S atire / F ake N ews / P urim
JEANIE OLOGY | JE STAFF
BRYCE HARPER, who recently signed
a blockbuster deal with the Philadelphia
Phillies and spurred a frenzy of jer-
sey-buying, has revealed that he comes
from an Ashkenazi Jewish background.

Though Harper is a member of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
and has talked publicly about serving as a
representative for the Mormon faith, sus-
picions of Jewish heritage were raised early
on in his life by a Jewish girl Harper met
at a party in high school. The girl, Britney
Greenbaum, was living in Harper’s native
Las Vegas temporarily while her mother
was a visiting professor at the University
of Las Vegas. Greenbaum saw Bryce across
the room at their first high school party
and thought he was cute.

“So I walked over and started talking
to him and it was like an instant connec-
tion, even though we were from different
worlds,” said Greenbaum. “Maybe it was
the forbidden aspect that drew us together,
but we talked about homework and sports
— he talked more about hockey than base-
ball! — and our parents. And he told me
his middle names were Aron and Max and
I started wondering. I mean, there is some-
thing of the Bar Mitzvah boy about him.”
Harper and Greenbaum grew apart
after a brief makeout session in a bedroom
closet, but later, when Harper was named
MVP in 2015, Greenbaum reached out and
reconnected with Harper, urging him to
take a DNA test to confirm her suspicions.

Harper’s 23andWe results stunned
him: 37 percent of his background came
back as “Super Rabbinic Russian.” His
parents knew nothing about the Jewish
heritage, but everyone in the family is
quite comfortable with the news.

“Mormons and Jews have a lot in com-
mon,” said Harper, who is considering
having his Bar Mitzvah on the mound
at Citizens Bank Park. He pointed to the
Mormon prohibition against alcohol. “In
my experience,” he added, “lots of Jewish
people are pretty indifferent to booze.

Though Britney Greenbaum did get pretty
toasted at that party.”
For Passover this year, Harper will
attend a baseball-themed seder that posi-
tions the four questions at four bases held
at the home of Phillies Manager Gabe
Kapler. Kapler is also Jewish, and maybe
secretly Mormon, too. l
Congregation Beth Stoner
Opens for Weed Fans
FAKE N EWS
FA K E N E WS
JUDY IZM | JE STAFF
JONATHAN KUGELSTEIN
opened up
a box
of Manischewitz’s finest matzah
on March 11 and imagine the
surprise he received: The face of
Moses was staring back at him
on the matzah sheet.

“At first I thought it was
just a trick of the light, but
those little dark spots were
telling me something,” said
Kugelstein, of Merion. “Then my
girlfriend Taylor, who was also
in the kitchen, dropped her glass
of Tang and shouted, ‘OMG, it’s
Charlton Heston.’”
Not knowing what to do next,
Kugelstein called the Good Day
Philadelphia team at Fox29, which
immediately set up a live broadcast
that aired for the next 24 hours,
pre-empting the usual mind-numbing
content that’s the channel’s specialty.

Kugelstein enjoyed his 15 minutes
of fame, particularly when Fox 29
reporter Jennaphr Frederick inter-
Jewish Woman Breaks
Record for Longest Name
FA K E N E WS
MARY JUANA | JE STAFF
YENTL ROSENBERGMAN | JE STAFF
VERY REFORM Congregation Beth
Stoner opened up in Center City, promis-
ing to cater to marijuana-addled Jews.

Rabbi Tommy Chong and Cantor Snoop
Dogg will lead the new synagogue, which has
already signed on 420 congregants.

“Hey man, if you want a far-out expe-
rience where nobody will harsh your reli-
gious buzz, Congregation Beth Stoner is
for you,” Chong said.

“And unlike other synagogues, where
you break bread after services, we break it
beforehand because we’ve always got the
munchies,” Dogg added. “We put the sin
in synagogue.”
Congregants will be permitted to
SOCIETY HILL resident Shoshana
Rubinivitzkyman never imagined
that she would one day see herself in
the Guinness Book of World Records.

But that’s exactly what happened,
and it was love that brought her there.

After getting married in a
wintry ceremony in February,
Rubinitvitzkyman decided to
hyphenate her and her husband’s
last name, instead of adopt-
ing his surname in the more tra-
ditional choice, thus becoming
Shoshana Rubinivitzkyman-
Satzbergerkatzbaum. Her friends advised against the
12 MARCH 14, 2019
smoke marijuana or use medical mari-
juana at all times, which drew protests
from other area rabbis.

“Having fun in synagogue? Whoever
heard of such a thing?” questioned Rabbi
Fred Neulander, who said smoking mar-
ijuana violates traditional law, although
hiring someone for murder doesn’t. l
viewed him live on air.

“I’m a little shy, but she ulti-
mately coaxed me to dance with the
matzah while singing ‘Matzah Man’
to the tune of ‘Macho Man,’” he
laughed. “You only live once.”
Kugelstein had planned to send
the matzah for scientific testing,
but the unleavened bread met a
tragic fate.

“I left it on the counter and my
roommate, who had been out of
town, came home and fried it up,”
Kugelstein said. “He later told me
Moses was delicious.” l
verbaska_studio / iStock / Getty Images Plus
FAKE N EWS
Face of Moses Found
in Matzah
JEWISH EXPONENT
hyphen choice, Rubinivitzkyman-
Satzbergerkatzbaum said. They told
her she should choose one or the
other, but she felt strongly that this
was the best decision for her family.

Soon after the Jewish Exponent
published her mazel tov announce-
ment, representatives from the
Guinness Book of World Records
reached out to her about appearing
in their forthcoming edition.

“I can’t believe I was hes-
itant at first to join JDate when
my rabbi suggested it, but I’m
glad I did,” Rubinivitzkyman-
Satzbergerkatzbaum said. “At the
time, I thought I would just be lucky
if I found my beshert, but now, I
have a world record, too.”
“Dayenu!” she added. l
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM DedMityay / iStock / Getty Images Plus
Bryce Harper Reveals
Secret Jewish History