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brielle Fuerst’s good friends, to her delight, were married just a
few months ago. Leading up to the wedding, they asked her if
she might be interested in putting on a little performance during
the reception, something to entertain them and to jazz up the crowd.

Fuerst knew right away what she would do.

“I could do a weapons demo, if y’all think that’s cool,” she
told them.

And so, at the wedding of her two friends, Fuerst, a martial arts
and self-defense trainer, combined a nunchuck demonstration with
an impromptu dance routine.

Though the content of the performance was certainly unusual,
there’s nothing out of the ordinary in the practice itself. The wedding
shtick, as its known, is a staple of Orthodox Jewish weddings.

“It was really fun,” Fuerst said.

This shtick is distinct from the typical use of the Yiddish
word, meaning a comedic sketch. The wedding shtick is derived
from a Talmudic source, as these things tend to be. From
MyJewishLearning.com: “The shtick custom, it seems, derives from the Talmud’s
mandate to dance and rejoice for a bride on her wedding night. Just
what does this entail? The Talmud gives some examples, including
Rabbi Shmuel b. Rav (Yitzhak) who juggled myrtle branches at
weddings, and Rabbi Acha, who would hoist the bride up onto his
shoulders and carry her around.”
For Estee Ellis, performing the wedding shtick is a way to
transcend buttoned-up strictures of a formal wedding party, and
to express something ineffable about the relationship between the
bride and groom and the performer.

“It’s a really exciting way to celebrate and perform aspects that
are more personal,” Ellis said.

At a typical shtick, Ellis said, the couple will appear beneath
an arch of arms made by guests, just as a warmup. For her own
performance for close friends and family, she’ll repurpose college
T-shirts from the bride and groom’s alma maters, a practice that
she said is fairly typical.

If you’re looking for atypical, you might have wanted to see
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14 OCTOBER 24, 2019
Estee Ellis performs a wedding shtick
SIMCHAS Courtesy of CJ Studios
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