Mensch on a Bench Is Ultimate Cure for ‘Elf Envy’
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Anne Cohen November 13, 2013
Do you have Christmas “elf envy”?
No more! The Elf on a Shelf has some Jewish competition: the Mensch on a Bench.
Mini tribe member Mosche is the brainchild of Neal Hoffman, a former employee of Hasbro Toys in Rhode Island, who thought of the Hannukah-friendly mentor after his son, Jacob, felt left out at school — all his friends had elves to play with.
After raising more than $22,000 on Kickstarter, Mosche the Mensch was born. According to the description, he brings some “Funukka to Hanukkah.”
The toy also comes with a book by the same name, telling the story of Mosche the Mensch, “who was in the temple with the Maccabees when they won the war against the Greeks. There was only enough oil for one night and everyone was exhausted from the war and wanted to go to sleep. But what if the oil went out while the Jews were sleeping? Moshe volunteered to sit on the bench all night and warn everyone if the oil ran out.”
Sound appealing? Well, too bad. Both the regular Mensch on the Bench ($36) and the limited edition ($75 — it includes a blue tallit) are sold out until 2014.
Pre-order yours now, to avoid the madness next year.
What a mensch.
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.
