Sunday, August 10, 2008

SHUL POLITICS: THE KIDDUSH CLUB

If you wanted to know what a kiddush club is and/or never had one in your shul, you are in luck. Throughout this post you will learn all of what you didn't or did know about the the kiddush club.

The Kiddush club is in fact a club, like a chess club but different. It is made up of a group of people who decided to leave davening early and start kiddush before everyone else. From what I know they like to get drunk. Oh something very important. There are various different types kiddush clubs and it depends on what shul you go to that makes it what it is. Back to from what I know. They like politics (every kind), talking in shul is a big one. They also talk about the government. Either against the government trying to find ways to cheat it or they are some how connected to it and know all the FBI tricks (that maybe why they know how to cheat it). I shouldn't forget they like to stick there two cents into everything.

Like I said they like politics. They love it, cant go a shabbos without it. They also "love" the Rabbi (cant wait to go a shabbos without him), so they decide to mix them together. After they have done their little experiment, it ends up that the rabbi is the source of all political problems (even non political). As in the post before the Rabbi is blamed for just about everything..... by the kiddush club.

Talking in shul. I think that this is a big reason for hating the rabbi. The rabbi is usually in charge of making sure everyone keeps quiet and they don't like that. I guess you could say that one of the reasons for the kiddush club's roots, stems from here. They want to talk and they cant. They also want to leave shul but don't want to miss the great kiddush. It then grows from just a few people wanting it to a few people having it (the kiddush and leaving shul). So unlike the rest of us who stay and wait patiently for davening to be over they can't wait and have no patients. Hmmmm..... Patients, that's something they don't have. That explains a lot.

They also give advice for cheating the government. I wouldn't take any advice on how to cheat the government from a drunken person and they drink. They start some of the most random conversations like about parking meters. How the city checks up on them and each one has the same key if they are on the same block. They are always bragging about how they cheated those 25 cent meters. They could have bagged them with those black plastic bag or took a chainsaw and chopped them off, drove away before the cop gives them a ticket. Another thing they have besides some made up stories, is some sort of connection to the government. they could be the most useless person on earth, but they have a connection so respect them. Its usually an uncle, brother, friend, brother in law, cousin, friends friend, as long as its not a woman it counts (sorry they are also anti feminine).

How to get into a kiddush club? Well it depends what type of shul you are in. Many shul's don't have a kiddush club, in fact many shuls don't have a kiddush. Some shuls they have to nab some wine and herring from the kitchen which is for the real kiddush later on. Anyone is invited to these, as long as you have some stories, connections to the government (which you are against) or a complaint on the rabbi. Other shuls its more complicated then being invited. You actually have to pay a kiddush club fee. This means that someone is buying all those things you eat and drink and cant steal them from the shul.

This is the kiddush club and concludes Shul politics (unless I do one on the Chazzan and gabbai).
As you can see shul is no longer a place to pray and find the Jewish faith at its best.What once was a place of torah and tefilah has now become a place of politics and the blame game. It is now not a shul but rather a business.

39 people gave their 2 cents:

Ookamikun said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ookamikun said...

Doesn't describe our kiddush club at all. You should come check it out.
The kiddush club is after davening is over. There's vodka and beer, middle-eastern cholent, hummus, pickles, olives, dried salami, etc. Most people come because the food is good and they get a chance to hang out. There's even a very short, 1~2 minutes dvar torah.

Mikeinmidwood said...

So you have a rabbi that speaks after davening is over thats the best one of all. Where is this place?

Ookamikun said...

No, he speaks after leining. My friend who's in charge of daf yomi say the dvar torah.
It's the Russian shul on Ocean Ave and M

Lion of Zion said...

i used to be very opposed to kiddush clubs, until one purim i realized that it is precisely because of the kiddush club exodus that a modicum of decorum can be maintained in some shuls (like the one i sometimes frequent).

some large shuls have banned kiddish clubs, either directly or indirectly (by banning alcohol on shul premises)

MOSHE:

that's not a kiddush club if it convenes *after* davening and if everyone is invited. and especially not if there is dvar torah.

i think i was in your shul once for a brit mila (a classmate davens there). now that's a real brooklyn shul.

Ookamikun said...

Well it's called a kiddush club so. :-P
What's his name?

Lion of Zion said...

it's a her, polina. her husband is dima.

Ookamikun said...

