|
World Jewish News
Orangutan have a Jewish wedding at a Moscow circus
22.03.2009
A man dressed in Chasidic regalia speeds in a go-cart around Moscow's one-ring Circus Nikulina. Aziz Askaryan then dismounts and leads two gangly orangutans - one in a suit and kipah, the other in a full bridal gown - on a lurching matrimonial march toward a hastily constructed chupah in front of a guffawing audience.
The mock Jewish wedding between two orangutans has been the closing number for weeks in Act I of the famed Moscow circus, whose theme is "Empire: A Magical Show with Bright National Flavor."
It has stirred some conversation among Jewish leaders here. But most say that the act, which might raise eyebrows in the West, is met in Moscow with giggles or yawns.
"I think it's maybe in bad taste, but you must know that Russia is different than Western nations in its humor," Baruch Gorin, a spokesman for the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, told JTA.
Multiple attempts to reach Circus Nikulina by telephone for comment went unanswered.
"They took Jews as an example of the nation that exists in Russia; they didn't single them out," said Motya Chlenov, head of the Moscow office of the World Congress of Russian Jewry. "Maybe it's not smart; maybe it's a silly thing. But it's not pushing an anti-Semitic purpose."
Источник: JTA
|
|
