The folks at Buzzfeed have stumbled onto a veritable viral goldmine with a few of their latest videos, in which Americans sample (or attempt to explain) aspects of Jewish culture, with little background knowledge. First there was the Jewish Food Taste Test, then there was Hanukkah Explained By Christians (and the concomitant Christmas Explained By Jews). Now, in “Americans Try Israeli Snacks,” Jews and gentiles sample classic treats from the Holy Land for the very first time.

In just three days the video has amassed over one million views, which I find fascinating and a little surprising. (By comparison, this seminal Marmite Vs. Vegemite taste test, uploaded way back in August 2014, has 1.2 million views.) (An egregious oversight, citizens of the internet.) I mean, this is literally a video of people eating snacks! That’s all! Why is it so compelling?

Perhaps because it speaks to our nostalgia for the comforts of childhood—anyone who grew up eating Bamba will know what I’m talking about. It’s the Jewish madeleine. Just the sight of the bubble font on the packet sends me back to the early 1990s. And for those unfamiliar with Israeli snacks, the video is a benign, cute, soundbite-y take on the ‘other’—much like this one of Americans trying Indian snacks for the first time. It’s a safe, if shallow exploration of non-American culture. Also, Israeli snacks are just really delicious. Milky is pretty much the finest chocolate pudding on the face of the earth.

Still, there are some oversights! Wither shoko b’sakit? Klik malt balls? The egozi bar?

And why was “Chosson Kallah Mazel Tov”—a wedding song—chosen as the soundtrack?

Leave your thoughts, recommendations, critiques in the comments.

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Buzzfeed—purveyor of fun, borderline cringeworthy holiday kitsch (and kitsch in general)—has birthed two more Jew-y cross-cultural videos into the universe. This time, we get ‘Christmas explained by Jews,’ and ‘Hanukkah explained by Christians.’ (Alllll the points to the dude who confuses “ladle” with “dreidel.”)

Happy holidays, you ignoramuses!

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ICYMI alert—Buzzfeed released this cute video last week of a posse of hipsters sampling Jewish (read: Ashkenazi) food for the first time, and their reactions are pretty hilarious. They’re probably hamming it up for the camera (is “Manischewitz” really that obscure or hard to pronounce?), but still, it’s cute.

On kugel: “I feel like it wants to be macaroni and cheese, and it also wants to be a cake, it just doesn’t know which one it is yet.” (Truth!)

On Manischewitz: “I can get wasted off this.”

On chopped liver: “This is poop. This has to be poop.” (It’s actually brown, fatty gold, but I guess it’s an acquired taste.)

Also, the observations vis-à-vis food density (specifically with regard to matzah balls, gefilte fish, and kugel) are spot on. Jews do have a high caloric content per square inch of food.

Our verdict? A “WIN” for internet’s best/worst purveyor of viral content.

(Image: YouTube)

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Sketch comedy group Half Day Today! just released a brilliant parody of the Wolf of Wall Street trailer, with the outrageously successful social news website Buzzfeed as its target. Instead of watching Jordan Belfort fling hundred-dollar bills into a wastebasket, we see Buzzfeed founder Jonah Peretti skimming the cream off the internet to create a viral content farm, without crediting any of his sources—because it’s a blog-eat-blog world out there, ya dig?

Writer/director/actor Brad Woolf is grossly luminous as the Donnie Azoff/Jonah Hill stand-in, and there are hilarious one-liners (“I love nostalgia, I love cat pictures, and I love getting people hits”) and Buzzfeed-style headlines (“21 Things You Forgot You Remembered”) peppered throughout.

Enjoy, share, and if you’re feeling generous, throw us a h/t!

(h/t my friend Adam who emailed me this video)

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There’s less than one week until the day we’ve all (I guess) been waiting for: Thanksgivukkah. It’ll come, we’ll talk, we’ll eat, and then there’ll be thousands of insufferable online statuses about how full everyone is. With all the hype, we figured you’d want another parody video— you can even link to it when you complain about your tryptophan/heartburn hangover: “I’m soooo full. Don’t think I can eat for another 70,000 yrs! #Thanksgivukkah #full #Jewishpeopleproblems.”

By BuzzFeed Video, here’s another annoying Thanksgivukkah parody.

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BuzzFeed, the internet’s maligned and beloved list distributor, has given us something we can’t complain about. In the spirit of the Jewish New Year, we embrace this new list with open arms. “27 Sweetest Treats for Rosh Hashanah,” is a fantastic compilation of inventive ideas for High Holiday dining.

Apples emptied and turned into honey cups. Fontina, walnut, apple, and honey grilled cheese sandwiches. Honey-glazed carrots. The list just gets better and better until it’s Manischewitz Ice Cream.

Shana tova and thank you, BuzzFeed.

27 Sweetest Treats For Rosh Hashanah [BuzzFeed]

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In middle school, when the sweaty, dreamy boys on the JV basketball team made a list of the prettiest girls in the grade, there were only, like, five names listed on that college-ruled paper. When you learned that your name didn’t make the cut (it turns out seventh grade boys aren’t impressed by your weekend spent reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, whatever), tears and self-deprecation ensued, but, alas, you found other strengths (See: journaling, napping).

So when I saw BuzzFeed’s latest list, “The Official Ranking of the 51 Hottest Jewish Men in Hollywood,” the list-loser in me was borderline befuddled. 51? That seems way too large a set. Now, I know, I know, attraction is confusing, selective, and strange (I thought Jack Black was the ideal man for the majority of my pre-teens). But this list builder, Lauren Yapalater, essentially concocted a roster of every Jewish actor in Hollywood.

Scott Caan, Steven Weber: really? Mandy Patinkin on the same list as Adam (and, for that matter, Adrien) Brody? This Yapalater lady doth protest too much, methinks. She may as well have thrown Herschel Shmoikel Pinchas Yerucham Krustofski—aka Krusty the Clown—into the mix.

BuzzFeed is silly. It’s mostly visited for its juvenile lists colored with GIFs and semi-witted 140 character blurbs easy to share with all your virtual friends. And I can get down with that business model. But, c’mon, have some backbone. As a website that creates and distributes lists, make actual lists. If not, the world of ranking loses all its credence. Narrow that list down, girl.

The Official Ranking Of The 51 Hottest Jewish Men In Hollywood [BuzzFeed]

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