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♪ And though They do not know it ♪
♪ All mankind Are now your brothers ♪
♪ And thus the cathedral Had spoken ♪
♪ Wishing well To all us sinners ♪
(AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
♪ And though They do not know it ♪
♪ All mankind Are now your brothers ♪
- Hello! - (AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
- Hello. All right. - ♪ (SONG CONCLUDES) ♪
Oh. Thank you so much for coming.
- (AUDIENCE CHEERING) - Thank you for being here.
Thank you for watching. My name is Alex Edelman.
I'm a comedian, and I'm gonna tell you a story.
I'm gonna tell you a story
about something that happened to me.
But first I wanna tell you
about something that happened to this gorilla.
- (CLICKS TONGUE) Ooh. Okay. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
So there's this gorilla named Koko.
Has everyone heard of Koko the gorilla?
- (AUDIENCE CHEERING) - Yes. Some for yeses.
Koko the gorilla,
for those of you that don't know,
is a gorilla that spoke fluent sign language.
And in 1999, this is true, Koko met Robin Williams.
And a couple of years ago, they told Koko
that Robin Williams had passed away.
And Koko went, "Koko friend, Koko sad."
- AUDIENCE: Aw! - Yes, which is sad,
but on the plus side, how funny was Robin Williams,
that even gorillas are like, "This guy!"
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) -"He's unbelievable." (CHUCKLES)
My comedy barely works
if you're not from the Upper West Side.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Robin Williams crossed the species barrier.
- Brilliant comedian. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Also, and obviously, did they have to tell...
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...the gorilla that Robin Williams
had passed away?
She wasn't gonna catch it on CNN or anything like that.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I heard about this in, like, September of 2017
and I couldn't stop imagining
somebody walking into a gorilla enclosure,
just like, "No. I'll do it. I'll do it. Let me."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-"Hi, Koko?" - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-"Can you put down the banana?" - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"We have some bad news."
And they tell Koko and Koko's like...
- (IN SILLY VOICE) "Oh, no." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-"But Prince is fine, right?" - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Like, "Get the gun. Koko. Koko, calm down." And Koko's like,
"Why was the last David Bowie album so sad?"
- And they're like, "Koko!" - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And Koko's like, "What else do you know--"
And they're like, "Koko, no." And Koko's like...
And they're like, "Koko, no." And Koko's like,
"Who is the president right now?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Those are the kind of jokes I write.
I write jokes that are so dumb and simple
that part of it is like,
"Oh, I can't believe someone took the time
- to think about that." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"I can't believe that someone thought
that was worth informing an audience of."
I can't believe-- This is true sadly,
that in the middle of a pandemic,
someone spent 500 dollars
on sign language lessons over Zoom...
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...for a joke about a gorilla. (CHUCKLES)
I love a dumb joke. I love a silly joke.
It's my job. It's my currency.
I wrote a joke a while ago that was so dumb,
it took a month and a half to realize
it was actually too dumb to ever grace a stage.
- Here it is. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I don't think I've ever seen a fat horse.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
I don't think I've ever seen a fat horse.
Maybe that's because
they get four times as many steps as we do.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - I... I know, I know.
And a month and a half later,
I was walking through a Whole Foods
and out of nowhere I was like...
-"Twice as many steps." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
They don't have eight goddamn legs.
- (AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) - It's twice as many steps.
And that's what this show was gonna be
when I started writing it.
It was gonna be a show full of benign silliness,
like I've done my whole comedy life,
and then something happened.
So, I write radio comedy shows for the BBC.
Nobody listens to these things.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - No one.
People my age don't even know what a radio comedy show is.
Like, I'll tell people, "I write radio comedy shows."
And they're like, "What's a radio comedy show?"
And I have to explain that it's like a podcast,
but for the dying.
And like, this radio show comes out
and there's this massive wave of indifference, right?
No one cares. It's a radio comedy show.
But there are two tweets. Just two.
And one tweet's actually very nice.
It's very complimentary,
because the tweet is from my Aunt Nancy
- in Teaneck, New Jersey. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
- And it said-- - (AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
Her fans are everywhere, of course. (CHUCKLES)
And the second tweet
is from someone I'm not related to.
And this guy's just listened to the show.
And this guy's very upset.
And this guy's very upset, largely by the fact that I...
- (CHUCKLES) ...am a Jew. - (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
And sometimes people can tell that I'm Jewish
because of my name, or my face,
or anything about my personality.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - (ALEX EDELMAN CHUCKLES)
But this guy's very upset by the fact that I'm Jewish,
and he lets me know, and I make a mistake.
- I respond to the tweet. I know. - (AUDIENCE GROANING)
And then he writes back and then I write back,
and then he writes back,
and then other people get involved.
And then I go to bed, and I wake up the next morning,
and my Twitter feed,
it's just this avalanche of antisemitism.
Nothing but anti-- And it bothered me.
It's never fun to see that stuff directed at you.
And then it stopped bothering me
because I started adding these people to a Twitter list.
Do you guys know what I mean, generally
- when I say Twitter lists? - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
ALEX: A couple of yeses,
- a couple of blank stares. All right, fine. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
By the way, you don't...
you don't need to know what this is. I promise you,
it's an obscure function of a dying platform.
- Like, you don't truly need to know. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
But on Twitter-- (CHUCKLES) Yeah...
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
But on Twitter, the way it works
is you follow folks. You know that,
you follow people, everybody knows.
But imagine you're interested in, like, a common area.
Imagine you're interested in, like, opera or the NBA,
but you don't feel like following
a whole bunch of NBA players.
What you can do is,
you can make a list of NBA players
and then follow that list
and check it occasionally, right?
(CHUCKLES) So I did that, but with anti-Semites.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And because of certain issues within the NBA at the moment,
there would indeed be some crossover
between the two lists.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - (CHUCKLES)
But I made this list of anti-Semites
and I like it immediately.
I like it for two reasons.
Reason number one, let them be on a list for once!
- Okay? (CHUCKLES) Okay? - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Even Schindler, not a Jew, we make the list now.
- (CHUCKLES) - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And reason number two,
these guys got a notification
when they were added to the list.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - And the name of this list,
and they saw this when they were added,
was Jewish National Fund contributors.
(AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
And I got so many tweets from anti-Semites going,
"Take me off your goddamn list."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) -"I have never contributed
to the Jewish National Fund."
And I would always write back, "There's still time."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"We're planting a million trees outside of Haifa,
be part of the Zionist dream."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
(CHUCKLES)
And I love my list.
I love my list for these two silly reasons,
but then I get to love it for a third reason,
which is that it's got all of the worst opinions on it.
And that's one of the reasons you go on social media.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING) - Right? You wanna be offended.
Right? Same reason you watch cable news.
You're not a moron, you know you're not getting real news.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
But you get to be upset.
Right? You get to be upset at something
someone on the other team did or didn't do,
or something they did or didn't say.
And I have a list.
I have a digital terrarium of assholes.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And occasionally,
with great sanctimony, obviously,
I go down the list and be like, "Oh, my God, that's so racist.
Oh, my God, that's so sexist.
Oh, my God, that's so homophobic.
I don't have any of these opinions.
I'm such a good boy."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Anyway, it's a Tuesday night and I'm doing my favorite thing.
When I'm alone,
my favorite thing to do is I lie on my couch
and I hold my phone like an otter,
- like an inch from my face. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Do you know what I mean? Just a brisk nine,
ten hours in a row, just going like this?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I see this tweet from someone on the list.
And the tweet says, "Hey!"
-"Hey." - (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"If you live in NYC
and you have questions about your Whiteness,
come to 441, 27th Avenue," which is in Queens,
"Tomorrow night at 9:15."
- And I saw the tweet. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I thought to myself, I live in NYC.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And as an Ashkenazi Jew,
I have some questions about my Whiteness.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I'm free tomorrow night at 9:15.
And I took a screen grab. I took a picture of the tweet.
And I sent it to my best friend in the world,
this guy named David Burstein.
And I wrote, "David... (CHUCKLES)
...do you wanna come with me to this meeting of Nazis
- in Queens?" - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
ALEX: And I saw the three dots on the iPhone,
that means someone's texting you back.
And then the dots disappeared, then they reappeared,
- then they disappeared again. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And then he called me.
And he said, "What's going on?"
And I said, "I'm gonna go to this Nazi bar."
