![]() But Jewish educators have again and again tried to use The Simpsons as a way to entice young people to engage with Judaism. Kids know when they’re being sold something. I’m not sure it does, or at least not that much. How can the Homer Calendar get kids interested in something as mundane as counting the days to Shavuot? So in 2000, a friend, Yosef Abramowitz, had just started a web site for Jewish families, and he offered to host the original site. It was one of the many subversive things we did together. I had first started watching The Simpsons in Israel, when our family lived there in the mid-90s, and our daughter was 5 and 6. ![]() This was back when everyone was making their own primitive websites. But when I first heard it in 1999, it immediately came to me as a website calendar where one could click on a date and the Omer count for the day would pop up, along with a Homer Simpson picture. The joke (Homer=Omer) was not my original idea. PopCholent: What inspired you to create the Homer Calendar?īrian Rosman: I was inspired by the opportunity to marry together almost all of my major interests: popular culture, humor, Jewish observance from a non-traditional approach and the internet. In honor of the Homer Calendar’s 20th anniversary, we asked Rosman a few questions about his “one joke taken way too far,” as well as his thoughts on Jewish Simpsons fandom. Considering the show has been on for 30 years, this is no easy task. In addition to the Omer calendar, the website continually catalogs every Jewish-related joke in The Simpsons history. There is even a printable version in case you want to plaster the many faces of Homer on your wall. For each night of the Omer, there is a web page with the blessing and the counting… along with a picture of Homer Simpson. Rosman’s website, The Homer Calendar, is a simple concept. The ritual of counting the Omer may seem like a tedious goal, but Brian Rosman found a way to make it relevant: theme it around America’s favorite TV family, The Simpsons. With Passover now in full force, we have begun counting the 49 days to Shavuot.
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