opinion
Eddy Portnoy
E ver hear Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” sung
in Yiddish dialect? It used to be a regular bit
performed by comedian and actor Richard Belzer,
who died last week at 78. He also used to do a routine
about Bob Dylan’s bar mitzvah in which he recited a
Hebrew prayer in the singer’s distinctive tone. A similar
Elvis bar mitzvah bit was also part of his routine.

Surprisingly, Belzer performed these niche routines in
numerous comedy venues and even on the nationally
televised “The Late Show with David Letterman.” In addition
to a variety of other Jewish references embedded in his
act, Belzer also performed Yiddish-infl ected parodies of
Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” and “When Doves Cry.”
But like so many American comedians of the Hebraic
persuasion, Belzer didn’t really work Jewish. The bulk of
his act was general and observational. But to have thrown
bits like Dylan’s bar mitzvah into routines for venues as
broad as Letterman is an indication that he was truly
dedicated to his Jewish material.

Moreover, he enjoyed it. Around 2003, after he’d
snagged a contract to do a special on a cable network,
he approached Letterman’s legendary bandleader, Paul
Shaff er, and told him he wanted to do something “Jewish”
for the show. Shaff er suggested The Barton Brothers’
risqué Yiddish radio ad parody song “Joe and Paul.”
Belzer loved the idea. The duo learned the Yiddish
lines and performed the tune, which, in veiled Yiddish
tones, talks about masturbation and going to a prostitute
named “Cock-eyed Jenny.” It was so well-received and
the two enjoyed it so much, they began to do it in other
venues. It eventually wound up on a 2008 album titled
“The Jewish Songbook.”
This is why it’s been strange to read obit after obit in
outlets like The New York Times, The Guardian and The
Hollywood Reporter, among others, that didn’t bother
to mention that Belzer was Jewish — even when, as the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency pointed out, the character
for which he was best known, Det. John Munch on
“Homicide: Life on the Street” and “Law & Order: Special
Victims Unit,” identifi ed as Jewish. Obituaries, after all, are
meant to be the fi nal stock-taking of a person’s life. They
should include the basics of who they were. And one of
the basics of Richard Belzer is that he was a Yid.

Moreover, according to Paul Shaff er, he was a proud
one. I should also point out that I don’t mean Jewish in
a religious sense. Belzer, after all, appears to have been
an atheist, so what is meant here is Jew as an ethnic
category, one that apparently confounds a lot of people
and which results in many Jewish artists being described
16 MARCH 2, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
A caricature of Richard Belzer and his dog
from "Even More Old Jewish Comedians,"
by Drew Friedman
as anything but Jewish.

The notion that “Jewish” is something more than a
religious denomination — that it’s a wide-ranging
culture that includes art, literature, music, food,
folkways and languages — is terribly diffi cult to grasp
for some people.

One case in point is an excellent book by Kliph
Nesteroff that appeared in 2015 called “The Comedians,”
which richly details the history of stand-up comedy
in America. Assiduously researched, it’s become the
defi nitive work on the topic. The book, however,
deracinates the history of the fi eld. From reading it, you
would never know that 20th-century American comedy
was largely a Jewish enterprise. In fact, you’d hardly
know that Jews were involved at all. You will read about
comedians such as Milton Berle, Joan Rivers, Lenny
Bruce and Jerry Seinfeld, but you’ll have no idea that
any of them are Jews.

The matter of the mysteriously disappearing Jew occurs
in other industries as well. It’s particularly egregious in the
art world and popped up last year at the opening of the
Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, a lavishly funded
new institution that celebrated the diversity of Hollywood,
touting the contributions of minorities involved in the fi lm
industry. However, the one minority they initially left out
was the one that was instrumental in building that very
industry. It’s all part of a phenomenon comedian David
Baddiel describes as “Jews don’t count.” They’re not
considered a minority among the many others and have
apparently become white people who don’t believe in
Jesus. As such, they’re not worthy of distinction.

History, however, tells a diff erent story. When Jews
began to come to this country en masse at the end of
the 19th century, the culture they met often mocked
and derided them. Suff ering discrimination in multiple
realms, they were excluded from certain neighborhoods,
clubs and a variety of occupations. Universities placed
quotas on them. Many hotels denied them entry, a fact
that led to the creation of hundreds of Jewish hotels in
New York’s Catskill Mountains. While American attitudes
toward Jews eventually changed, a fact that allowed
them to become full participants in society, they still
fi nd themselves victimized by Jew hatred. Even though
it’s often denied, the mystery of Jewish diff erence,
apparently, is still a thing.

And for Richard Belzer, it was a thing he obviously
enjoyed. Comedy writer and novelist Seth Greenland,
who worked on numerous projects with Belzer and
whose fi rst novel was based on him, told me, “Something
about Richard was quintessentially Jewish. He was kind,
disputatious, intellectually curious and hilarious. Although
he wasn’t at all religious, he was proud to be Jewish and
embraced that identity.”
“Belz and Gilbert Gottfried would always do Jewish
shtick and saw themselves in a long line of Jewish
comics,” said author Ratso Sloman. “And one time I was
at Catch [A Rising Star], probably in the mid ’80s and at
the end of the night, Belz and Gilbert went on stage and
did dueling old Jewish weather forecasters. It was so
hilarious, I almost pissed my pants.”
Paul Shaff er also recalled how Belzer once accompanied
him to say Kaddish for Shaff er’s father at the Carlebach
Shul on the Upper West Side. “I didn’t know what kind of
Jewish education he had,” Shaff er told me, “but the cat
could daven [pray].” Paul added that he and Belzer once
bonded over old cassettes of Friars Club roasts.

One of the tapes was of a roast emceed by DJ and
Sinatra expert William B. Williams (born Velvel Breitbard),
who, whenever someone’s joke bombed, would begin
to utter the Jewish prayer for the dead — “Yisgadal,
yisgadash, shemey rabo….” — and get big laughs. Belzer
loved it so much, he stole it and would recite the prayer
onstage at subsequent roasts whenever a comic bombed,
and even when his own jokes died.

Yisgadal, yisgadash, Belz. You will be missed. ■
Eddy Portnoy is an academic adviser and exhibition
curator at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

Courtesy Drew Friedman/Fantagraphics Books, Inc.

Richard Belzer Was a Jewish Comedian.

Why Didn’t His Obituaries Say So?