And he said, "Why?" And I said,
"I'm gonna listen to everything they have to say.
I will learn something. It'll be fascinating,
- illuminating." - And he's like, "You're so brave."
And I was like, "I know, I am so brave."
And the next night around 9:15, I take the subway into Queens,
and I get off and I walk to the address of this Nazi bar,
and it's not a bar.
- It's an apartment building. - (AUDIENCE GROANING)
And I thought to myself... (LAUGHS NERVOUSLY)
-"How brave are we?" - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
It was January. It was so--
I stood outside this building, freezing, dithering,
for like 20 minutes, being like, "Maybe I'm an idiot.
Maybe my mouth is writing checks that my butt can't cash."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - (CHUCKLES)
And there was one moment where I was like,
"Well, obviously I'm in the wrong place."
But I knew I wasn't. I knew I was in the right place
'cause there was a sign on the front door
of this building and the sign just said third floor,
but it said it in Comic Sans font,
the most radical of all the fonts.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And after a while,
I sort of rediscover the intestines
that I left on the 7 train.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING) - (CHUCKLES) And I go upstairs...
to the third floor of this building.
And there's this long corridor, long,
doors on either side of me, overhead lighting, bad.
And there's one open door in this hallway.
And when I walk in,
the first thing I see in the foyer of this apartment
is this older lady.
She's in her seventies, at least, or like eighties,
but she moisturizes.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - And like... (CHUCKLES)
And she's got this table in front of her.
And on this table is the biggest jigsaw puzzle
I have ever seen.
A jigsaw puzzle. Here's how big it is.
When I walked in and I saw the puzzle,
involuntarily, I just went, "Oh, wow."
And without looking up, she went,
"12,000 pieces."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
ALEX: She knew exactly what I was talking about
from, "Oh, wow."
And I said, "That's so much puzzle."
And she went, "This isn't even all of it."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"This is, like, a quarter of the puzzle.
I've been working on this part for, like, six months."
And I thought to myself,
"You should be further into that puzzle, probably."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Although, maybe White supremacists'
- jigsaw puzzles are harder. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
You know, 'cause, like, all the faces look the same.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
She's sitting. I'm standing.
We're making small talk about her tonnage of puzz.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - And like--
And she tells me how much like, the puzzles mean to her.
And for what it's worth, I like jigsaw puzzles.
And I like people that do them, like,
it's a very, like, thoughtful, fulsome exercise,
there aren't a ton of those left.
And it's even, like, a tidy metaphor
for why I'm here, right? Like--
Because, as with the world, with a puzzle,
you need every piece for a complete picture.
You need every piece for a full perspective.
If you're missing even one piece of your puzzle,
it is suspect or worthless.
But even a metaphorical puzzle, I can do quicker than this lady.
Like, she's making zero progress,
and at some point she just went,
"You know the last one of these...
- took, like, three years." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I said, "Last one?"
And she points behind herself, down this hallway.
And I follow her finger.
And as I go down in, I pass two enormous, framed,
- framed jigsaw puzzles. Framed. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And then to my right, there's like a threshold.
Like a doorway with no door.
And when I walk through this threshold,
I'm in this living room.
And it's like a... It's a pretty spacious living room.
And there's, like, a hodgepodge of chairs around,
and folks are walking around talking.
And of all-- Oh, and to my-- Sorry.
To my left, there's, like, a big table
of, like, pastries and orange juice.
And even though I was a little scared,
I was like, "Oh, sick! Pastries!"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
So, I'm eating this Whites' only muffin.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And on the other side of the room...
- I see this cute girl. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And this is how dumb of a moron I am.
I saw the girl and I thought to myself with no irony...
- you never know. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
You never know, right? You gotta shoot your shot.
So, I put down my racist pastry
- and I went over. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I said, "Hi, I'm Alex."
And she went, "Oh, hi, I'm Chelsea."
And we start chatting and it's good chat.
But a few moments in, Chelsea just went,
"Ah! Hey, Alex! The White House! Hmm?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I thought to myself, "This could go... anywhere."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I actually have a thing for this.
I have a thing for this.
If anyone ever asks you a question
and you know they want a specific answer from you,
but you're not sure what that answer is,
there are four words
that will save you every single time.
Every-- Sir, sorry to bother you.
Would you mind asking me if I saw the game last night?
Did you see the game last night?
Oh, can you believe it?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
- (CHUCKLES) Well done. That was very nice. - (AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
ALEX: Okay. Very nice. "Can you believe it?"
- Guys, this works. It's amazing. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Can you believe it?"
It means people's three favorite things in a conversation.
It means I know what you're talking about,
I agree with you, and most importantly, you talk.
- It works every single time. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
By the way, I'm from New England.
There is a New England version of this.
If you're ever caught in a stalled conversation
with a New Englander, just go, "Fucking Brady, right?"
- It works every single time. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
But this is better?
It is evergreen. "Can you believe it?"
I have a neighbor in L.A.
I never know what he's talking about.
I use this in every conversation with him.
He'll be like, "Oh, recycling!"
And I'll be like, "Can you believe it?"
And he's like, "They should take it out on Thursdays."
And I'll be like, "Okay." Or he'll be like,
"Minor League Baseball."
And I'm like, "Can you believe it?"
And he's like, "They should pay the players more."
And I'm like, "Absolutely."
And my favorite one ever, this is like six months ago.
He just went, "Hey, Alex, the Kennedy assassination."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I was like, "Can you believe it?"
And he said, "Bobby did it."
- And I was like, "Oh." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Well, he got his, didn't he?" I mean...
"Can you believe it?"
It is a mirror of a question of an answer, and it works here.
Because she just went, "The White House! Hmm?"
And I said, "Can you believe it?"
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - And she went off on this rant
about Jared Kushner.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - Trump's Jewish son-in-law,
and she goes off on how "Kushner and his friends"
are ruining the Trump administration
and the country.
And I so had to stop myself from doing
what I desperately wanted to do,
which was go, "Oh, I hate Jared Kushner.
He sits behind me in synagogue on the Upper East Side.
- He's so goddamn loud." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
That's true, by the way.
It's 1,000 percent true.
Kehilath Jeshurun on 85th and Lexington,
it's where he goes. He's fucking loud.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - And he's arrogant.
That's the word. He's so--
Like when they call him up to the Torah,
he walks up like he wrote it.
He's got a problem, I'm telling you.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
And-- (CHUCKLES) Anyway,
she's off on her rant about the Kush.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING) - I'm standing there.
I'm nodding, I'm trying to focus more on the face,
- less on the opinions, you know. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And we talk for like 15 minutes.
And she does most of the talking,
which is a red flag, but not a deal breaker,
- you know. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And after about 15 minutes,
I feel someone kind of, like, lurking in my periph.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - Like I'm being haunted.
And when I turn around, there's this guy standing there.
And this guy's sizing me up with a look on his face
that I would honestly most accurately describe as...
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"This is a Jew!"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Like, "I'm pretty sure this is a Jew!"
And he said to me, "Hey, can I help you?"
As if I was gonna be like...
(IN HIGH-PITCHED VOICE) "Yes!
Well, I was on my way to synagogue for Yom Kippur!
But I got lost and I stumbled in here.
Do you know if these muffins is kosher?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
But I tried to be neutral and I said, "Hey, man."
And he said, "Can I help you?"
And I said, "I'm here for the thing."
And he said, "You're here for the meeting?"
And I thought about saying, "Can you believe it?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
But I had just used it, so I said,
"Yeah, man, I'm here for the meeting."
And he said, "Chelsea, he's with you?"
And Chelsea just went,
"Oh... (CHUCKLES)
...we just met, but he seems cool."
And I thought to myself, "Nice."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - You never know, right?
And then this guy, like, fumfers for--
Like this guy's not quite sure what to say.
But when he recovered, he just said,
"Okay. All right. But who is he?
Excuse me, who are you?
Like, what's your name?"
Here's the thing.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - Here's the thing. Growing up...
(SCOFFS) ...I always wanted to be White.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING) - Yeah, yes.
I'm aware there are a few of you looking at me like,
-"Mission accomplished, buddy." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Does he not...?" I am White.
I'm definitely White. But I grew up in a place
where there were different kinds of White people.
I grew up in a place where there was a strict hierarchy
for Whiteness. I grew up in Boston.
I grew up in this really racist part of Boston
called Boston.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING) - And in Boston... (CHUCKLES)
And in Boston,
there are different kinds of White people,
there are different kinds of Whiteness, right?