Ah. They're moving to NJ this week.

Lion of Zion said...

yes. just spoke to her last night. nu, so when are you leaving?

Ookamikun said...

Parents here, friends, shul, food...
A couple of my friends were entertaining the idea of moving to Florida. If they will, maybe we'll move too. Florida gun laws and real estate prices are a definite incentive.

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

MikeInMidwood: when you say they leave early, at what point in davening is that?

Do they have their own food?
they eat in a separate place?

Now I'm curious to go to a shul with a kiddush club to check it out, do you have a list of shuls that have it?

Anonymous said...

BABYSITTER:

the general minhag is to convene during the haftara and rabbi's speech. in one shul that i frequent they actually have the chutzpah to leave during lening. they used to leave at the beginning of leining, but a a compromise was reached that they wait until after shelishi.

they have their own food (and most importantly, booze). sometimes clubs get fancy and have hot food, with hot food. in one shul in 5 towns they designed their own caps.

"Now I'm curious to go to a shul with a kiddush club to check it out"

you'll have to start your own. afaik, women are not invited

anyway, my thoughts why i love the kiddush club:


I Love Kiddush Clubs!


-Lion of Zion

Ookamikun said...

Again, not true about ours. We have a couple wives hanging around in the back so feel free to come over. And we're somewhat close to your house.

Mikeinmidwood said...

Usually the kiddush club I know starts during leining not after davening or even by the haftorah. If your kiddush club starts after davening its not the real kiddush club its more like a club for kiddush and it wont have the blame game going around does it.

Ookamikun said...

There's always stuff to bitch about. Our shul is like one big family, so anyone has a good chance of getting smacked upside the head for misbehaving. Russian shul is not same as American shul. Different upbringing, different values.

Mikeinmidwood said...

So if you speak against the govern.... I mean shul(or government) does it have to be done in secrecy. lol.

Ookamikun said...

I say whatever I want, about both. Most people do too. But if someone tries to go eat before my friend and I start taking out the food for kiddush club...very bad things will happen.

Mikeinmidwood said...

So you head this, am I right? I'm coming. got to see you in action. Do they have a good herring, thats all I care about.

Ookamikun said...

No herring, only meat.

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

Anonymous/Lion Of Zion: So that means they miss mussaf? or they come back after the Rabbi's speech?
So they basically have to spend their own money, they don't have to pay rent to the shul for using their place for the kiddush club?
what's so great about booze? it even has a negative ring to it, "boo".

True, I wouldn't be able to join it, but I can still watch, no? Or I can ask one of my brothers to go for me and to report what they saw.

I'll check out the link...

Moshe: I did take a walk over to that area a few times on shabbos, so maybe I will then, but that would be an extra interesting one. I want to say what a typical one looks like.

MikeInMidwood: its so strange that of all the shul's in my neighborhood there are none like this. I mean we have like 15 shul's within 4 block radius, and I've never heard of a kiddush club till now. My neighborhood has the young married couples so it would seem more their type since young people are into drinking, but yet they don't have it. So does that mean its more for the yeshivish older people?

Ookamikun said...

Or Russian :-D
We got lotsa booze.
And on Purim, forget about it. Half the stuff is flammable.

Lion of Zion said...

BABYSITTER:

"So that means they miss mussaf?"

they usually straggle back in for mussaf.

"what's so great about booze?"

i'm not a drinker, but some people like it

"its so strange that of all the shul's in my neighborhood there are none like this."

you are such a תמים. i guarantee that there are shuls in your neighborhood with a kiddush club. you just wouldn't know. it's not like they announce before maftir, "and the kiddush club members may leave now."

also, sometimes its more informal. it can just be a couple guys going into the kitchen or a hallway. or it could be more formal where they sit down in a regular room.

Lion of Zion said...

p.s. you might get a good kiddush at moshe's shul, but it's not a kiddush club if it's for everyone and it's not during davening.

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

Lion Of Zion: ok, that's good they don't miss davening then.

They might not announce it but I should still know if they had it. I saw one of your post mentioned the pizza store on Ave. M and nostrand. Are there any shul's near there that have a kiddush club?

You know what, now that you mention it, I think at my old shul there were a few men, like 2 or 3, who went to the kitchen, but I thought they were there to get ready to bring out the food for the kiddush, but perhaps they made a little kiddush for themselves first, I'll find out.

Ookamikun said...

