3 Stories I Wrote Which Reveal How Humor Can Be a Potent Weapon Against Hate

These pieces published recently at Jewish News Syndicate spotlight how a musical group, three Orthodox stand-up comedians, and an Italian pop artist apply their creativity for a higher cause

Apr 29, 2023

Click here to check out the first 30 Installments - Volume I - in this series on Antisemitism and Culture. The top 5 most important pieces from this first wave:

This is the 24th installment in Volume II, intended as another 30 pieces exploring the many manifestations of Jew Hatred and the issues surrounding it in America and globally. See the 23 previous installments listed at the end of this article.

These writings are part of my ongoing effort to overcome my PTSD by forcing myself to try to write and publish something every day. “Politics is downstream from culture,” the late Andrew Breitbart popularized among conservative bloggers while he was alive. I’d go a step further: Everything is downstream from culture. The cultures you embrace determine who you are and who you become. You become what you worship.

In spite of my reputation for “harsh rhetoric” and my regular writings on how horrible most human beings are in this cruel, warlike, fallen world, I hope I’ve also made it abundantly clear that I very much do have a sense of humor and love to laugh.

The George Carlin boxset I got in Summer 2021 to try and cheer me up after my friend and mentor Jack Saltzberg suddenly died of a heart attack has been more effective at treating my PTSD than almost all of the various pills my three psychiatrists prescribed over the last year and a half.

While laughter in and of itself is healing and entirely justifiable, I especially appreciate the humor when it’s blended with some higher purpose or another. And three recent stories I wrote for Jewish News Syndicate this month and last embody that. I hope you’ll check them out and explore further the comedic artists I chose to spotlight and celebrate.

First, one of the most fun stories I’ve gotten to write so far for JNS was published at the end of March: Comedy band Lewberger infuses quirky performances with Jewish identity: The non-Jewish member of the trio has even started celebrating Passover.

Here’s an excerpt from the beginning:

For the comedy band Lewberger, it’s not just about the humor or the music. It’s also about Jewish pride and fighting antisemitism.
Two members of the trio—Alex Lewis and Hughie Stone Fish—are Jewish, and in interviews with JNS, the two expressed concerns about rising hatred of Jews, Jewish comedic influences and the importance of Jewish identity.
Keith Habersberger, who rounds out the trio, is not Jewish. But he told JNS that he has many Jewish friends and, inspired by them, he celebrates Passover with them.
“I really love the food of the holiday, but I love the message of the holiday,” he said. “I love the part where we take a moment to acknowledge that not everybody is in a great place, and I think that’s an important thing when you’re having a lavish meal—something that should be a part of Thanksgiving but isn’t.” (He referenced Ha Lachma Anya, which begins the main section of the Passover seder and invites the needy to join the meal.)
The trio’s first musical, “Lewberger and the Wizard of Friendship,” just completed an off-Broadway run this month, and the band members gushed about how “blessed” it is to have such devoted and energetic fans. Next month, the show is slated to travel to City Winery Philadelphia; Miracle Theatre (Washington, D.C.); Rio Theatre (Vancouver); and Tacoma Comedy Club and Spokane Comedy Club (both in Washington state).
On social media, the group also has a following of nearly 680,000 across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Habersberger’s personal social-media accounts have nearly 3 million followers.
Habersberger, Lewis and Fish are determined to use their platform—both via brick-and-mortar and social-media stages—to normalize Judaism and to inspire Jewish pride, they told JNS in separate interviews.
The musical features Jewish content throughout, particularly as it is set during Chanukah. “That is woven in through the narrative,” Fish told JNS. The group’s concerts have also long referenced Lewis’s and Fish’s Jewish backgrounds.
“It’s pretty impossible to separate Judaism from who I am,” said Lewis, who is attracted to “very dry and dark” humor. Jerry Seinfeld is an influence of his, and the Marx Brothers, Three Stooges and Mel Brooks are among the group’s inspirations.