Like, there are Ashkenazi Jews, like me,
and we're in places like Brookline and Newton
and an outer suburb way to the south
called Sharon, there are the Russians.
In Eastie, in East Boston, there are the Greeks.
In Dorchester, there are the Italians in the North End.
And of course, Irish Catholics, right?
ICs practically synonymous with Boston,
and they're scattered all over,
but a lot of them very famously concentrate in,
anybody know?
AUDIENCE: Southie.
ALEX: Southie, South Boston. Yes.
And they've had an amazing century.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
No, truly, an incredible 100 years
for the Bostonian Irish Catholics.
They've gone up a couple of socioeconomic classes
as a whole.
They've had their own president,
who was apparently killed by his brother.
- Right? Like, there's any reason... - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
But they've not ascended to the top of this totem pole.
'Cause at the top of this pyramid
of Bostonian Caucasian, unquestionably?
- AUDIENCE: WASPs. - WASPs. Exactly.
The WASPs. And let me tell you,
that is the kind of White you wanna be... (SMACKS LIPS)
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...in Boston. You know what I mean?
The sort of, like, any country club you want White.
Or, like, had a relative on the Mayflower White.
Or, like, "I can't read, but I got into Harvard!"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Like, that's the White you wanna be in Beantown.
And growing up, I became so keenly aware of that
and I started changing things about myself
to appear a little less Jewish.
Like, when I was a kid, no one called me Alex.
Everyone called me David or David Yosef.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - My--
My full name isn't Alex Edelman.
My full name, get ready,
is David Yosef Shimon Ben Elazar Reuven Alexander Halevi Edelman.
That is my full name.
- (AUDIENCE APPLAUDING, CHEERING) - I go-- Sure.
I go by Alex now and my family has noticed the shift.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
My father's name is Elazar. That's the name that he goes by.
And he's like, "You're not proud of your real name?"
And I'm like, "No." And he's like, "Why not?"
And I'm like, "I don't know, Elazar.
Maybe because it sounds like we're all in Slytherin.
- That's why." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
ALEX: I have cousins Mikal and Penecost.
You can't even spell their names right in English
'cause there's no English letter for phlegm.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I don't wanna get into a game of like, "How Jewish are you?"
This is how Jewish we are. My brother AJ,
or Adam Yitzhak Chaim...
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...qualified for the last Winter Olympics
for Israel.
This is not a joke.
AJ-- I mean, like, it is eventually a joke,
- but like this... (CHUCKLES) - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
AJ qualified for the last Winter Olympics for Israel.
And whenever I tell people that,
they always have a few questions.
They're like, "Your brother?" "Yes."
-"Your brother?" "Yes." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Your brother's an Olympian?" "Yeah."
If you're wondering, turns out it's nurture.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Your brother's an Olympian?" "I know."
"For Israel?" "I know."
"The Winter Olympics?" "I know."
"Does Israel have winters?"
"Not really. He had to train in Munich,"
in what must be the irony to end all ironies.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
"What's AJ's sport?" "AJ's sport is called skeleton."
Which is like... (CHUCKLES)
Which is like luge but head-first.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - (CHUCKLES)
By the way, my father says on television
that I have to inform audiences
that AJ is a hero, it's an accomplishment,
and we're so proud of him.
- There. Okay. Skeleton-- - (AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
Oh, are you-- No, no, no, no, no. It's...
It's the dumbest sport in the world,
it's not a real sport,
it's a lunch tray and an icy hill.
- Here's... (CHUCKLES) - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Here's how dumb this sport is.
We went to go see AJ qualify upstate Lake Placid,
and this guy from Italy named Cicini,
named Jean-Luc Cicini,
he crashed at the top of the run,
and his little sled went down without him,
and the sled on its own
finished in fourth place.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I think about that every day,
'cause my brother's always like, "It's a skill sport."
And I'm like, "It's gravity, AJ!"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
A corpse and some duct tape would medal in this event.
You turn on the Olympics
and Bob Costas would be like, "Wow, Tom!
Look at Simmons keeping his shoulders so still
in those corners."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Also, I had no faith in him.
No. Like, whenever they interview athlete families,
they're always like, "We knew." I'm like, "You knew?"
"Oh, we knew that Megan was special
and she would lead the women's team to the World--"
There was none of that in my house.
I made fun of my brother every day.
I called him "The Frozen Chosen" for like four years in a row.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
And then my mom was like, "Stop calling him that."
And this is gonna be too Jewish for a couple of you,
but I switched over to "Shul Runnings"
- and I am so proud. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
Shul means synagogue in Yiddish.
We had T-shirts made. It's like a whole thing.
We're at... (CHUCKLES) We're at the Olympics.
We're sitting on this bus
from the Olympic village to the venue.
And this Israeli reporter was interviewing AJ
and he was like, "Adam...
- (BABBLES) - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...what was it like when you found out
you were going to be... (BABBLES)
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - ...an Olympian?"
And AJ was like, "Oh, Guri,
no one was more surprised than I was."
And out loud on Israeli TV, I just went, "That's not true."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"It's not true. I bet my dad 50 dollars
that he wouldn't make the Olympics."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - But he did. He made the Olympics.
He's one of the 30 best skeleton athletes
on the planet,
out of the 42 skeleton athletes on the planet.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - (CHUCKLES)
And he did it for Israel.
And that's a whole separate kettle of fish,
but we are proudly and emphatically Jewish.
And it's a huge part of my background
and my upbringing
and the filter through which I see the world, but...
- but... - (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- (INAUDIBLE) - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...when I'm standing in this apartment
in Queens and this guy says,
"What's your name?" I tell him my name's Alex,
'cause I'm not gonna give him the backstory.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - I said, "I'm Alex."
And of course, I said, "How about you, man?"
(SNIFFS)
"Like, what's your name?"
And the guy thought about it.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING) - He just went...
(EXHALES)
"My name's Cortez."
And I said, "I'm sorry, your name is Cortez?"
And with a real knife in his voice,
the guy just said, "We don't give real names
to people who are here for the first time."
And he looked directly into my face.
And I'm trying to look back at him,
like not too aggressive,
but also not like a coward, and it's very awkward.
There's like a real moment of tension.
But that tension is broken fairly quickly,
'cause this guy just came crossing
from the other side of the room
and he looked at us, and he just went,
-"Hey, Matt, we're starting." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
And I was like, "Nice to meet you, Cortez."
And then we start.
We start.
There was a moment before I walked in
where I was like, "All right, if I get scared,
I won't... I won't try anything fancy, I will leave.
I will excuse myself to the bathroom and just go."
But nothing scary is happening yet.
People are just pulling up chairs
to the middle of the room,
and everything's like a little higgledy-piggledy.
But we wind up with like a ragged circle
of chairs that doesn't quite close
all the way on the end over here.
It's like a semicircle or like...
an anti-semicircle.
- It's... (CHUCKLES) - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
(CHUCKLES) I'm over here. I'm over here.
There's, uh... There are 17 of us, okay?
I'm gonna say us.
I'm gonna lump myself in logistically.
Seventeen of us.
Twelve men, five women, including Chelsea, my new love.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Chelsea's, like, two, three seats away from me
on this side. This side of the circle,
a little bit younger than this side of the circle.
But this side of the circle seems to know each other.
Much better, a little more engaged,
a little more hardcore.
This side, of course, has Cortez, my pal.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
He's, like, um,
five, six seats away from me on this side,
jigsaw lady's sitting next to him, and we start.
(EXHALES HEAVILY) We start.
And for the first 15 or so minutes of this meeting,
these guys talked about the royal wedding.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Meghan and Harry.
It had happened since they last got together,
and they were upset about it.
(CHUCKLES) And it took me way longer than it should have
to realize why they were upset.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Meghan Markle's mixed race. Of course she is. I forgot that.
I forgot. You know who didn't forget?
- White nationalists. They're very upset. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
They prefer that he marry a first cousin as per usual.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
(CHUCKLES) Uh, real quick,
I have a connection to Prince Harry,
which is that my friend Jack once did cocaine with him
- in a London nightclub bathroom. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
All right, that did not get the reaction
- that I wanted from you. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
ALEX: I will sidebar for this.
Prince Harry had a cocaine problem.
It's the best thing.
We don't talk about it enough
as a culture. It's in the new book.
