arts & culture
For This Comedian, Standup Counters
the Really Dark Sides of Life
D rew Landry, 29, recalls when his friend Tucker,
8, was crushed to death by an elevator.

“It was very hard to deal with,” he said. “I think the
elevator wasn’t up to code. It was really hard on me.”
Landry said he ended up in a mental hospital
and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder as well as
depression. He lived in Baltimore until the age of 5, when he
moved to Chicago. In the Windy City, he went to
a synagogue, found comfort there and was drawn
to Judaism. He identifi es as Jewish, noting that his
favorite Jewish musical artist is Matisyahu.

He returned to his home city at the age of 15.

“I’d grown up idolizing Chris Farley and Jim Carrey,”
he said. “They were really great, but I realized from
seeing standup that I’d be better on my own.”
Now living in Los Angeles, he has a monthly show
at the Hollywood Improv. He’s also performed at the
prestigious Just for Laughs festival in Canada, and
toured with Iliza Shlesinger, Carlos Mencia and Dana
Gould. And he was recently named one of the top
50 humor writers on the online publishing platform
Medium. “The big diff erence is that in Baltimore, you’re one
of a few dozen comedians, and in LA, you’re one of
thousands,” he said.

He thought back to age 13, when he said he was
too young and dumb to know that he wasn’t good.

Still, he honed his craft, and it took a few years to get
better. He noted that all comedians bomb, and it’s
just a matter of being patient; you have to see what
works and what doesn’t.

He recently dropped a mini-comedy special on
YouTube called “All My Friends Are Dead.” A tribute
Drew Landry
to his two best friends who died, it’s about the griev-
ing process. Landry noted that this was a particularly
dark personal set, so he didn’t bother trying to get
it on Netfl ix and instead released it on his own via
YouTube. He reported that it has already been well-received
by other publications, including Paste, a monthly
music and entertainment digital magazine headquar-
tered in Atlanta.

In the special, he described his mom Googling
famous people who were also diagnosed as bipolar.

“She was like, Drew, you’re gonna be fi ne,” he
recounted, adding that she named Nirvana front
man Kurt Cobain, comedian Robin Williams and chef/
author/TV travel host Anthony Bourdain.

Of course, they’re all dead by suicide.

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Landry said he wasn’t surprised by the rise in antisem-
itism by musician and rapper Kanye West, now known
as “Ye.”
“I went to two concerts and was a big fan, and then
to see that what he actually believed — that was crazy!”
he said of the rapper and musician’s comments about
his vow to “go death con 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE.”
Nonetheless, asked about whether or not the public
has become too sensitive when it comes to comedy,
he said that social media causes everyone’s reaction
to be heightened.

“I think free speech should go both ways,” he said “A
comedian should be able to say what he or she wants
on stage. And then, if you don’t like it, you should be
able to say whatever you want about it. It all balances
out, in my opinion.”
But the challenge remains: “How do you talk about a
dark topic that is serious, yet still show the humor of it?”
Landry said staying positive is extremely important.

He said his mom has been very supportive, and it’s
crucial to be around people who believe in you.

While his material can touch on hardcore issues (in a
video from 11 years ago at Baltimore Comedy Club, he
joked that he once snorted Frosted Flakes), it is clear
that he has good timing, cadence and knows how to
hit punchlines.

“Rejection happens in life, and in comedy, it happens
a lot,” acknowledged Landry. “The important thing is
to keep going. Comedy is therapeutic for me, and if
people watch my videos and related it to whatever they
may be going through, and it puts a smile on their face
and they know that they’re not alone … well, that makes
me happy.” ■
Alan Zeitlin is a freelance writer.

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‘The important thing is to keep going’
Alan Zeitlin



synagogue spotlight
Tiferet Bet Israel Grows With
Pay-What-You-Can Financing Model
Jarrad Saff ren | Staff Writer
Photo by Jarrad Saff ren
Courtesy of Tiferet Bet Israel
I n 2020, Tiferet Bet Israel in Blue Bell introduced
a pay-what-you-can model for synagogue dues,
increased its congregation by 3.5% to 361 families
and reversed “several years of decline,” as a Jewish
Exponent article from that year described it. But
then COVID-19 broke out, and TBI was not immune.

