JWR Tales of the World Wild Web

Jewish World Review /Dec. 21, 1998 /2 Teves, 5759

Has Chanukah really
gone to the dogs?


By Binyamin L. Jolkovsky

WITH THE ‘DECEMBER DILEMMA’ in full swing and the intermarriage and abandonment rate in the Jewish community at an all-time high, one would expect that the number of those celebrating Chanukah, the Festival of Lights, would be on the decline.

Think again.

This year, Chanukah-observer numbers were boosted in part by San Franciscan Pat Tebeau. A former marketing manager in the fashion industry, Tebeau heads Smiling Dog, a company that caters – literally – to canine comfort. And this year, that included dreidel-shaped cookies for the discriminating dog.

The idea’s genesis came after several of Tebeau’s Jewish friends whimpered about not being able to find howl-iday presents for their "Jewish" dogs.

The "treats," at $10.00 per pound, are going quicker than you can say, well, "HOT DOG!"

"We’ve sold a lot of dreidels all over the country," Tebeau told a San Francisco-based Jewish weekly. "More people want dreidels than Christmas cookies."

She added that her intention is to allow creature owners to "celebrate our pets the way people celebrate children."

The dreidel cookies come in two flavors: peanut butter and carob. And, of course, included with every order are five acetate bags for "easy gift giving."

But with Chanukah lasting eight nights, one wonders if the "easy gift giving" bags are meant as the "icing on the cookie" for the dogs -- who, no doubt, will feel deprived receiving only five "gifts" when Jewish children receive eight -- or, their parents, ah, owners.

"There is just one word I can think of to describe this scenario --- 'pathetic,'" a noted Talmudic scholar, Rabbi Yitzchak Relkin, told Jewish World Review when informed of the pious pooches.

And, no, the cookies are not under rabbinical (kosher) supervision --- "strict" or otherwise!

Click here to visit Smiling Dog. (That's if you are even the least bit interested.)


Binyamin L. Jolkovsky is editor-in-chief of Jewish World Review.

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©1998, Jewish World Review