It's fantastic. I don't approve of cocaine,
but I love that Prince Harry had a cocaine problem.
Because in America, we forget this.
But in England, the Queen is on all of the money.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
So that means at some point,
Prince Harry rolled up a picture of his grandmother
to do drugs that he bought
with other pictures of his grandmother.
That will never happen to any of you.
None of you can walk into Times Square after this
and the drug dealer's like, "Excuse me,
that'll be 300 dollars." And you're like, "Excuse me.
Here's a picture of my grandma at her 50th Jubilee parade."
He's like, "What?"
You're like, "Here's a picture of my grandma
with Winston Churchill."
And he's like, "How'd you get this?"
And you're like, "Here's a picture of my grandma
planning the death of my mom." It only works for him.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
What are you gonna do about it though, huh?
What, are you gonna tell people not to watch the special?
Fuck you. What are you gonna do?
(CHUCKLES)
Just 'cause it's not in The Crown,
doesn't mean it didn't happen. Grow the fuck up.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
(CHUCKLES) By the way,
just so you know, cocaine has no effect on me.
- None. Zero. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Because I'm part of this generation
of over-medicated ADHD children.
Do you know what I mean? Like, someone offered me cocaine
a couple of years ago, and I tried it,
and they were like, "How do you feel?"
And I was like, "Like there's homework to do!"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
"Do you feel like dancing? We're going dancing."
And I'm like, "I can't,
I'm putting a bibliography together, aren't I?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
I'm gonna get started on the secondary sources.
You fact-check the primary sources.
Where are you going? We need 3,000 words
on Moby Dick by Thursday.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Anyway. They're upset.
And this is a huge group of nodders.
Like, if anyone ever agreed with anything, they were like,
"Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm."
And someone's like, "It's a disgrace."
And everyone's like, "It's a disgrace!"
- (MUMBLED) "It's a disgrace." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And someone else was like, "It represents
the sorry state of the West."
And everyone's like, "The West?
What happened to our standards in the West?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And jigsaw lady.
Jigsaw-- I'm fascinated by this person.
Not much for eye contact.
Always looking at her shoes, like they owed her money.
- Always straight down. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
But whenever she spoke, you knew who was talking.
No one else had a register like this.
And at some point, she just went,
"Didn't just happen though, did it?
Didn't just happen is what we've come to.
This is what we've come to.
A member of the royal family marrying a--"
And then...
- she uses the N-word. - (AUDIENCE GROANING)
And Chelsea just said... (INHALES)
"You know...
I'm not crazy about that word actually."
And I thought to myself, "There's a spectrum of Nazi?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I kept falling in love with Chelsea a little bit.
I did, for two reasons.
- First of all, you never know. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Second of all-- Right? You never know.
Second of all, I love romantic comedy films.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Right? You wouldn't watch this?
What a great meet-cute for a rom-com, no?
We meet at this meeting. She's played by Anne Hathaway.
I like to imagine I've booked the role of myself,
but if we're being honest, it's Jesse Eisenberg
- or skinny Jonah Hill. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And like, we meet at this meeting.
And we start dating,
and I have to hide the fact that I'm Jewish.
And eventually, we start sleeping together,
and she's like, "Why are you circumcised?"
And I'm like, "Don't worry about it."
And, like, things are going really amazing,
and I get down on one knee towards the end of the film
at the top of the Empire State Building,
in the rain, it's a rom-com.
And as I open up my ring box to propose,
I lock eyes with my TALMA teacher
from fifth grade, and I'm like, "Rabbi Klammer?"
And he's like, "David Yosef Shimon Edelman?"
And she's like... (MIMICS CRYING)
And she runs away.
But her best friend, Rebel Wilson, is like,
"Girl, you gotta go back to him. He is a good man."
And so we reunite, and we kiss, and the last scene of the movie,
we're married in my parents' synagogue, right?
Like that's how that would go.
(AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
You know, on Broadway, I've had to explain that to--
The stomp to people.
So, like, if you guys don't know,
when Jews get married, they wrap a glass up in a napkin
and then they crush the glass because the glass represents...
happiness. So, you're just like, bam.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Here's the problem with my rom-com.
I date very assertive women. I always have.
So, what would really happen is, we'd meet at this meeting,
we'd start dating, and then three weeks later...
(CHUCKLES) ...I would be a Nazi.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I'd be standing on my parents' front lawn
in Brookline, Massachusetts, holding a brick,
and she'd be like, "Do it."
And I'm like...
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-"Hi, Eema." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Hi, Mom, this is Chelsea. This is Matt--
- Sorry, this is Cortez." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
There's so much complaining in this room.
That's the first thing that--
There's so much kvetching in this room.
(CLEARS THROAT) This is around the time
they were taking down Confederate statues.
Remember that? They're very upset about that.
They talked a lot about how White history is being erased.
They're taking down statues of White people.
They're pulling White people out of textbooks.
Someone over here says,
"They don't even teach about White men
in public schools anymore."
- And everyone's like, "Mm-hmm." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Mm-hmm."
And White people aren't just being replaced
in the classroom. It's happening in real life.
It's happening in real life in their own country,
it's a disgrace.
It's a disgrace.
And what's enabling this replacement?
What's enabling, as the guy next to me says,
"The slow-moving genocide against Whites in America"?
It's this myth.
It's this myth of White privilege.
And this myth drives so much of the stuff they hate.
It drives diversity hiring initiatives.
It drives a popular culture they despise!
Despise.
And it drives reverse racism, which is when people are racist
against White people just because they're White.
And then someone over here says, "It's the biggest problem
in the country today,
and no one is brave enough to talk about it."
- And everyone's like, "Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I can give you two guesses...
(CHUCKLES) ...at who they blame for this kind of thing.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And you might not need your second guess.
Because running through this meeting
is this thick vein of antisemitism,
but I've never seen this kind of antisemitism before.
It's almost exhilarating.
It's like thick, Technicolor, weapons-grade,
conspiracy-theory level anti-- Like, at some point,
this guy two seats away from me, he just went,
"Jews are sneaky and they're everywhere!"
- And I was like... - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
"Seems like the wrong time
to argue with this guy actually."
"That's a disgrace." "That's a disgrace."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
I see myself very much as a Jew.
Obviously. But I see myself more than anything else as a Jew.
Like when I wake up in the morning,
my first thought is like, "Jew waking up."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And not just Jewish religious,
observant, thoughtful about what it means in my life.
If I was very secular,
I'd be a completely different human being.
Complete-- If I was very secular in a fun,
liberal city like New York or San Francisco,
I think I'd consider myself bisexual.
But because I was raised religious
in a place like Boston,
I consider myself straight with a couple of secrets.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
And I remember the first time I was aware of being Jewish.
I should have been aware, like, eight days in.
- But the first time I was aware... (CHUCKLES) - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
The first time I was aware, I was, like, five years old.
I'm at a Chuck E. Cheese at a children's birthday party
in Natick, Massachusetts.
And I reached for a slice of pizza
that had some sausage on it or pepperoni,
something not kosher.
And my grandfather was there, and he saw me reaching,
and he kicked my hand. Kicked.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And he said, "You can't have that, David.
We're Jewish." And I said, "What does that mean?"
And with a totally straight face, he just went,
"It means you'll never be happy."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
And I said, "Be'emet?" which means, "For real?"
And he went, "Oh, yeah." And I said, "Why?"
And he said, "It means you'll never be happy
with the way things are.
And you'll always question things.
And even when things are pretty good,
they won't seem that good to you."
And I said, "Papa, I don't wanna be Jewish!"
And then my grandfather laughed at me.
And he just went... (CHUCKLES) "Sweetie,
that's the most Jewish thing there is."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
And it blows my mind when I meet non-Jews,
and they say things to me like, "Oh, well, I get it
'cause I used to be a Christian, so."
"Sorry, what?" "Well, I was raised Christian,
but a couple years ago, I decided I was nothing, so."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING SOFTLY)
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - No--
I understand that intellectually.
I respect that, of course.
But that is not how it works in Judaism.
You can't leave when you feel like it.
Judaism is the Hotel California of religions.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
It is a mailing list,
you can never "unsubscribe" from.
And I worry that I'm not Jewish enough.
I worry that.
I-- Which is crazy, 'cause to my comedy friends,
I'm the most Jewish person they've ever met.
I'm a beard away from their conception of rabbi.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And to my family, I'm Lady Gaga.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I called my father once.
