{"id":38496,"date":"2014-12-10T12:05:12","date_gmt":"2014-12-10T17:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=38496"},"modified":"2014-12-10T12:06:39","modified_gmt":"2014-12-10T17:06:39","slug":"mensch-bench-goes-mainstream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/news\/mensch-bench-goes-mainstream\/","title":{"rendered":"Mensch on a Bench Goes Mainstream"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Mensch-on-a-Bench-300x240.jpg\" alt=\"Mensch-on-a-Bench\" width=\"300\" height=\"240\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-38503\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Mensch-on-a-Bench-300x240.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Mensch-on-a-Bench.jpg 675w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Three years ago while strolling through a department store during the holiday season, Neal Hoffman\u2019s four-year-old son spied the popular Christmas toy, Elf on a Shelf. Afflicted with Christmas envy, his son begged for one.<\/p>\n<p>Hoffman shook his head and explained that Jews don\u2019t have an Elf on a Shelf.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have,\u201d he quipped, thinking fast, \u201ca Mensch on a bench.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hoffman was joking at the time, but the former Hasbro Toys employee couldn\u2019t get the phrase out of his head. A Jewish spin on the elf that watches kids at holiday time appealed to him.<\/p>\n<p>But while Elf on a Shelf reports back to the North Pole about who is naughty or nice, Hoffman envisioned a mensch who would spread Jewish tradition and the importance of being a good person.<\/p>\n<p>Read full story at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/hanukkah-toy-mensch-on-a-bench-goes-mainstream\/#ixzz3LVt96qu0 \">Times of Israel<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three years ago while strolling through a department store during the holiday season, Neal Hoffman\u2019s four-year-old son spied the popular Christmas toy, Elf on a Shelf. Afflicted with Christmas envy, his son begged for one. Hoffman shook his head and explained that Jews don\u2019t have an Elf on a Shelf. \u201cWe have,\u201d he quipped, thinking<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":730,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-media","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mensch on a Bench Goes Mainstream - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/news\/mensch-bench-goes-mainstream\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mensch on a Bench Goes Mainstream - OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Three years ago while strolling through a department store during the holiday season, Neal Hoffman\u2019s four-year-old son spied the popular Christmas toy, Elf on a Shelf. Afflicted with Christmas envy, his son begged for one. 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