Happy National Kissing Day: The Schmooze Ranks Jewish Smooches
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It’s International Kissing Day, and before you can say “that’s not a real holiday” remember that you belong to a religion that celebrates what amounts to a weekly holiday, a monthly holiday, and over a dozen annual holidays, including holidays that basically exist to keep track of other holidays (hi, Lag Ba’omer).
In honor of this day, we have compiled a hall of fame of the greatest and weirdest Jewish kisses in TV and movie history.
Happy July 6th! Time to make like someone passing a mezuzah and feel obligated to kiss.
Let’s do this.
Best Contemporary Kiss
Source: “New Girl”, Season 2, Episode 15
Type of Kiss: First kiss
Jew(s): Jake Johnson
This kiss is outstanding. It has everything: hair swirling, bicep flexing, correct arm placement, and an optimal mouth-to-mouth ratio. Merely watching a GIF of this kiss will derail your day and ruin you for modern dating.
Most Electrifying Kiss
Source: “Brokeback Mountain”
Type of Kiss: Up-against-a-wall kiss
Jew(s): Jake Gyllenhaal
I wish I knew how to quit spending hours watching Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger kiss. This scene helped bring passionate gay kissing to mainstream culture; it also helped bring knocking off someone’s cowboy hat right before you kiss them into mainstream kissing culture, I very much hope.
Best Kiss From Two Heroes Who Are In A Hurry But Still Want To Kiss
Source: “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi”
Type of Kiss: When you’ve been chosen as a test subject for carbonite freezing by a Sith Lord but you still want to touch your mouth to someone else’s.
Jew(s): Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford (ish)
This literally steamy (due to the carbonite) kiss includes many wonderful touches: the gentle stream of sweat running down Han’s face, the contrasting collar styles, and tremendous nose work.
Best Kiss By Cary Grant
Source: “Notorious”
Type of Kiss: When you are basically forced to kiss Cary Grant or else the Nazis will win
Jew(s): Controversially, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman both considered themselves to be Jewish
This intensely competitive category ultimately came down to the fact that the woman kissing Cary Grant demonstrates that she is really enjoying herself.
Most Groundbreaking Kiss
Source: “Star Trek”
Type of Kiss: The first interracial kiss in television history
Jew(s): William Shatner
The good news: not only is this history’s first televised interracial kiss, not only does it involve tribe-member William Shatner, not only did he refuse to shoot a second version of the scene where he and Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) don’t kiss to placate conservative viewers, BUT ALSO Leonard Nimoy and Shatner actually fought over the chance to do the kiss. According to Nimoy, Shatner saw him and Nichols practicing the scene and said, “Whoah whoah whoah, if anybody is going to get to kiss Lieutenant Uhura it’s gonna be me.” Two nice Jewish boys fighting over making history: that’s steamy.
The bad news: In this scene both characters are under mind control and are kissing against their will, which is never, ever how a kiss should be.
Kissing Hall of Shame
Much like pizza, kissing is good, even when it’s bad. Except that, unlike pizza, it involves saliva and it’s also not always good. Here are our choices for Jews who disgraced themselves and their people by kissing:
Best Bad Kiss
Source: “Wet Hot American Summer”
Type of Kiss: Jewish summer camp kiss
Jew(s): Paul Rudd
No one could have believed the sight of Paul Rudd’s tongue could ever inspire despair…until they saw this kiss.
Worst Attempt At Physical Comedy While Dressed As Spider-Man
Source: “Saturday Night Live”
Type of Kiss: The gross type
Jew(s): Andrew Garfield
Kissing is not a joke, especially not for Spider-Man, who is responsible for upholding a venerable tradition of upside-down kisses. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone were just joking around with this kiss on SNL, but right now Garfield deserves some shame for his uncool comments about being gay.
Best Kiss We Tried To Find A Jewish Angle On But Couldn’t
Source: “The Notebook”
Type of Kiss: Most Iconic Of All Time
Jew(s): None to speak of
A very happy and moist International Kiss Day to one and to all.
_ Jenny Singer is a writer for the Forward. You can reach her at Singer@forward.com or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny._
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