My father is this lovely, thoughtful professor
at Harvard Medical School, religious,
wears a yarmulke, a kippah.
Every single day of his life. If something goes well,
he says, "Baruch Hashem." "Thank God."
And I called him, I said, "Dad, Abba, I worry
that the life that I lead isn't Jewish enough."
And he said, "Alex, I understand that concern."
And I said, "Do you ever worry about that?"
And he said, "Of course. I worry every day
that the life that you lead isn't Jewish enough."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I am so tough on other Jews. I am relentless with other Jews.
It's my least favorite thing about myself.
Like... Like, I was at a friend's house.
I'm meeting my friend's baby.
So many of my friends are having babies or adopting.
I'm thinking a lot about adoption, but I'm 34.
And I think for adoption,
that's right on the line, age-wise.
Right? Like, I think that's too old.
I don't think anyone is gonna take me at this point.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING) - But like--
I'm holding... I'm holding this baby,
and the baby starts to cry. Oh, baby's name is Yasi.
My friend's name is Mati. His wife's name is Rahel.
- These are normal names where I'm from. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
They are. Those are normal names.
And I'm holding the baby,
and he starts to cry, which is fine.
He's a baby. But Rahel,
who I don't think's ever really liked me,
- just went, "Huh." - (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Looks like he's not a fan of yours, is he?"
And I said, "It's fine. He's a baby."
And she said, "He actually has a really good sense for men."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I said, "He doesn't have a good sense for anything.
He doesn't even know he's alive yet."
And apparently, never say this to a new mother.
I said, "He's just like a brisket with eyes right now."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And she said, "He's very intuitive."
And I said, "He's not. He shits himself."
And the husband, who I've known forever,
he's seen enough and he just went,
"Whoa! Whoa--" Still calls me David.
That's how long I've known this guy.
I've known this guy forever.
And he went, "Whoa! Sorry, David,
we're a little uptight-- We are. We're a little uptight,
'cause people have been judging us
for the way that we're raising the baby."
And I said, "What do you mean?"
And he said, "Well, we've decide--
We've decided that we're not gonna vaccinate
until we know a bit more."
And I was like, "Against COVID,
you don't need to. He's an infant."
He's like, "Not against COVID, against like mumps and measles
and the other stuff."
- And I was like, "Oh!" - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Oh, well, first of all, here's your disease baby back."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
"Second of all, what are you talking about?"
And he said, "Well, we've read
that the vaccines can cause autism."
And I said, "That is not true."
And Rahel went, "What do you know about autism?"
And I was like, "First of all, I've been tested 11 times."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
"You think you get like this
without people asking a couple of questions?"
I am so neurodivergent.
I saw so many child psychiatrists growing up
in the Greater Boston area,
the last one was free.
And I just have, like, one memory.
I'm sitting on this brown couch in this doctor's office,
and my mom is outside
in the waiting room talking to the doctor.
And I just remember hearing her go,
"What do you mean, 'He's fine?'"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
And I was like, "Yeah, vaccines don't cause autism."
"Mati, you know that."
And like, it ends the conversation.
He just went, "Well...
it's our opinion, isn't it?
We're his parents. It's our opinion."
And I don't know that I would do this
with someone who wasn't Jewish, but I just went,
"Oh, and you guys are embarrassed."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING SOFTLY)
"Right, you're mortified,
'cause it's such a low-information opinion."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"'Cause there's no basis in science,
and it's so bad for the child,
so you probably don't tell people."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Something so ill-informed."
And he said, "Excuse me, we're his parents.
You don't have children.
You've never had to make this choice.
You're judging us for our opinion?"
And I was like, "That's how we judge people!"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Their opinions and their actions,
and the content of their character.
It used to be skin color, but someone had a dream."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And he said to me, in Hebrew,
in Hebrew, "David, you can't judge us.
Only God, only Hashem can judge."
- And that worked with me. - (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
No, but that calmed me down immediately,
'cause it reminded me how I know this guy.
I know this guy 'cause we went to a yeshiva together,
which is a Hebrew day school.
And in a yeshiva, you study Torah every morning
from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.,
because "yeshiva" is a Hebrew word
- that means "miserable." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
ALEX: In a yeshiva, when they teach you about God,
they teach you that he acts through you.
If you are kind, that is God showing kindness.
If you're empathetic,
that is Hashem manifesting empathy.
In Hebrew, the word is "kli." It means "vessel."
You are a vessel for God's action.
And so he said to me, "David, you can't judge us.
Only God can judge us. Alex can't judge us.
Only Hashem. Only Hashem can judge."
I calmed myself down,
and I remembered that we have this common language
and lineage, and that on paper, we're basically the same person.
And I explained to him that it's possible
that God was judging him, but that I was the vessel
through which he had chosen to judge him.
(AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
And we have not been invited back to that house.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
But it's worth asking why this guy and his wife,
who I have everything in common with,
that's who I go toe-to-toe with in their own living room,
I show them so little understanding.
In this living room in Queens,
where I have so little in common with anyone,
I sat there listening to them for an hour.
(CHUCKLES) All right. Guys, I sat in a conversation
- without talking one time... - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...for an hour, which for me...
unprecedented. I couldn't even nod.
Everybody else was like, "Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm."
I had to nod at things out of context.
(SCOFFS) Like at some point someone was like,
"What it means to be a man in the workplace is changing."
And I was like...
(MUMBLES) "That's absolutely--
Yeah, there's a reckoning going on.
I agree with that. It's way better now.
You can't just, like, throw your interns
out the windows. Mm-hmm."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING SOFTLY) - (CHUCKLES)
And someone's like,
"Billionaires and corporations control our elections."
And I was like,
"I'd like to see meaningful campaign finance reform in the United States."
- (MUTTERS) - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Such a progressive value, isn't it? Yeah, that's good."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And finally, I get a chance to talk.
There's this guy two seats away from Chelsea,
and his name is Witt.
And if such a thing can be said, he's my favorite.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
You know how some people can be in their early thirties,
but they have a vibe of teenager?
That's Witt. He's a little blithe and slumpy.
And, at some point, he's like,
"You know what's really hard for us now?
It's really hard for us to reach new people
on social media."
And I said, "Do you know why that is?"
And Chelsea went,
"Alex, do you know something about social media?"
And I said, "Chelsea,
I know a lot about social media."
And I started explaining this thing
called the meaningful content algorithm.
This is so interesting. All right,
it used to be in the early days of social media,
when you logged in, you'd see stuff chronologically.
Remember that? You'd see things based on when they were posted.
But now when you log in, you don't see that anymore.
You see what the algorithm thinks you'll enjoy most first.
That's because of this thing
called the meaningful content algorithm.
And it's Balkanized us
into these social media echo chambers,
which has made it so hard for new ideas,
or in this, like, one specific instance,
the oldest ideas in the world to reach new people.
And so I start explaining the algorithm,
I start explaining social media echo chambers,
I start explaining Cambridge Analytica,
the company that's, like, best at this,
and everybody's listening to me.
And, at some point, I looked around the circle,
and people have got their arms crossed,
and they're nodding at each other,
and they're nodding at me.
And I thought to myself all at once,
"Oh, I'm positively contributing
to this meeting of White nationalists."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I came as an observer. I'm gonna leave as, like,
the "youth outreach officer" or something.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
But there was a moment...
where I actually started to feel very badly for these people.
(CHUCKLES SOFTLY)
I don't want to be gratuitous,
but these are not life's winners.
Hashem has not given with both hands
- to anyone in this room. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
They are not the brightest. They are not the wealthiest.
They are very badly informed. And most importantly...
(CHUCKLES) ...these guys are racists in New York City!
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
They're racists in Queens, the most diverse borough
and the most-- Guys, it's Queens.
In Queens, you can't even get 17 Nazis together
without a Jew being sat right there
in the middle of you.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
This isn't Arkan-ssippi. Are you kidding me?
We're two blocks away from Little Ethiopia.
Things are going not well for these people.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And at some point, I had a thought,
which was so, like...
I had a thought that was so self-aggrandizing,
it took me two years to tell anyone about it.
But at some point, I looked around the circle,
and I thought to myself, "Wow."
"Look at me empathizing."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Look at me feeling bad for these people
when they're so horrible, but I'm such a good boy."
