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By PJ Grisar September 26, 2024

Talk about ass backwards.

For the upcoming holiday of Sukkot, an Amazon seller is offering cute cardstock “Happy Sukkot Gift Boxes” complete with the festival’s name in Hebrew. Or well, that was the intent.

Since the Hebrew is rendered the wrong way, the boxes, in fact, say “Tuchus.” Jewish Twitter is laughing its butts off.

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To be completely fair to HOWAF, the company producing these party favors, they are continuing a long, well-meaning, but ultimately clueless tradition of mass-produced goods for the Jewish holidays. It’s a longstanding custom to include shofars, menorahs and challahs on all party favors, regardless of whether or not the chag is at all associated with these objects. (An image of the Sukkot gift boxes in action shows a man breaking matzo, ’cause, close enough.)

Much cheeky humor has emerged from these cultural crossed wires.

Butt — sorry, but — it’s not quite as common to see Hebrew blunders that spell a word that is, by itself, funny.

Hebrew letters, which are read right to left, can be tricky, as members of Jewish Voice for Peace learned the hard way at a recent encampment Seder. Though these tuchus gift boxes, unlike many unforced errors from retail giants, may give one pause.

What is Sukkot if not an occasion sitting in a sukkah in remembrance of our ancestors? When we shake the lulav, do we not also shake our booties (at least a little) by the s’chach? Already I am thinking about alternate applications for an etrog emoji. 

While some may think it a kind of sacrilege to insert a word so base into a fundamental Jewish holiday (all puns intended), these boxes are still sure to be a sought-after party favor for the holiday — provided guests don’t mind being the butt of the joke.

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