This year for Passover, I made the kugel (thanks to the Light’s kugel cookoff finalists for such a great array of offerings) and brought the music. The latter came my way via the Light’s new music columnist Dan Durchholz, who found out past his deadline last week about a free download of an “unorthodox” Passover song called “They Tried to Kill Us, We Survived, Let’s Eat” at http://bit.ly/9OI67r. (See the video for the song on YouTube at http://bit.ly/cCvmYA).

This hilarious song is the brainchild of duo Rob Tannenbaum and David Fagin, better known as “Good for the Jews.” Tannenbaum is a VH1 commentator and creator of that network’s “So Jewtastica” TV special while singer and guitarist Fagin, leader of the power-pop band The Rosenbergs, has appeared everywhere from Howard Stern to Carson Daly to Dennis Miller, and has opened for the Strokes, No Doubt and Duran Duran.

The two just finished their “What the Hell Are We Doing in Utah Tour” where they explain on their website, goodforthejews.net: “We usually like to stick to the major urban areas: Boston, New York, Seattle. You know, places where the Jews live. But somehow, our friends in Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad (another humor outfit made up of girls who learned to smoke at Hebrew school) persuaded us to go on tour with them throughout Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. In the middle of winter.”

I’ve already registered my request to bring Good for the Jews to St. Louis for a show. Probably with a little arm-twisting and the promise of free knishes, we can do it. So give the duo a listen and if you like what you hear, go goodforthejews.net to register your request as well. After all, couldn’t we all use a night of unorthodox, irreverent and entertaining songs about bar mitzvahs, Hanukkah and Mel Gibson’s stupidity?

Kudos to new ambassador with local roots

Congratulations to Florida attorney and former Tallahassee city commissioner Allan Katz in being confirmed by the Senate earlier this month as U.S. Ambassador to Portugal. President Barack Obama had nominated Katz, who helped run his Florida campaign.

Katz graduated from University City High School (class of 1965) and celebrated his bar mitzvah at Congregation Shaare Emeth. He is married to Nancy Cohn, who also grew up in St. Louis and whose mother, Ann Cohn, still lives here and recently celebrated her 88th birthday.

Katz has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and holds a law degree from the American University, Washington College of Law.

Katz said he will begin his new duties as Ambassador on April 7.

Kosher grocery iPhone app

An iPhone application is now available that enables people following kosher diets to find desired products at a grocery store near their home. All you need to do is type in your zip code, search a food product and “My Grocery Master” will scan its database of the top 100 grocery store chains in the country to identify the nearest store that carries the desired items. In addition, the app will provide driving directions from your location to the selected grocer.

The app allows users to browse and search a database of over 100,000 specialty food products, including ones that are kosher, gluten-free and lactose-free. Future updates will include searches for vegan, organic and diabetic suitable diets.

“My Grocery Master” is available at the Apple’s App Store in the iPhone and iPod Touch. For more information, visit www.mygrocerymaster.com.