Morning Juice: Menorah Gets Spicy Treatment, Boynton a Town of Twits, Florida Lawman Targets Jewish Slots Tradition

Hanukkah Tastes Better on Rye

Shalom, and welcome to the first Hanukkah-themed edition of the Morning Juice. If you're Jewish like me, then you know that you celebrate Hanukkah only because of its proximity to Christmas and you'd feel like you had no reason at all to take next Thursday off if not for this minor holiday. And oh, if you're Jewish like me, then you're not really Jewish at all. But in these trying times, aren't we all Jewish?

And if you're Jewish like Rabbi Shlomo Ezagui of Chabad of Palm Beach, then you're going to light a 15-foot menorah made of salami this Hanukkah. The salami will be served this Sunday with lettuce and tomato on top at David's East Side Deli in Palm Beach Gardens. This may sound like a Christmas-like attempt to commercialize a religious holiday. But that anti-Semitic train of thought ignores thousands of years of tradition that began when the Maccabees survived for eight days and nights on nothing but lettuce, tomato, and a 15-foot salami shaped like a candle.

After the jump, more ideas on how to Hanukkah-up your Christmas break in ways never imagined by Moses.

Boynton Beach to Join Online Twits

If you're getting sick of the visiting family this Hanukkah and just simply can't eat another slice of the salami menorah, then you might consider wasting some time on the city of Boynton Beach's new Twitter page. The city is offering up real-time messages of the goings-on at city hall, which are sure to prove the addage that you don't want to know how they make salami, fried rice, or goverment.

This Hanukkah, Salami Menora, Yes. Slots, No.

Florida's Attorney General wants to shut down the Seminole Tribe's gaming and slots operation and sent this nasty letter recently about it. If successfull, the AG would ruin the longstanding tradition of Jews who spend Christmas day eating Chinese food, pushing coins into slot machines, and trying to remember exactly who the Maccabees were.

Below, two children thrust onto the Internet by their mother show us the true enthusiasm of Hanukkah. Clearly, these children haven't seen the 15-foot salami menorah.



--Eric Barton