My Song At My Roast

We recently had an event called Roast the Rabbi. I hope that it will not sound bad if I say that it was a great night in every way. We had nearly 300 people and they were all smiling and laughing. The committee worked very hard for a long time and every detail was perfect. At the end of the evening, I never said a word, but my grandson Avi, in a tuxedo that matched mine, responded for me, rebutting his brother Alexander’s biting indictment of my humor. I sang this song to him, but really to thank everyone who was there:

There are a lot of rabbis
Who move from town to town
Their kids are quite unhappy
Because they never settle down

Another Rosh Hashanah
A Yom Kippur and then
Early in the autumn
They’re on the road again

But I’m a lucky rabbi
I sort of found my groove
I took a liking to this place
And I’ve never had to move

Avi, you’re just eleven
But I know life’s basic rule
Having you here is heaven
But you’ll go away to school

When you come back home again
You really won’t be blamed
If when you see all these people
You won’t remember their names

So I’ll sing:

Shake hands with Stuart Katz, my boy.
He thinks he’s really funny
And here’s his nice wife Marni
She makes sure the shul has money
Eta Kaplan’s the boss of the kitchen
She really deserves our cheers,
Sy’s the bloke who knows all my jokes
But he hasn’t laughed once in years

There’s Freidman, Faiman, Frohman, Putterman,
Ullman, Alderman, Elman and Katz
Shure, Salinger, Sumner, Spector, Slossberg, Sohcot and Rosenblatts
There’s Stein, Fine, Levy, Levine, Tyler, Tenedine, and Oppenheim

Kraus, McConnell, Bailey and DiCarlo and some others
here aren’t Jewish…but there’s still time

Look at all these people
Dressed in crimson and Magenta
And here’s Gail Greenberg
She’s the Rabbi’s official yenta
And here’s Brian Weissman and Josh Lakin
Everyone thinks they’re twins
They’d be almost perfect
if they rooted for the Skins

There’s Raucher, Davis, Evans, Engel, Laub, Chasnoff
and Kabakoff, Perry, Rolnick, Pines, Rudnick, Popoli,
Prins, Patkin and Rumanoff, Kramer, Kesselman,
Kuchuk, Lurie, Laskin, Leffell, and Sokoloff, Borodkin,
Barkin, Berns, Biller, Brooks, Brown and Zudekoff

We have lot of wonderful people
As you can surely tell
We have our practically perfect Mary Poppins
She’s a Murphy named Michelle
The way to start your morning
Is to put on tallis and tefillin
But if you want to grow up to be a real man
Drink the coffee after morning minyan

There’s Abramson, Abrahams, Alexander, Korwitz,
Romeo, Shepherd, Schiff and Seltzer, Nathanson,
Reifler, Parness, Paper, Pollack, Krupel, Hyatt,
Tannanbaum, Miller and Meltzer
There’s Zomback, Fain, Vernick, Greengas, Sadinsky and Hillman,

And if you want to eat, you better buy gift certificates
good at Stop and Shop, Pathmark and Big Y from Tobi Gillman,

We have Kaplans with a K
and even Caplans with C’s
But none of them have more ideas per day
Than the Piscitelles
Then there’s Izzie Juda,
we named our religion just for him
He’s 98, does Haftorahs so great
That’s why it’s called Juda-ism

There’s Kanner, Spaner, Hammer, Stambler, Brenner, Fischer, Glazier and Hecht
Garcia, Gardella, Gautieri, Ganezer, Gold, Garsten, Glassner and Beck,
Doron Ben-Atar, the basketball star, Litto, Ledewitz and Moskowitz
Shweky, Olschan, Madow, Tilow, Robbins, and Danilowitz
Wise, Weiss, Weissman, Wilkenfeld, Wyner and Weinstein,

Sosensky, Smith, Spivak, Squire, Schulefand, Stern, Schulman and Green
Alpert, Rosman, Ortman, Oberman, Epstein, Long and Leveen
And Henry Cohen’s the best davener we’ve ever seen
Moses, Margolis, Mandel, McPadden, Mendlestein, Murphy and Mayzlina

Donald Trump was supposed to be here tonight

he didn’t respond to the subpoena

So Avi when you go away
Remember Beth Sholom
If you can’t place their names
It’s all the same
We’ll wish you welcome home.

Rabbi Scolnic