Click here to continue reading. And here’s another hilarious example of the band’s work:

Perhaps the most challenging article I’ve yet written for JNS - just published yesterday - was ‘Thou shalt make them laugh’: Orthodox Jewish comedians Mark Schiff, Eli Lebowicz and Daniel Lobell talk of faith and humor.

Why was this one so tough? With all my previous stories I went into each one largely knowing what to expect and with a pretty good idea of what the story was going to be. With this one I had to find the story after long interviews with all three guys and then interweave their answers to my questions together. It was tougher work than usual but ultimately very fulfilling and I was proud to do what I could to give each of them a small boost.

Here’s an excerpt:

Have you heard the one about Moses who—having just led the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage to miraculous freedom, culminating in the waters of the Red Sea splitting—nonetheless impressed his father-in-law so little with his judicial acumen that Jethro advised him to appoint a system of judges?
“It teaches you a powerful lesson,” Eli Lebowicz, 34, an Orthodox Jewish comedian based in New York City, told JNS. “You could free a whole people from slavery and still be criticized by your in-laws.”
Religious people often have unfair reputations of seriousness—like Hamlet, with his head in his book, telling Polonius he is reading “Words, words, words.” But Lebowicz and two other Orthodox Jewish comedians, who spoke about their faith and their craft with JNS, give the lie to the belief that laughter and a strictly observant life can’t mix.
“I’ve had secular Jews, who are fairly judgy of the fact that I’m Orthodox, and they put on me all their preconceived notions about religious people that are stereotypes and aren’t true,” Daniel Lobell, 40, who lives in Los Angeles, told JNS.
“I’ve had people say, ‘I don’t think he’d be fun to book because he’s a religious person.’ It’s nonsense. We have much more in common than they understand,” added Lobell, who calls Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner and Woody Allen his “comedy rebbes.”
…
Mark Schiff, who has been performing comedy since the 1970s, comes from a different generation. He also takes a more universal approach, as when he tours with pal Jerry Seinfeld. Seinfeld wrote the foreword to a 2022 book Schiff wrote, based on columns the latter penned for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal. (Schiff told JNS that Seinfeld, who has “a real Jewish soul,” once called him from Jerusalem practically in tears—so moved by the Western Wall.)
The younger generation of comedians tends to specialize, but Schiff likes to tell jokes as did his mentors, who worked hotels and casinos in Las Vegas, playing for everyone.
When he performs for Orthodox audiences, Schiff told JNS it’s important to have a clean act, which for him means no jokes about sex or drugs. (Rock ’n’ roll seems to be OK.) The changes are cosmetic, he says, as he isn’t “cursing my head off” in front of secular audiences. He also consulted rabbis about his book to make sure all the Jewish content was accurate. The rabbis encouraged him strongly, he told JNS.

Click here to continue reading.

And here are some examples of these three wonderful men’s stand-up:

Also check out the trailer to Lobell’s new documentary:

Finally, just published today, this week I interviewed a fascinating Italian pop artist named aleXsandro Palombo who, while not Jewish, frequently tackles themes of antisemitism in his work, as well as misogyny and racism. See Vandals deface Italian Holocaust mural of ‘Simpsons’ characters wearing yellow Stars of David: Alexsandro Palombo has called the marring of his pop art antisemitic.

alexsandropalombo

A post shared by aleXsandro Palombo (@alexsandropalombo)

Here’s an excerpt:

A pop-art mural near a Holocaust memorial in Milan, Italy, which depicts characters from “The Simpsons” wearing striped uniforms and yellow Stars of David, was reportedly vandalized on April 17 at the start of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust remembrance day.
Someone drew wavy scribbles over the mural of the disturbingly thin characters in camp uniforms. “We can say that it is part of the game,” the artist Alexsandro Palombo, told JNS. “In the last year, almost every new street artwork has been vandalized.” (The artist writes his first name with a lowercase first letter and a capital ex.)
Palombo said he had to create three different murals of Marge Simpson cutting her hair in solidarity with Iranian women in front of Milan’s Iranian consulate. “It was vandalized, removed and covered,” he said. (A company renovating the building provided the artist with wall space to cover.)
The mural responds to Track 21 in Milan’s central train station—from which hundreds of Jews were loaded into cattle cars bound for Auschwitz-Birkenau, Mauthausen, Bergen-Belsen and other concentration and death camps. “Milan Track 21 is the hidden gateway to hell for Jews in the days of World War II,” Palombo wrote on Instagram. “Today, it is converted to a memorial for the world to know.”
Although the Holocaust memorial commissioned the work, Palombo knows some might find it offensive and consider it trivializing the Holocaust. He works in pop-art style, which saw its rise in the 1960s and is most famously associated with Andy Warhol. Palombo often depicts iconic cartoon characters in shocking ways.

