Irish Spring
Unorthodox preps for Passover with OMGWTFBIBLE host David Tuchman, and gets schooled by Irish journalist Maitiú Ó Coimin
This week on Unorthodox, we’re searching for chametz and waiting for the Red Sea to part.
Our Jewish guest is comedian David Tuchman, who hosts the lively and irreverent-er OMGWTFBIBLE podcast, which makes our program look damn near pious. Each week a guest reads from Tuchman’s own translation of the Bible, while he chimes in with jokes and factoids. He tells us about his yeshiva upbringing, his decision to go to a secular college, and how getting started in comedy unexpectedly brought him back to his Talmudic roots.
A few weeks ago, while interviewing Ladino songstress Sarah Aroeste, Mark Oppenheimer made a reference to Ladino being similar to the Irish language, which is today, he suggested, “spoken by 12 old people at an Irish festival.” A listener sent the episode to Irish journalist Maitiú Ó Coimin, who took to Twitter to correct the record. He Skypes in as our Gentile of the Week to school us on the vibrant and large Irish speaking community, and to curse Mark out in Irish. (Irish curses, it turns out, are a lot like Yiddish curses.)
We love to hear from you! Send comments, questions, and complaints to [email protected]. We’ll share our favorites on air. Come see us live at the American Hebrew Academy in Greensboro, North Carolina, on May 16.
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Unorthodox is a smart, fresh, fun weekly take on Jewish news and culture hosted by Mark Oppenheimer, Stephanie Butnick, and Liel Leibovitz. You can listen to individual episodes here or subscribe on iTunes.
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