A membership base of 361 plummeted to about 264.

Today though, as the synagogue reopens, its
leaders and members have not given up on the
model. They still call it Heshbon Lev, which is
Hebrew for an invention of the heart. And congre-
gants are still contributing. Executive Director Matan
Silberstein said there is a 100% participation rate.

Perhaps the most encouraging sign, though, is that
Heshbon Lev appears to be attracting new members
again. TBI’s congregation has recovered from its
pandemic low to include about 300 households.

And since most of the new families are young, so is
more than half of the congregation now, according
to Silberstein.

“Congregants are always waiting for the next
fundraising ask,” said TBI President Jeff Llewellyn, a
member since 2008. “And each year, they’re pleas-
antly surprised when we’re less focused on money
and more focused on engagement.”
Silberstein and Llewellyn explained that events at
the Blue Bell shul are now about what people want
to do. A gathering before 2020, for example, might
have been built around how many people could pay
$36 to get in. But an occasion today is just about
getting a headcount so synagogue leaders know
how much chicken to buy for dinner.

In December, 230 people showed up for a concert
by Yonina, the Jewish musical duo. That same
month, TikTok’s @challahprince, who has more than
142,000 followers from his challah-making videos,
did a challah-braiding event at TBI and attracted
180 members and locals. And on Jan. 27, 200
congregants showed up for a third-grade conse-
cration during Friday night services. There are also
young family programs, special Shabbat dinners
and lunches after Shabbat morning services on
Saturdays. Rachel Blum, 37, a congregant with her husband
and young daughter, attended the challah-braiding
event and said people talked about it afterward “for
weeks.” They kept saying how good it felt to just be
able to show up and braid challah.

TBI members enjoy an activity together.

The sanctuary inside Tiferet Bet Israel in Blue Bell
“There’s no barrier to engagement,” Blum said.

“You just get to be part of the community without
worrying about, ‘Can we aff ord that this month?’”
Blum’s husband is a Realtor, so their family
fi nances often depend on the housing market.

Pre-Heshbon Lev, they might have had to make a
diffi cult decision about their synagogue member-
ship during a downturn. But now they do not have
to worry about it.

“This helps you not make that decision. That
decision of letting go of your community,” Blum said.

“There’s always that option of increasing your pledge
or decreasing your pledge.”
Pamela Kuperstein, 35, a member with her husband
David and their two young kids, is an accountant
who discovered the pay-what-you-can model while
serving as synagogue treasurer in the late-2010s.

TBI’s old dues system was “doomed to failure,” she
said, and other synagogues were already trying the
pay-what-you-can approach.

Kuperstein believes the approach is working. When
they joined TBI in 2016, they got a packet outlining
diff erent categories of dues-paying members. As a
childless couple in their 20s, they could not check
any of the boxes. So Pam reached out to synagogue
leaders, who created a category for the Kupersteins.

Today, though, there are no categories.

But there are still issues. TBI is attracting fewer
people to regularly scheduled events than it was
pre-COVID, according to David Kuperstein. And the
education toward fundraising still needs to improve.

Members think they pay once, and that’s the end of
the conversation. But for a shul with its own building,
fi nancing needs to be an ongoing discussion.

TBI is getting by on preschool tuition payments,
payments from a Hindu school that rents space,
grants from public and private sources and larger
donations from certain congregants. Combined with
the “wide range of givers” in the membership base,
as Silberstein describes them, it adds up to enough.

At the same time, “It still needs some reinforcement,”
David Kuperstein said.

The issues, though, do not outweigh a simple fact.

Congregants used to have to pay $250 to sit close to
the bimah during High Holiday services. Big crowds
in the back and open seats near the front became an
annual scene. But this past year, there was no option
to pay $250 to reserve a good seat. People came in,
sat together up front and fi lled the sanctuary.

“It felt really diff erent and really great,” Pam
Kuperstein said.

“Everybody was together, closer,” David Kuperstein
concluded. ■
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM 21