Mount Rushstein - The Levites of Laughter

Welcome to our Mount Rushmore of Jewish comedy. Mel Brooks, Larry David, Don Rickles, and Rodney Dangerfield—four titans carved in stone. Of course, if you asked ten Jews who belongs on this list, you’d get ten different answers. And that’s kind of the point. The Jewish comedy bench runs so deep that narrowing it down to four borders on the absurd. Which is itself very Jewish.

The Levites of laughter, the high priests of humor, the chosen of chuckles, you get the point.  One of the absolute greatest testaments and gifts that Jews have contributed to the human experience is the art of comedy.  The world continually gives us reasons to cry and we spite the hate by making them laugh.  What a glorious concept!  

The story of Jewish comedy as an art form begins in the late 19th century with the rise of Yiddish Theater in Eastern Europe and New York’s Lower East Side. Writers like Sholem Aleichem gave the world the “schlemiel” and the “schlimazel”—the unlucky fool and the chronically unfortunate—archetypes that still define Jewish humor to this day. From there, Jewish comedy honed its collective muscle via "the Borscht Belt", the historic Catskill Mountain resorts.  All time comedy greats like Mel Brooks, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, and Joan Rivers developed the rapid-fire, self-deprecating observational style stand-up that would forever define American comedy.  Even the edgy boundary pushing style that would come to define 70’s and 80’s  stand up was pioneered by the late great (and Jewish!), Lenny Bruce.   Special shout out to names like Groucho Marx, The Three Stooges, Woody Allen and Andy Kaufman for their brilliant contributions and innovations to the form.  (And yes, I know, there are many more I could mention, Oye!)

Here’s something really worth reflecting on : Jewish artists didn’t just contribute to the art of comedy—they essentially invented all its various modern formats. The stand-up blueprint, the writers’ room, the sitcom structure, the romcom—all overwhelmingly shaped by Jewish minds. 

And of course there’s the comedy films.  Again a genre that was created by and dominated by Jews for over a century now.  From the Marx Brothers pioneering “talking films”, to the satire of Mel Brooks, the neurotic protagonist Woody Allen, us Heebs have kept the world laughing through the good and bad.  And while people of all stripes now excel in the business, there's no denying the Jewish talent of this generation.  In recent decades Jewish minds like Judd Apatow, Adam Sandler, and Seth Rogan still dominate comedies, while stand-ups like Seinfeld, Dave Attell, Ari Shaffir, Nikki Glaser and Sam Morril will keep you in stitches.  Even Israel is starting to pump out acts with international recognition like Modi and Yohay Sponder.

But why? Were we “chosen” to be born with the genetic “funny bone?”  Why have Jews produced such a disproportionate number of comedic geniuses? One theory: comedy as a coping mechanism. It was Aristotle that once claimed all stories are either told as a tragedy or a comedy. Given the extraordinary amount of tragedy the Jewish people have endured throughout history, we choose decided to keep the kvetching private and choose the divine comedy. Laughter adds meaning to  survival. Humor as resilience. If we’re alive we might as well enjoy it, if you can laugh at it, you can endure it.  So forget medicine, technology, and Nobel Prizes for a moment. For the gift of laughter alone, you can wear this shirt as a reminder—you Gotta Love the Jews!

We’ve really just scratched the surface here, the legacy of Jewish comedy goes so much deeper.  And we didn’t even touch on the individual contributions of the four featured in the design.  But we think their work speaks for itself and to that end we have included some links of their work below guaranteed to get you chuckling.

Here is a montage of mainly kosher flavored comedy by the undisputed king of Jewish humor - MEL BROOKS!

The following is a scene from Larry David's (my spirit warrior) show Curb Your Enthusiasm.  From one of the best episodes of the series, watch Larry get stuck on a ski lift with an Orthodox jewish woman at sundown.  The dialogue is pure shekels!

On to "Mr Warmth", the original and greatest of all insult comics was an absolute gem.  He was the court jester for Sinatra and the Rat Pack, the best of the best at slinging mud, no one was safe from his verbal arrows, and yet he somehow remained the very definition of a class act.  Here's a montage guaranteed to get you grinning.

We kept this guy last because as usual, "he don't get no respect!"  Rodney Dangerfield (born Jacob Cohen) didn't always lean into his Jewish background for material, but in some ways he might have been the most Jewish comedian ever.  No style of comedy is defined more as being Jewish than self-deprecation.  That was essentially Rodney's entire shtick, the unappreciated everyman.  And he was the absolute funniest shlimazel in the biz.  I dare you to watch this collection of one-liners and not laugh out loud!