‘A Jewish dad’s political priorities: 1) Shul board, 2) Brexit’
New Facebook group Jewish Dad Talk becomes overnight viral sensation, with almost 6,000 members signing up within hours to make fun of their "nebbish Jewish dads".
Deborah is a freelance journalist
If your son, daughter, brother or sister has been chucking madly at their computer screen, iPad or smartphone in the last couple of days, they haven’t gone mad – they’re just part of a new Facebook group taking the online Jewish community by storm.
Your Jewish Dad Talk UK/EU is a Facebook group started by two 19-year-old Cambridge University students that boasted thousands of members within its first few hours of existence.
The group – in which members post hilarious one-liners typical of most Jewish dads (example: ‘your dad keeps an emergency kippah in the glove compartment’ or ‘your dad uses his phone on Shabbat to check what time it goes out’) – was only born on Saturday night, but already has nearly 6,000 active members, most of whom are in their teens and twenties, and who live in northwest London.
Adam Goott and Alex Szlezinger, the founders of the group, who study English Literature and Theology respectively, have just finished their term as Presidents of Cambridge Jewish Society (their dads must be shlepping nachas).
They cited their inspiration behind the group, unsurprisingly, as their dads.
“After discussing traits that we thought were peculiar to our own dads, we realised that they were not so unique: in fact, they were scarily similar,” they said.
“The trope of the Jewish dad goes back millennia, but only now have thousands of Jews from different social and religious backgrounds come together to discuss it on one platform.”
Although the group has clearly struck a chord with London youngsters keen to compare their fathers’ hilarious quirks, neither Alex or Adam expected the instant virality of the group.
“We created the group 15 minutes after Shabbat went out, and three hours later, there were 1000 members,” they said.
“The qualities of our Jewish dads that defined our childhoods, and that we believed to be totally unique to our own dads, are actually qualities that our dads all share: a humorous reminder of the commonality of our Jewish experience.
“These shared characteristics struck a chord with a few of our close friends, who then added their friends, who then added even more people, and quickly the group grew exponentially.
“The best posts are those which epitomise the endearing yet slightly out of touch values, actions and concerns of all our dads.”
Just don’t let your dad read over your shoulder…
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