Skip to content
News
Link copied to clipboard

You have to see Joel Embiid dance the hora at this Jewish wedding

Have you ever seen a 7-footer dance the hora? If you haven't, you need to.

Sixers center Joel Embiid laughs during a second quarter break against the Detroit Pistons in April.
Sixers center Joel Embiid laughs during a second quarter break against the Detroit Pistons in April.Read moreYONG KIM / Staff Photographer

It looks like it continues to be the summer of Joel Embiid.

The seven-foot 76ers’ star was seen dancing the hora at a Jewish wedding and — in defiance of the laws of physics — was hoisted up in the air on a chair.

In videos circulating on social media, Embiid can be seen dancing the hora, a traditional Jewish dance, bouncing up and down with other wedding guests. The short video looks like a circular heart monitor in motion, with a clear height spike the moment Embiid’s in the frame.

Another short video shows 280-pound Embiid being carried on a chair with a woman in his lap, a look of glee (maybe terror?) on his face as he’s lifted up and down.

Embiid is the latest hulking Sixers star to be lifted up to the tune of “Hava Nagila.” Last year, the Round Mound of Rebound Charles Barkley told Jimmy Kimmel how worried he was ahead of his daughter’s wedding, where he was anticipating having his 250 pounds picked up in a chair during the hora.

Although he tried to lose weight ahead of the festivities, Barkley at the time called on all the wedding guests to gather round, grit their teeth, and pick him up.

“I need all Jewish people on deck, brother,” he said. “I can only get so skinny by Saturday.”