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YouTube — the 11th plague of Passover?

Just in time for the seder, new Passover videos feature food, fashion and fun

Renee Ghert-Zand is the health reporter and a feature writer for The Times of Israel.

Felicia Sloin in her Passover parody video, 'Batya-Floating in the Reeds.' (YouTube screenshot)
Felicia Sloin in her Passover parody video, 'Batya-Floating in the Reeds.' (YouTube screenshot)

We knew that two “Uptown Funk” parodies and one “All About That Bass” knock-off could not have been the only Passover videos coming our way this spring, and more clips have indeed been posted to YouTube in the last day or so.

So take a break from busy shopping, cooking and cleaning for a chance to watch (and in some cases,enjoy) them.

Adele may have released  “Rolling in the Deep” five years ago, but this Passover it’s been turned into a feminist anthem for Moses’s daughter, known in the Midrash as Batya.

Check out “Batya: Floating in the Reeds” by Felicia Sloin, who does parody videos focusing on the lesser-known female characters associated with Jewish holidays. (Accordingly, her recent Purim video was about Vashti, not Esther.)

https://youtu.be/AyXjnbTU9YI

A Jewish holiday just wouldn’t be a Jewish holiday without a new video from the Maccabeats, who started the Jewish holiday video trend five years ago.

This time, they’re singing “Dayenu” in a variety of genres, including doowop, heavy metal, funk, barbershop quartet, and dubstep. Our favorite part is when they dance around in lederhosen in the polka portion of the performance. Who wouldn’t love that?

The Maccabeats were founded at Yeshiva University, but there are other college a cappella groups getting into the Festival of Freedom spirit this year.

Here are The Jabberwocks of Brown University in a video produced by Brown RISD Hillel. If Justin Timberlake were to do a Jewish holiday video, it would sound like this:

It looks like Denver-based folksinger Julie Geller enlisted her husband and sons to dress up like the Beastie Boys and go retro in “Can’t Eat This,” a parody of MC Hammer’s 1990 “U Can’t Touch This.”

Geller not only warns about the leavened products Jews are forbidden to eat on Passover, but also exhibits her dislike for the “weird” and “crazy” foods we do eat (canned gefilte fish with horseradish, anyone?).

Never mind what to eat on Passover. We know you’re preoccupied with the question of what you’ll wear to the seder.

Haley Sacks attempts irony as she models for us three different outfits perfect for any female Millennial planning to attend a seder that is sure to be Tweeted, Instagramed or Skyped. (Apparently Facebook is a no-no if you are normcore, whatever that is.)

https://youtu.be/Wq7H5SRQg0k

Haifa University has put out a sweet clip wishing everyone a Happy Passover while showing off its facilities. There are kids running around campus looking for the Afikomen, with background music we are sure we’ve heard in a certain Christmas movie. (Hey, it’s all festive.)

And while we’re on the subject of Israeli universities, in case you missed it the first time we posted it, here is the amazing Rube Goldberg-like contraption the students of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (also in Haifa) made for the holiday.

It reenacts the key moments in the Exodus narrative, including baby Moses floating down the Nile, the Ten Plagues, the Burning Bush, and the splitting of the Red Sea. Fun for all ages, but please don’t try this at home without adult supervision.

And if that was not nerdy enough for you, here’s the Passover story told with Playmobil figurines. Believe it or not, this is not the first time someone has made a Playmobil Passover video. There’s at least one of these things posted to YouTube every year.

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