(CHUCKLES) "Am I the hero that we need
in these difficult and divided times?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And then I thought, "Do I have a duty as a Jew...
to hear these people,
'cause there's actually something to that?"
If you raise Jewish children correctly,
empathy is the default.
Empathy is the true north for every Jewish value.
And all of the best Jewish moments of my life
are moments where those values showed up in places
you would never look for them.
Like, once when I was a kid, my family had Christmas.
This is totally true.
My mom had this friend named Kate.
And over the course of a calendar year,
Kate lost her last parent and her last sibling.
She had nowhere to go for the holiday. My mom said,
"Kate, why don't you come to our house?
We'll do Christmas."
That's the kind of person my mom is.
- My father... - (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- ...did not want that. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Mom is a Jew from Cincinnati. She's a Midwestern Jew.
- It's a slightly gentler existence. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
My father grew up Jewish in Boston like me,
but in a time when it was so hard
to be Jewish there,
which is between the years 1500 and 1991.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
And he said, "Cheryl, I will not have Christmas
in a Jewish home." And my mom was like,
"Elazar, we're having Christmas."
And he's like, "Over my dead body
are we having Christmas."
So they compromised and we had Christmas.
- So... - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
Yeah, obviously. Obviously
AJ and I come downstairs one day.
My parents are sitting in the living room.
I don't know if any of you grew up in a home like this.
We were never allowed in our living room.
Never. The living room is for guests and tragedies.
Those are the only times.
And every piece of furniture is covered in plastic,
in case the real owners of the house show up one day.
We come downstairs, no guests.
AJ and I look at each other like,
"Oh, no. Bubbe died again,"
- and we sit down... - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...on the couch. And my mom just said, "Boys...
this year...
we're having Christmas."
And AJ and I were so young and insulated.
We looked at each other
and we looked at my dad and I just went, "Okay.
What's Christmas?"
And my father said, "It's like Hanukkah."
And my mom undermined him immediately and went,
"Yeah, but maybe even a little bit more fun."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Hanukkah sucks, by the way.
Hanukkah-- I appreciate the politically correct world
that everybody lives in where we all pretend
that all the holidays are equal. They are not equal.
Every-- Hanukkah's very much the Diet Coke
to Christmas' black tar heroin. There is no comparison.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
No-- Go into a supermarket come December.
Christmas is everywhere.
Hanukkah's one little nub at the end of the shampoo aisle,
there's Passover matzah in there for some reason.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
And non-Jews are gorgeous 'cause they're always like,
"Well, you're so lucky. You get eight days of gifts."
I have never met a single Jew
who got eight days of decent gifts.
Here's how it works.
You get one gift over the course of the--
Like if you're getting a bike,
you get, like, a pedal on the first day,
handlebars on the second, then the wheel.
- It is absolute bullshit. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Anyway, we do Christmas
and oh, my God, do we do Christmas.
We do the lights. We do the Christmas dinner.
My... My mom put up stockings above the fireplace
with our names on them in Hebrew and we...
- (CHUCKLES) - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...we went whole hog. No hog. Kosher, Christmas.
But we decked these halls. Deck!
And Kate comes into our house. And Kate...
(SMACKS LIPS) ...White.
Princess Diana haircut, chunky gold earrings,
Hermès scarf, shocking blue pantsuit.
White.
But she walks into our house like a little kid.
Just like...
And she starts to cry immediately.
And my mom said,
"Boys, whatever she wants to do, we're gonna do."
And we did all this deep cuts Christmas stuff.
We strung popcorn together on a string.
We ate our way through an entire chocolate Advent calendar
- in, like, 25 minutes. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And we watched Christmas movies.
Please try to imagine being a young Jew
and you've never heard of Christmas,
and then on the day you find out about it,
you watch, like, seven Christmas movies in a row.
AJ and I are like,
"Oh, so this holiday's a huge deal, huh?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And the one that sticks out
is the Peanuts Christmas special.
Snoopy, Charlie Brown, best thing we've ever seen.
AJ and I are like vibrating an inch from the TV.
AJ's like, "The meaning of Christmas, Snoopy."
And I'm like, "The spirit of Christmas, Charlie Brown."
My dad's in the corner, like, praying for lightning.
- Like... (CHUCKLES) - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And at some point,
a character on the screen just went,
"Linus, we need to put out cookies
for Santa Claus, don't we?"
And AJ and I look at each other.
And we look at my dad, and I just went, "Abba...
- who's Santa Claus?" - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And my father says this didn't happen.
And it is the single clearest memory
- from my childhood. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
My father rarely cursed in front of us
and maybe he thought we couldn't hear him,
but he looked at my mom and he just went, "Cheryl...
- Jesus fucking Christ." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
And my mom said, "Elazar." And he said, "Come on."
And she went, "Just do it."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
This is a direct quote.
This is a direct quote from, like...
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...twenty-five years ago.
My father walked up to us and he said...
"Santa Claus, boys...
he is a fat man."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"But it's a good fat."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) -"But it's a good--"
You know, like, Santa's an avocado or something.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"But it's a good fat.
And he comes down non-Jewish chimneys
in the middle of the night
and he gives gifts to young Christians."
And AJ and I are like...
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And AJ just said, "And he's coming here?"
My father's like, "Sure. I guess he's coming here."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
We put out cookies for Santa Claus.
We're very skeptical, obviously.
We go upstairs. We go to bed.
We come downstairs the next morning.
The cookies are gone.
Guys, they're gone.
And AJ and I see that
and we lose consciousness immediately.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
We, like, black out, and I know it's happened,
'cause there's home video, and on the home video,
we're going crazy.
We're like, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!
He was here! He was here!
Eema, he was here! Dad, he was here!"
And, at some point,
AJ's standing on the couch and he looked at me
and he just went, "Santa came!" And I went, "Baruch Hashem!"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
(CHUCKLES) And we ran out to the garage.
Why? Because this is the one concession
my father got from my mom.
He's like, "Cheryl, I will not have a Christmas tree
in a Jewish home."
And my mother was like, "I can respect that, Elazar.
We'll put it in the garage."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And there are two photos of this.
Weird photos.
We're wearing pajamas 'cause we're children,
but we're wearing jackets
'cause we're in a Boston garage in December,
and we're wearing yarmulkes 'cause we're Jews.
But we're standing in front
of a fully-decorated Christmas tree
with a teddy bear
wearing his own yarmulke on top of it.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
ALEX: And we've got headphones on. Why?
Because this is how long ago it was.
We got cassette tape Walkmen.
Remember the square dealies? We were thrilled.
That was Santa's gift.
Kate had gotten us her own gift.
(CHUCKLES) Kate had pulled my parents aside
the night before and she was like,
"Don't worry, Cheryl."
"Don't worry, Elaser."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"I got your boys Jewish gifts."
My father was like, "Oh!"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Okay, um, Kate, when you say Jewish gifts,
what do you mean?" And Kate's like,
"I got them gifts from the Torah."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
(CHUCKLES) This was Kate's gift from the Torah.
To put in our cassette tape Walkmen,
Kate got us, on cassette,
the cast recording of Andrew Lloyd-Webber's
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat...
(AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
...where the role of Joseph was sung by-- Anybody know?
- AUDIENCE: Donny Osmond. - Donny Osmond, thank you.
Donny Osmond. Two photos. Weird photos.
Pajamas, jackets, yarmulkes, Christmas, teddy bear,
yarmulke, headphones, and on the headphones,
an Old Testament story from the Torah
adapted into a musical by a British aristocrat
where the lead role, sung by a Mormon.
- It's very interfaith. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
And we go to school that day because yeshiva,
Hebrew day school, not canceled for Christmas.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And we come home that night and my father gets a phone call.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
It's exactly what you think.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And the first thing the principal says to him is,
"Professor Edelman, your sons have a lying problem."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
My father said, "What did they do?"
And the principal said, "Well,
the teacher tried to explain to the children
the very delicate topic of Christmas
and Alex raised his hand and just went... (SNIFFS)
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
- 'We had Christmas.'" - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And the teacher's like, "You didn't have Christmas."
And I was like, "Hmm, pretty sure we had Christmas."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Lights, stockings, Snoopy, Charlie Brown,
meaning of Christmas, spirit of Christmas.
Pretty sure we had Christmas."
And the teacher's like, "You didn't have Christmas.
You had Hanukkah three weeks ago, or four months from now,
depending on the Jewish calendar year."
- Anyway... - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...non-Jews believe in this guy called Santa Claus.
