September 1, 2008 | 12:25 am

All I want for Ramadan is you!

Posted by Dennis Wilen

Follow JewishJournal.com on

First of all, I want to wish a blessed Ramadan to all my Muslim cousins. May your month of fasting and prayer bring you closer to the God we all share.

In many ways Ramadan sounds like our month of Elul and the High Holy Days, which include fasting, self-examination, charity, repentance and prayer.

We are all Children of Abraham and we need find new ways to celebrate our shared family instead of fighting over our differences.

With that out of the way, I was intrigued to read that the government censors in Egypt have decided Adam Sandler’s “You Don’t Want to Mess With the Zohan” is a threat to the “public order” and will not be shown there.

Egyptian reporter Joseph Fahim managed to view the film online and offered this critique:

Sandler’s Middle East is a Looney Tunes-like place of turmoil where, for some odd reason, the fun-loving, sex-craving Israelis seem to be endlessly stuck in the 80s whereas every Palestinian, old and young, are strongly fixated on destroying Israel. Each party receives its fair share of humorless jokes involving hummus, described as “a very tasty diarrhea-like substance;” bargaining, circumcised barbarian Israelis and rich Arab Sheikhs requesting [Mariah] Carrey to sign their flags with “All I Want for Ramadan is You.”

A government that is scared of a film like ‘Zohan’ is a government that lacks belief in its own legitimacy, and yet the censorship decision is being repeated across the Arab world with this film.  Egypt needs more Adam Sandler, not less.

Thoughtful Egyptians know this attempted censorship is both futile and self-defeating, as do citizens of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, etc.  Maybe Ramadan will help everyone see the beauty of freedom.

P.S.:

Dear Sheikh Ayallah of Lebanon:

I used our Jewish control of Hollywood to fulfill your Mariah Carey fantasies and get you the personally-autographed photo above.

Print it out, pass it around, enjoy! 

Just because the movie won’t be shown in Lebanon, there’s no shame in using the Internet tubes, as it were, to get off.

Forgot your fantasy?  Why it’s right here in this vid:

Mariah Carey’s scene from ‘Zohan’ with French subtitles

Before anyone gets freaked out by my mocking Ramadan, I should point out that Bloggish is an equal-opportunity mocker of holy days, as this Michelle Citron music video ‘I Gotta Love You, Rosh HaShanah’ demonstrates.

1 Comments — Leave your comment

Share this post: del.icio.us Digg Facebook Google Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati YahooMyWeb