Is there a Jewish equivalent for mistletoe?

$20.

Are you saying if I put a $20 bill over the head of a Jewish woman I’ll get a kiss?

@Mr_M I’m not Jewish, but I’d smooch you for twenty bucks.

I’m really hoping a tone of antisemitism doesn’t show up, I’m not in the mood for any jew jokes. Currently working on a compilation of interviews from Holocaust survivors. But if there is an actual Jewish tradition similar to mistletoe, please share.

@MacBean ,you are ON!!!

It actually has more Pagan tradition if anything:
As per Wikipedia:
European mistletoe, Viscum album, figured prominently in Greek mythology, and is believed to be The Golden Bough of Aeneas, ancestor of the Romans. The Norse god Baldr was killed with mistletoe.

Mistletoe bears fruit at the time of the Winter Solstice, the birth of the new year, and may have been used in solstitial rites in Druidic Britain as a symbol of immortality. In Celtic mythology and in druid rituals, it was considered a remedy for barrenness in animals and an antidote to poison, although the fruits of many mistletoes are actually poisonous if ingested as they contain viscotoxins.

@eponymoushipster As a Jewish girl, I find that hilariously offensive.

and that’s the best kind of offensive

@Mr_M yes.

@trumi to quote a famous jewish comic, “is it racist if you LIKE that race?”

@Likeradar play your cards right, and we’ll make it $50. <wink>

@eponymoushipster L’chiam!

@Likeradar hot damn!

There are a limited number of instances where vegetative matter is used in Jewish ritual.

The only ones I can think of are dipping bitter herbs in salt water at a Passover Seder.

The Lulav and Esrog at Succoth .

Growing up in an apartment we could not have a Succah, but the Rabbi at the little shul where I went to Hebrew School did put one up in his backyard and if memory serves me right, he hung fruits from the eaves or what passed for a roof, on strings and we were allowed to pull them or cut them down to eat on Simchas Torah. Must have been apples, I guess.

But nobody kissed the Rabbi under the apples in the Succah. Oy, what a thought!

SRM

I’m not sure why, but I really love this sentence: “There are a limited number of instances where vegetative matter is used in Jewish ritual.”

@srmorgan There’s apples dipped in honey at Rosh Hashannah…

@macbean
It was difficult to phrase it properly. I was trying to differentiate plants from food, if you get my drift.

So much of Jewish celebration is tied into meals.
There is the old joke about Jewish holidays:

They tried to kill us,

They didn’t

Let’s eat.

@likeradar – I remember apples being distributed at the synagogue at Simchas Torah.
Apples and honey – associated with both holidays, Apples are in season in the fall, no?”

But we do use apples in charoseth, no at Pesach?

SRM

@srmorgan I was somehow convinced I made “They tried to kill us, they didn’t, let’s eat” up… apparently not. Or maybe I did, and it caught on really quickly. :)

Yup, apples are in charoseth. Yummmm….

No. As far as I know, the religion has no mistletoe or anything like it. There are, however, lots of decorations on a canopy when you get married. And then, a kiss as well.

i enjoy the term ”apples dipped in honey”.

Well, if you are feeling somewhat secular, and don’t mind spinning the dreidel under the mistletoe, then there is always chrismukkah

“Deck the halls
with lots of tchotchkes,
Fa la la la la la la la la la.
Tis the season to eat latkes,
Fa la la la la la la la L’Chaim!”

I hear that some Sephardic Jews (from Spain, Middle, Turkey, Greece, etc.) hit each other with leeks at the Passover seder. Anyone have any experience of this?

@answerjill i don’t, but my friend R. Kelly does.

@answerjill I don’t know about that, but I know that when I serve my son leeks he would like to hit me with them, no matter what time of year it is.