And in my mind's eye,
I see AJ raising his hand and saying,
"We had Santa Claus." And I'm wrong.
The teacher came to the show. I'm wrong about two things.
First of all, apparently, AJ didn't raise his hand.
Apparently, AJ lifted two fingers,
in the words of the teacher,
like he was "ordering his second martini".
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And AJ didn't say, "We had Santa Claus."
Apparently, AJ just went... (SNIFFS)
"We know Santa Claus."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
And the teacher's like, "You don't know Santa Claus."
And AJ's like, "Hmm. But we do know Santa Claus."
And the other kids are like, "Who's Santa Claus?"
And AJ's like, "Oh! He's amazing.
He's a fat man, but it's a good kind of fat.
And he comes down non-Jewish chimneys
in middle of the night,
and he gives gifts to young Christians.
But... (CHUCKLES) But, last night,
because he's friends with our dad...
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...he came to our house
and he left this Walkman underneath the tree
that my parents put in the garage,
and he ate all of the cookies."
And the principal said,
"Professor Edelman, is this true?"
And, apparently, my father just went, "No."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
-"It... It's not entirely true." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And Rabbi Falk said,
"What do you mean it's not entirely true?"
Then my father said, "Cheryl and I ate the cookies."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
"Santa Claus didn't come to our house."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And my mom says there was a significant pause
on the other end of the phone, and then the principal said,
"I'm aware Santa Claus didn't come to your house."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"You had Christmas?"
And my father explained.
My father explained that this woman was bereft.
She had nowhere to go.
And he had reservations about it,
but he let it happen
because he thought it was such a valuable, teachable moment,
right, where he could show his children
that doing the thing centered in Jewish values,
the good deed, may not always appear...
- conventionally Jewish. - (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Principal says, "Professor Edelman,
I understand where you're coming from but you're wrong,
'cause what you've actually done
is you've introduced this holiday,
that is foreign and corrosive, into your home
and you've clearly confused your children
and perhaps harmed them permanently...
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
...when you've given them this holiday.
Next year, are you gonna take it away?
Will you keep celebrating? What are you gonna do?
And more than anything else,
this isn't a good deed. It's idol worship.
It's the most serious sin a Jew can commit.
And you and your wife need to begin atoning for it
right now."
And my father, to his credit, said,
"Well, clearly, Rabbi,
you don't understand the meaning of Christmas,"
and then he hung up the phone.
(AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
(CHUCKLES) And, look, I love that story.
I think it reflects so well on my parents,
but there's such a good question
at the center of it, very Jewish one, actually,
which is, like, to what do our empathies extend?
Is it unconditional? Does it matter who they are?
Does it matter how they feel about us?
Does it matter why we're empath--
Does it matter why we're empathizing?
'Cause, for a while, I was empathizing.
In this room, these people feel powerless,
they feel voiceless,
even if they are 1,000 percent wrong!
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Those are universal struggles.
It's hard to hate people up close.
But once I realized I was empathizing,
I was like, "Look at me."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
By the way, not just empathizing.
- Connecting. (CHUCKLES) - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Once I started talking,
I was in the flow of conversation so effortlessly,
I thought to myself,
"I'm gonna be a grand wizard in like two weeks at this rate."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I'm getting my hood tonight. Like, it's happening.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I keep making eye contact with Chelsea.
That's going amazing.
But like-- But now my fantasy's not just Chelsea anymore.
Now, it sort of flowered out to the rest of the room.
Like, obviously, everybody here's
gonna be a table at the wedding,
- but like besides that, I'm-- - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
No. I'm gonna fix these people.
Guys, me. I'm gonna fix them.
By the time this meeting starts to wind down,
my "good guy" fantasies are like a runaway train.
I have spoken
more than two-thirds of the people in this room.
I am in. They like me.
And there's this guy sitting almost directly across from me,
right where the circle gaps,
and he's sort of running the meeting.
And, at some point, he was like,
"All right, guys. We're gonna take a break.
Anyone who wants to get a pastry, can get a pastry.
When we come back, we'll talk next steps."
And I'm nodding at this point. I'm like,
-"Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Next steps." - (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
And Cortez, whose eyes have very rarely left my area,
just went, "Hold on one-- Brian, excuse me.
Hold on one second."
And he said, "Alex?" And I said, "Mm-hmm."
And he said, "Where are you from?"
And I said...
"I'm from Boston."
And he said, "Cool.
How long have you lived in New York City?"
And I said, "Oh, I've been here about nine years."
And he went, "Great.
What's the ethnic origin of your grandparents?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING SOFTLY)
And there was a little voice
in the back of my head that just went,
"Wow, that third question was so different
- from the first two questions." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I was like, "Well, my father's family
is from Poland
but my mother's family...
is also from Poland, actually."
And the guy starts peppering me with questions, one after the--
He asks me where in New York City I live.
He asks me if I live alone.
He asks me how much money I make in a year.
And, at some point, I got a little offended.
And I was just like, "This guy's got a problem.
He's obsessed with me.
Everyone else in this room, they like me.
It's so weird that they're not stopping him.
It's weird that he can read that."
And he's like, "Where did you go to college?"
And I was like, "I went to New York University."
He said, "What did you study?"
And I said, "English Literature."
He said, "Where did you go to high school?"
And I said, "I went to a school in Boston called Maimonides."
And he went, "Maimonides?" And I said, "It's a yeshiva."
AUDIENCE: Oh!
And halfway around the circle, this lady just went, "Oh, boy."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And Witt went, "What's a yeshiva?"
And I said, "It's like a Hebrew day school."
And Chelsea,
looking for any sort of out at this point I assume,
just went, "Your parents made you go
to a Hebrew day school?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
And I said, "Kind of." And she said, "Why?"
And jigsaw lady, of course, not looking at me, of course,
just went, "Chelsea!"
"So very clearly a Jew."
And because it wasn't that big a deal, I just went...
(SNIFFS)
"I mean, yeah."
"Yeah, I'm... I'm Jewish."
(EXHALES)
You know...
people say that political correctness...
is a big part of our culture,
but maybe it's great,
because I think political correctness
is the reason that after I said I was Jewish,
there was a split second
where everyone in the circle kind of looked at each other
with a real energy of like...
"Are we cool with that now?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Did I miss an email or something?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"I don't wanna be rude, but isn't that, like,
one of our big things?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And then one person starts to talk,
and then another, and then... and then I realized
I may have misread how welcome I am.
And people are yelling, but no one's yelling at me.
They're yelling at the guy running the meeting,
and I felt a little bad for him.
I was like, "They're not gonna get
to the next steps for a while, probably."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - And Cortez,
this guy's out of his seat like he's won a basketball game.
He's like, "I told you.
I fucking-- So obvious. Look at him."
And I look at Chelsea.
And as soon as I do, I regret it.
She has such an expression on her face.
She looks so aggrieved. She has an expression
like a shattered and re-glued plate.
She looks so upset.
And I find it so hard to look at her after that.
And this guy running the meeting calms everybody down,
no small feat.
He's like, "Okay. Okay. No, I didn't know."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
And he said, "Alex?" And I said, "Mm-hmm."
And he said, "Why are you here?"
Which, in retrospect, is an excellent question.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And this is my favorite detail from the whole meeting.
This is my favorite detail from the whole night.
He said, "Why are you here?"
And I said, "Oh, I saw this tweet
that said if you have questions about your Whiteness,
then come--" Before I can finish,
Witt, almost brightly,
just went, "Oh! That's my tweet."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
(CHUCKLES) "Oh! That's my tweet,"
with a real energy of like, "See?
We are reaching some new people on social media."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And even then, I was like, "Yeah, bud, I saw your tweet.
And as a White man, I actually--"
And I don't get to finish that sentence.
Everyone starts yelling except for--
"No. You're not White. You're Jewish.
You're Semitic. It's different."
Someone over here went, "He's not even a real Jew."
And I was like, "Dad?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And he said, "He's an impostor from the Khazars."
And I said, "Oh, I-- Okay.
Well, I don't know where that is,
but I am Jewish and I am White." And everyone says, "You're not."
And I thought this would help me.
I really did. I went,
"Guys. Guys,
I know it's complicated given... (CHUCKLES)
...given that Whiteness is largely a social construct...
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...but I actually benefit an enormous amount
from White privilege."
And everyone's like... (SCREAMS SOFTLY)
"No. No. Are you kidding?
