On comedy and Jews
How standup comedy converted me from (kinda) atheist to Jew. And some of my fave Jewish jokes.
I wrote about how standup comedy converted me from (kinda) atheist to Jew.
I began doing stand-up comedy. To find your comedic voice, you’re constantly looking for what’s authentic about you. And comedy crowds have a strange wisdom. They see through you. They tell you every night if you’re being authentic or if you’re just reciting some lines. And I noticed that when I talked about being Jewish, audiences responded. It felt like there was something true there.
As I got deeper into stand-up, I realized how many of my comedy idols were steeped in Judaism. Larry David (when accused on Curb of being a self-hating Jew: “Let me tell you something; I do hate myself, but it has nothing to do with being Jewish.”), Woody Allen (“Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering — and it’s all over much too soon.” ), Richard Lewis (“My grandparents had a satellite dish. They were the first ones, like, in 1961. It was like a Jewish one: It picked up problems from other families.”), Jon Stewart (“Sukkot is a Hebrew word meaning ‘how many holidays can Jews fit into one month?’ The answer, of course, is ‘I can’t be in tomorrow. It’s a Jewish holiday.’”), Howard Stern (his daughter is an Orthodox Jew!?), the Marx brothers (Groucho shows Chico a map: “And over there are the levees.” Chico replies, “Ah, dats-a da Jewish neighborhood.”), Garry Shandling (“My friends tell me I have an intimacy problem. But they don’t really know me.”), Mel Brooks (“May the Schwartz be with you.”), and on and on.
Sure, they all have different styles. Many of them barely even talk about Judaism. Yet still, they all seem thoroughly Jewish somehow. It’s in the way they turn over an idea and look at it. The outsider point of view. The neurosis. The strange obsession with justice. It feels like they are teaching Jewish values in a different, subtle way.