Jeff Goldblum Performs a Bris, On a Cigarette
First it was lox, now it’s … cigarettes?
Tobacco sticks are the latest unassuming product to face kashrut questions, after a Dutch study found that pig hemoglobin was being used in some cigarette filters. The issue hasn’t captured the attention of the rabbinic authorities just yet, and it might not now that actor and rabbi-in-disguise Jeff Goldblum has stepped in to quell the situation. Goldblum, famous for roles in “Jurassic Park,” “Independence Day” and “The Fly,” performed a mock bris on a Marlboro on “The Colbert Report” last week. The filter is kind of the like the foreskin, right?
Introduced as Rabbi Jeffrey Goldblum, the actor, appears onstage in hybrid Conservative/Orthodox garb, with an oversize tallis draped over a bekishe. Goldblum hovers over the Marlboro with a pair of scissors and recites — in his best nasally rabbi voice — the candle-lighting blessing, commanding us to kindle Virginia Slims and Chesterfield Kings.
Host Stephen Cobert added that swine-laden cigarette filters can cause “a potentially dangerous situation. If Jews and Muslims have to quit smoking, they might get edgier around each other.”