Haven't you been listening? White privilege isn't real.
White privilege is bullshit."
Someone over here just went, "You have Jewish privilege.
It's different." I was like, "That's so interesting.
I never thought about that before.
But actually, I benefit a great deal from my Whiteness."
And Cortez is incensed. He's out of his seat.
He's like, "It doesn't exist."
And I said, "Come on, man." And he went, "Really."
And I said, "I benefit from it." He went, "When was the last time
you got something for being White?"
And I said, "Matt, I got a free muffin
for it like an hour ago."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
I... (CHUCKLES)
I don't wanna spoil the ending of this for you...
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...but Chelsea and I, we're not gonna work out.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - (CHUCKLES)
Although it'd be so cool if I could say,
-"And here she is." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Come on out, sweetie!" And she's like, "Ah!"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
(CHUCKLES) I actually started dating someone.
I actually started dating someone
a couple months after this.
And when I told her about this night,
the first thing she said to me, she said, "Just so you know,
this is the epitome of White privilege."
And I said, "What do you mean?" And she said,
"Nothing says White privilege more
than a Jew walking into a meeting of racists
and thinking, 'This'll probably be fine.'"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Things usually work out pretty good for me, honestly."
"Oh, look. Muffins. Those are for me?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I'll be out there afterwards, by the way,
if anyone wants to ask a question.
I answer every question.
But obviously,
if you're watching at home and you have a question,
I'm obscenely easy to reach on social media.
Even if you hated the show, tweet at me.
There's a list I can add you to, you know?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
And the two questions I get the most are,
one, "Were you scared?" Not really.
Here's the thing. Nazis, hmm,
far less intimidating than the way
that my grandfather described them.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Also, they're not Nazis.
But-- I hate to clarify a joke, but being a Nazi
is actually such a specific thing
from an extremely specific moment in history.
These guys wish they were Nazis.
Like, you ever see kids in the park,
and they're hitting each other with tinfoil swords?
These guys are Nazis the way that those guys
are the Knights of the Round Table.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
These are Nerf Nazis, you know?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And the second question I get asked every single day is,
"Why'd you go?"
"Did you really go?"
"My wife and I can't believe you."
"Why'd you go?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Thought I could make it work.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
It's my job.
I make it work.
I get on stage every night,
and I am pandering and solicitous.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I hope that it's enough to make people enjoy the show
or tell a friend.
Please tell a friend. And it's gross.
And there's a huge part of me
that genuinely walked into this room thinking
like they're just anti-Semites
'cause they haven't met Alex yet.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Haven't met David Yosef Shimon Ben Elazar Reuven.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
This...
not that different from the meeting.
Not for me.
I'm only telling you stuff I think you'd enjoy.
Right, like, if you really knew me,
you might not like me, right?
There'd be a political opinion you couldn't stand,
or I'd be too something. I'd be too pretentious,
or ambitious, or lazy, or too Jewish,
or not Jewish enough. There'd be something.
You know who I think about constantly?
Robin Williams.
A gift for connection no one else could--
- A gorilla! - (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
A gorilla was like, "Oh, my God, the talent is undeniable."
- A gorilla! - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
If Robin Williams can make it work with a gorilla,
I should be okay with 16 White people in Queens.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Trying to acknowledge their humanity
with this analogy,
but I am aware that in this analogy,
these guys are gorillas
and I'm one of the greatest comics
- who's ever lived. - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
But if you think about it, who gets dehumanized?
Right? 'Cause for a second, I'm in.
I'm White. Finally.
Right? Childhood dream achieved.
And then they find out that I'm Jewish...
- (FINGERS SNAPPING) - ...and the walls go up.
But it doesn't reflect amazing on me,
'cause I wanted them to like me.
I was performing. I am always perform--
I got kicked out of this meeting,
and it bothers me...
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...on a craft level...
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...'cause that's what happens.
This guy calms everybody down
and he's like, "Okay. Okay. We're gonna take that break
and anyone who needs to leave can leave."
And even though I'm not amazing with social cues,
I was like, "I bet he means me."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - (CHUCKLES)
And this is the kind of dumb joke
the whole show could have been.
Everybody else... (CHUCKLES)
...gets up and they all move...
to the far right corner of the room.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I'm getting my stuff. I look sad now.
I look like I've lost Wimbledon or something.
- I'm like, "Oh, God." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Can't believe they would do this
to the good boy."
And Chelsea... (CHUCKLES SOFTLY) Chelsea.
Chelsea crosses
this vast expanse of floor to me.
And I felt so bad for her
in that-- I remember thinking,
"Man, horrible time and place for you
to discover that this is your type."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And she gets to me.
She said...
"You're Jewish?"
And I said...
"Can you believe it?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
And for the first time, it doesn't work.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And she went, "So you're fully Semitic
or partial? What's going on."
And I said, "Both my parents are Jewish."
And she said, "That's so interesting."
She's very calm, actually.
"That's so interesting. You know why?
Because this is a private residence."
And I said, "Well, I was invited."
And she said, "You were... You weren't invited.
You're committing a crime right now.
You're trespassing. You can't be here.
This is just for us. Go!"
(EXHALES)
So...
So the next morning,
call David Burstein...
tell him what he missed.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And he's quiet all the way through.
He just lets me talk. I talk for like 40 minutes.
But when I got to this part of the story,
he interrupted me. And pardon the language,
but he was like, "And you looked at her
and you said, 'Fuck you, lady.'
And then you looked at everybody else in the room
and you're like, 'Fuck every single one
of you racist, bigoted,
anti-Semitic assholes.'" And I was like...
- (INHALES SHARPLY) - (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
-"Yeah." - (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Of course I put a finger in her face
and I'm like, 'Screw you. And screw--
Screw all your little Nazi budd--'"
But that's not what happened. What really happened is,
I got scared by the trespassing thing.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I quailed immediately, and I just went...
"Okay."
And on the way out, this is so much worse,
I looked at everybody else, and I just went,
"Sorry, you guys!"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I left. I left.
You know, I had a conversation with someone
the day before this run on Broadway started
and... and he said to me, "Would you go back?"
"A thousand percent." And he said, "Really?"
I said, "Yeah. What, I'm supposed to lock myself
in a room with people who agree with me?"
"That's how you wind up like this."
But I get his point, because whenever anyone is like,
"Oh, the way to reach these people
on the far right or the far left
is to extend this hand of brotherhood and connection,
and let them know that in the marketplace of ideas,
they are welcome--" Like that's a lovely notion.
That's how I feel. That's a Jewish value.
But some of them want us gone. And when I say us, I mean, us.
Like even if you guys aren't Jewish
or a person of color,
the fact that you bought a ticket to this show...
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...I feel bad for you guys.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
You guys are screwed. See you on the trains.
They hate you so much.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I'm glad I went.
I really took something away with me.
Not like a lesson or anything like that.
I really took something away with me and it's very small,
but I think it's significant. And I think it's significant
because it's one piece
from a 12,000-piece jigsaw puzzle.
(AUDIENCE CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
♪ ("SECTION 14 (TWO THOUSAND PEOPLE)" BY THE POLYPHONIC SPREE PLAYING) ♪
♪ And I know there's a lot Outside the window ♪
♪ Woo-hoo ♪
♪ It seems a lot For you and me ♪
♪ Woo-hoo ♪
♪ It takes the sun To make the sidewalk ♪
♪ Woo-hoo ♪
♪ It takes the moon To burn my feet ♪
♪ Woo-hoo ♪
♪ It means a lot To take some time ♪
♪ I know it's right You gotta be good ♪
♪ You gotta be strong ♪
♪ You gotta be 2,000 places At once ♪
♪ You gotta be good You gotta be strong ♪
♪ You gotta be 2,000 places At once ♪
- ♪ You gotta be good ♪ - ♪ It seems a lot to show ♪
- ♪ You gotta be strong ♪ - ♪ You've got the time to grow ♪
♪ You gotta be 2,000 places At once ♪
- ♪ You gotta be good ♪ - ♪ It seems a lot to show ♪
- ♪ You gotta be strong ♪ - ♪ You've got the time to grow ♪
♪ You got 2,000 places ♪
♪ Whoo! ♪
♪ And time will show the way ♪
♪ And love will shine today ♪
♪ And time will go away ♪
♪ So love can grow ♪
♪ (SONG CONCLUDES) ♪