Celebrating the Jewish holidays on Sesame Street
My family is Jewish, and I grew up in a mostly non-Jewish town (plus, we were barely observant). Jewish holidays were less an occasion for me than a moment of curiosity, as in "Mom, what's Rosh Hashana?" I felt more connected to Christmas and secular American holidays simply because they were celebrated in my community -- my neighborhood and my school.
Alongside all the Halloween decorations and the Christmas specials, how wonderful it would have been to see characters I loved singing and dancing to the theme of the Jewish holidays. And I LOVED Sesame Street. Still do.
The kid in me got all excited when a PR email with the subject "Shalom Sesame Street" hit my inbox. Turns out Sesame Workshop created a 12-part series touching on all of the major Jewish holidays. Muppets! Songs! Jake Gyllenhaal! Oh, yeah.
You can buy the DVDs separately, but the PR pitch was a heads-up about the upcoming Shalom Sesame box set, available for preorder and releasing on October 11, 2011.
Here's a little YouTube preview:
The Shalom Sesame website has more info and lots of fun games and activities.
I wrote this post based on an email I received from Shalom Sesame's PR company. I wasn't paid to write it; I'm just excited to pass along the news.
Related: What are your holiday traditions? Talk amongst yourselves.
There were probably a lot of complaints from jewish mamas wanting some judaism on The Street. They obviously did not fail to deliver.
Posted by: Anthony from CharismaticKid | 29 September 2011 at 10:23 AM
Adorable. And for the rest of 'the tribe' Happy New Year! Be sure to sign up for PJLibrary if it is offered in your area. One free Jewish book gets sent to each kid every month. It's a great resource...
Posted by: Ruth Hartman | 29 September 2011 at 02:05 PM
We received a Shalom Sesame: Sukkot version from PJ library. Fun!
Posted by: Melissa | 29 September 2011 at 02:30 PM
I just found out about PJ Library last week! There was an article about it in my local paper. Amazing organization mails childrens' books and music about Jewish topics to families for free.
http://www.pjlibrary.org/
Posted by: Asha Dornfest | 29 September 2011 at 04:28 PM
PJ Library is great! Happy, Healthy and Sweet New Year :)
Posted by: Hillary Manaster | 30 September 2011 at 08:18 AM