I never attended Jewtopia: The Play, and after leafing through the occasionally funny, rarely clever, and almost always insipid and obvious hardcover version, I don’t think I really need to. I get the joke. Sometimes in fact I live the joke and maybe even I am the joke. We all are. Jews, with our yenta mothers, hairy weak physiques, and ability to be paranoid, maintain a victim mentality, all while overachieving and controlling the universe. Let me be clear – I was not offended by the book although it will be offensive to those who take their Judaism seriously (what does that say about me?). The creators of Jewtopia, Bryan Fogel and Sam Wolfson, told me that they wrote the entire book and handed Warner Books a finished product including the artwork and layout. That said, the book looks great and has its moments where you will laugh despite yourself, but overall it disappoints a fan of good self-flagellating humor. Although a nebishy Jew like me naturally enjoys complaining and kvetching about everything, Jewtopia is just not fresh enough to win over someone who was raised embedded in the Jewish religion and culture. We made most of these jokes to each other in elementary school. Another problem is that the book crosses the line a number of times between humor and self-loathing. It should not be our job to inform the anti-Semites out there that they are on to something.

 

Bangitout spoke with Bryan and Sam before the holidays.

 

BIO: Although I think Orthodox Jews will be offended by the book, I found myself laughing at times. Do you concern yourselves with an angry response from Jews to the humor?

 

Sam: No, I don’t worry about that kind of stuff. When we came up with the bits we said if it make us laugh, it’s in. A few times we felt we went overboard – not in terms of offending Jews but crossing a line in a way with like a dirty joke. We love being Jews and the values we were taught from that. We can see why our Guide to Chasidic Sex offends but we are equal opportunity offenders…like South Park. If you get in the spirit of it you will see that everything is absurd and then you can’t help but laugh.

 

BIO: For all the skewering of Judaism, I noticed that book has an authentic touch. The book contains a lot of obscure Jewish knowledge. What are your backgrounds?  

 

Brian: Half of the book we knew already. I was raised modern orthodox. My mom’s house is kosher. We celebrate all the holidays. Sukkos. Simchas Torah. I had the knowledge about the traditional customs. Sam is from a reform background. Sam is better with all the other stuff, like the ridiculous over the top Bar Mitzvah. Whatever we didn’t’ know, we did research to fill in the blanks. I knew there were 613 mitzvot but I did research to fill in the ones I didn’t know. If you know the core, you can get more information. I knew we were expelled and persecuted so I did the research for the Timeline of Expulsion page.

 

A lot of it was our intuition. We did word play and jokes in the timeline, but basically the facts are true. We toyed with facts to make the jokes. With the expulsion page we are laughing at ourselves, it finds the human in the tragedy. A million things in the book are rooted in truth. Comedy needs a foundation in truth.

 

BIO: In the book you call the orthodox “G-ds brown-nosers”. Is that a compliment?

 

Sam: (laughing) Yes. They are the closest. Maybe that was jealousy on our part. You guys are set. I am from a reform family so I’m way down at the bottom.

 

Brian: Sam’s parents are ten times more “Jewish” than mine who are orthodox. Jewish in the stereotypical sense. Mine represent more the religious side. The orthodox crowd came to our show. Chasidim came in the whole get up. It really was a treat for us. They love it and come over to us afterwards. We have jokes about how the Chasidic girls in Crown Heights have great legs because they walk all day. We suddenly hear these girls in the audience hooting and it is a bunch of Crown Heights orthodox girls. That is the whole basis of our show and the whole culture of Jewish humor – If we can’t laugh at ourselves then who can we laugh at? This was the humor of Jackie Mason and Mel Brooks. They created an environment to laugh at ourselves and it was picked up by all the other comedians like Chris Rock. Its self deprecation. We have bits in the show about a Jew in a restaurant complaining and changing seats and all that…and it brings the house down. Judaism and comedy is our basis for survival. It is a survival mechanism. With the show we find a 99% approval rating. This is why we do it. The feedback usually is that we maybe went overboard, but it’s funny.

 

BIO: Holiday plans?

 

Brian: I go home and go to services and all that. When I was living at home my neighbor had a Sukkah so I could go there, Now? I’m not sure. Maybe I can hop on one of those Chabad Sukkah Mobiles. That’s a cool way to cruise around.