If anyone was planning on coming this week, no kiddush club. My friend is going away and I don't have time to do it myself.

The Webman said...

it's all true, in my shul you have to pay $100 monthly in order to be part of the kiddush club. Not to mention that some of them get called up to the Torah, and they come up drunk, really really drunk, and start cursing in front of the Torah. The rest of them come in to Musaf also very drunk, and can't stop talking for the last 20 minutes in shul...

Lion of Zion said...

WEBMAN:

i've never seen them come in drunk (though i've heard stories). but what i find disgusting is when one of them has a chiyuv and the whole shul has to wait so they can be pulled out of the kiddush club to come in for their aliyah

MOSHE:

"If anyone was planning on coming this week, no kiddush club."

stop calling it a kiddush club. it may be fun with good food, but the way you describe it, it's not a kiddush club :)

BABYSITTER:


"Are there any shul's near there that have a kiddush club?"

i don;t know those shuls, but i'll bet there is one.

"I thought they were there to get ready to bring out the food for the kiddush . . ."

2 type of people help set up the kiddush. the little old ladies and the men who don't want to wait for the rabbi to make kiddush

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

Lion of Zion: not necessarily is it only those 2 types of people. There are people who are really devoted to the shul that help too. But yea I can picture people going in there to get to eat first.

MAK said...

As far as I'm aware there are no Kiddush Clubs in any of the shuls near me...though further north or south of our community, there's a good possibility. In Boca Raton, for instance, I'd be willing to bet that there's a kiddush club in one of the shuls there.

Mikeinmidwood said...

Lion O Zion

I agree Moshes Shul doesnt have a real kiddush club.

Baby sitter

I cant believe none of the shuls near you dont have one.

Webman

Stumbling in drunk havent seen that but have heard of it like lion O zion.

Mak

Dont know much about florida but there could very well be one in boka raton. Ill ask.

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

Hey people, guess what? I finally learnt what a shidduch club is, the history behind it and everything.

I was talking to a neighbor of mine, so he told me the way a kiddush club came around was for the fancy big huge shuls of 800 people, where they would have like millions of things set up in a downstairs hall where they would have kiddush, they had like buffet style, so they needed people to help set it all up, so they would have a bunch of people go out set up and daven their own minyan of mussaf after they set up.

Then with time it evolved to the way you describe it, which really isn't the way it was originally thought out to be, so now the whole thing really is no good, and the OU even tried to stop it, because of how stoned people would come out of it.

Lion Of Zion: My neighbor also had the same view as me, concerning if they talk that it shouldn't be an excuse for them to have the kiddush club. Their not babies, they should learn to just keep quiet and sit the 2 hours their there. Plus their coming to shul to daven, people shouldn't talk during davening. The reason they do could be because they don't understand the power of davening, in that case maybe they need to be reinformed as to the reason why we daven.

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

**Correction** oops, I meant to say Kiddush club.

Ookamikun said...

Now we know what's on your mind. ;-)
And stop saying their! It's they're, they are!

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

Moshe: good job figuring out what it was you reminded me of.

and lol, it was only on my mind, cause I was just commenting on it in one of frumskeptic's posts.

I could stop saying "their" but then it would take to long to write it, and won't have the same natural flow, because my thoughts would be interrupted.

Mikeinmidwood said...

I have found out if there is a kiddush club in Boka raton. there is one and from what I heard its not as high tech as the ones in midwood.

Anonymous said...

We used to to have one... Then Rabbi stopped it... Then slowly we got another one, but there was a disagreement over fees. So, it stopped. Then it started again... Then someone made a new minchag to bring salads and crackles and booze after davening, but I notice that men startred to come down to the kitchen before mussaf, too. (or maybe they never stopped)

I HATE KIDDUSH CLUB!!!

Mikeinmidwood said...

mLevin

Im bot sure I get the story who started the kiddush club in the kitchen and was the club supposed to be after davening. Im not getting it. Care to explain.

Anonymous said...

We always had sometype of a kiddush club in the kitchen... but there is too many politics about money and booz, so it dies. But men can't go without their liquor, so it starts up again. Recently someone came up with a "briliant" idea of doing it after davening with crackers and salads. It started out early this summer. Now it has grown to include salami and snapple... In the mean time, we noticed that men still sneak into kitchen in the middle of davening...

Mikeinmidwood said...

Ahh...now I understand.