
Circus officials said staff and performers were happy to accommodate his group.
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| נשלח ב-11/4/2004 06:07 |
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נאך וועגן די סירקוס
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/182120p-157992c.html
Hasidim get greatest show
By BRIAN HARMON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
The cotton candy was kosher. The dancing girls took the day off. And heavily armed cops stood watch outside Madison Square Garden.
It wasn't your typical day at the circus.
A private performance of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for some 18,000 Hasidic Jews yesterday made for a unique experience.
"The question is: Who's having more fun, me or my grandkids?" said Abe Juravel, 52, of Monsey, N.Y., who was flanked in the front row by his grandsons, Yosef, 5, and Yakov, 3. "The answer is, me."
Without special, first-ever accommodations from the circus, Juravel and the rest of the sellout crowd would have stayed home.
Because of the ultraconservative audience's beliefs, all female performers - that includes the Sensational Circus Siren Sylvia Zerbini - were banned from the two-hour show. In addition, the circus brought in brand-new kosher cotton candy machines, inspected and approved by rabbis.
"It's very hard to find something that is 100% pure and pristine," said Rabbi Bunim Amos, one of the event's organizers. The heavy police presence outside the Garden - which included mounted cops and Emergency Service officers - was due to the volatile situation in the Middle East, officials said.
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| נשלח ב-11/4/2004 06:04 |
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די חול המועד סירקוס ספעשל פאר יידן האט אויך געצויגן אסאך קאוורעדז' ווייל סע האט פאסירט א עקסידענט אינמיטן
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/182017p-157967c.html
Another big flop at big top
2nd circus flier flips, falls
It's the curse of the circus.
For the second time in three days, a Ringling Bros. daredevil was carried out of Madison Square Garden on a stretcher after plunging from high above the crowd.
The "magnificent" Jose Moura, part of a thrilling trapeze trio, slammed awkwardly into an elevated pedestal, then fell 30 feet into a net yesterday, witnesses said.
"He was going back and forth, getting ready to do a flip, and he knocked into the platform," said Nathan Genet, 20, of Brooklyn. "It was a loud bang. You could tell something was wrong."
Moura, who was attempting a brand-new death-defying trick when he fell, was carried off the Garden floor as other performers distracted a near-capacity crowd of 18,000 Hasidic Jews.
Because of the ultraconservative audience's beliefs, the women performers sat out the performance.
But Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus officials said the lack of women did not force Moura to debut his failed routine.
"Jose was trying a new thing," said circus spokesman Alan Miller. "He needed more practice."
That was obvious to Jason Weiss, 22, of Brooklyn.
"He just fell straight down," Weiss said. "They turned off the lights, and he just laid in the net."
Moura was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was treated for a bruised back, circus officials said. He was sitting in a hospital gown in the emergency ward several hours after the accident.
"It wasn't anything like the other day," Miller said.
On Tuesday, aerialist Ernando Amaya, 34, slipped off a high wire and plunged to the ground as children and adults gasped in disbelief.
A trapeze artist also broke his finger on a triple somersault landing during Tuesday's show.
Amaya, who suffered minor injuries, vowed Wednesday to return to a life on the high wire.
"You accept the chances," a circus crew member agreed yesterday. "There's a lot of dangerous acts this year."
Promotional placards posted inside the Garden by the circus declared: "Tempting fate daily."
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