Lubavitcher To Pull Stunts For Charity
To help raise money for his annual Hanukkah charity telethon, Anchelle Perl, Lubavitch emissary to the Long Island, N.Y., town of Mineola, has taken a page from Evel Knievel’s handbook.
Alongside performances by the band Shlock Rock and the so-called “Dancing Rabbis,” Perl will take a turn as history’s first Hasidic “stunt man” in an effort to raise money for causes sponsored by the National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education, whose Long Island branch he heads.
Though Perl will not be shot out of a cannon, he will ride onstage on a Harley Davidson and show video clips of himself racing an Aston Martin sports car along Jones Beach (and getting pulled over by a police officer), putting on tefillin in a hot-air balloon and fishing for money in a Dumpster.
“I’m probably one of the most frustrated marketers of Jewish life there is,” Perl said. “I always try to think outside the box. I wear a black hat, a beard, the whole nine yards. This is the one time of year we can bring joy, simcha, in an appropriate manner to everybody.”
Still not clear what motorcycles have to do with Hanukkah?
“There are physical candles, but we are also in the business of lighting up souls,” Perl said. “We all have oil and a wick; sometimes we just need a spark.”
The event will air December 10, live at 7 p.m., on Long Island’s channel 55, WLNY-TV.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
