By Mark D. Zimmerman
MELVILLE, New York — Kermit the Frog is in the headlines, with the news that longtime Kermit puppeteer and voice Steve Whitmire was fired by Disney, curent owner of the Muppets. Whitmire became the voice of Kermit when creator Jim Henson died in 1990. While Kermit has only rarely been officially voiced by anyone other than Henson and Whitmire, there have been many others who lent their voices to unofficial Kermit videos, including Cantor Michael Smolash of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, who performed what song as Kermit the Frog?
A. The Temple held a Bible Stories Family Fair. At this event, Cantor Smolash sang The Noah Connection, including the lines “Why am I sitting here, with so many animals?/They’re hairy, they’re noisy, they stink./But God said to build this,/This rickety old ark boat./It was right to do this, I think./But soon we’ll be landing, at least that’s what God said/Because a dove brought me a sign./So I’ll just relax now, and milk this old milk cow, and wait for the rainbow to shine.”
B. During the Temple’s community-wide second Passover seder, Cantor Smolash introduced the section on the plagues by singing “It’s not easy being a frog/At Passover time, when we’re just another plague/We’re included in with pestilence, and locusts, and vermin, and slaying of the firstborn./I don’t know why frogs were a plague./Because I think we’re pretty nice, so I wonder, I wonder, why choose frogs, instead of crocodiles, or turtles, or reptiles more despicable than us.”
C. The Temple held a Torah Fair, which included a concert of songs about the Torah and its teachings. As part of that presentation, Cantor Smolash sang The Shalom Connection: “Why are there so many prayers about shalom,/The word that is Hebrew for peace?/There’s Oseh Shalom Bimromav, and Shalom Rav, plus there’s the birkat kohanim./In Proverbs it says D’racheha, darchei-noam, V’chal n’tivoteha Shalom./The Torah is pleasant, it’s pathways are peaceful, the Shalom connection. Amen.”
D. As part of a Purim spiel at Temple Israel, Cantor Smolash sang Haman Remembrance, including the lines “Why are there so many songs about Haman/When we should be blotting his name?/Haman’s a villain–the worst one in Shushan./He made Mussolini look tame.”
E. Temple Israel held a Judaism Fair, which included opportunities to learn about the many laws of the Torah. As part of a play about keeping kosher, Cantor Smolash wore a Kermit the Frog mask and sang, “It’s not kosher eating frogs./Or serving your meals with escargot or squid./Or even eating things like pepperoni pizzas, or cheeseburgers, or bacon and eggs, or baby back ribs./But if treif is all there is to eat/Then you can eat it all, to save a life, pikuach nefesh,/Eat your treif, it’s so delish, but I still think you should not eat frogs.”
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Zimmerman is the author of the Rashi, Rambam and Ramalamadingdong series of Jewish trivia e-books. Learn more at http://www.rrrjewishtrivia.com