Click here to continue reading.

And check out some more examples of his art which I especially appreciated:

I don’t think you’re ever going to find a more satisfying, badass illustration of Marge Simpson than this one.

alexsandropalombo

A post shared by aleXsandro Palombo (@alexsandropalombo)

Likewise, a cooler illustration of Anne Frank and more righteous use of her image is harder to imagine than this.

alexsandropalombo

A post shared by aleXsandro Palombo (@alexsandropalombo)

I think this mural needs to start appearing all over both Russia and Ukraine. And in America too as there’s far too many Putin apologists over here.

alexsandropalombo

A post shared by aleXsandro Palombo (@alexsandropalombo)

And I think those who have followed this substack and my PTSD journey can fully well understand my appreciation for Palumbo’s jabs at America’s fascist police officers.

Why is humor such a key weapon in confronting hate of all forms? Because when you make someone laugh you lower their emotional and intellectual defenses for a moment, and as they’re not on guard you can smuggle in ideas which they’d otherwise never consider.

Further, when Jewish actors or Jewish characters are front and center in entertainment what that does at a subconscious level is cause an audience to emotionally identify with Jewish people. The more one can sympathize with the Jew on screen or at the stand up comedy show, the more one can do the same with real people in the real world.

And ironically, we’ve even seen this — allegedly — with Kanye West (no, I will not ever refer to him as “Ye” - it is so annoying how many people indulge him with that nonsense.) The last six months’ most wealthy, famous, vocal antisemite came out at the end of March and claimed that Jonah Hill’s performance in “21 Jump Street” had inspired him to renounce antisemitism:

“Watching Jonah Hill in 21 Jump street made me like Jewish people again,” Ye wrote alongside a poster for the 2012 comedy, which also starred Channing Tatum. “No one should take anger against one or two individuals and transform that into hatred towards millions of innocent people.”
The rapper added, “No Christian can be labeled antisemite knowing Jesus is Jew. Thank you Jonah Hill I love you.”

Was this a genuine change of heart and mind on Kanye’s part? God only knows, of course, but as long as Kanye doesn’t return to his Hitler-praising then I’m inclined to accept that it is. It may seem like a stupid reason for renouncing hate, but, well, antisemitism in itself is overwhelmingly stupid and Kanye’s actions since November were the height of stupidity too. So what was anyone expecting? For him to read Noa Tishby’s book or Bari Weiss’s to wake up?

When it comes to hateful ideologies - really virtually all ideologies - a particular truism has long dominated my thinking on them when it comes to arguing with people:

What wasn’t reasoned in, can’t be reasoned out.

And this is where laughter fits in. I even use it myself sometimes in the silly ideological debates where I waste too much time. When it’s really going nowhere I try to shoot an absurd joke at them or use a bit of self-deprecating humor. They just don’t know what to do then. They’re so focused on arguing their inane ideas that they don’t know what to do when they get thrown a curveball.

Try it the next time you find yourself having stumbled into some debate with someone who has been made idiotic by their ideology. Even if it doesn’t work, you’ll at least provoke a laugh for yourself.

3 Stories I Wrote Which Reveal How Humor Can Be a Potent Weapon Against Hate

These pieces published recently at Jewish News Syndicate spotlight how a musical group, three Orthodox stand-up comedians, and an Italian pop artist apply their creativity for a higher cause

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