Irish Catholic-Turned-Orthodox Jew Turns Religious Path Into Comedy Routine
Image by Facebook
By Sam Kestenbaum December 28, 2017
Yisrael Campbell is a Catholic-turned Orthodox Jewish comedian who has made his complicated spiritual path the subject of over a decade of stand-up jokes.
Campbell was born in Pennsylvania to a family of Irish and Italian Catholics and later in life went through a series of Jewish conversations — first to Reform, then Conservative and finally Orthodox Judaism. This month he’s debuting new material in Jerusalem as part of his show, “My Beard is My Best Friend.”
This latest chapter in Campbell’s one-man show comes after a request from a Canadian production company to film Campbell for a possible future TV program. The routine will “carve out new ground” for Capmbell’s career, Gary Rudoren, who directed the show and is Campbell’s longtime writing partner, told the Times of Israel.
Decades ago, Campbell’s interest in Judaism was sparked when his girlfriend at the time have him a copy of Leon Uris’s Zionist novel “Exodus.”
He was enthralled. “So he replaced his addiction to alcohol with an addiction to God,” the Guardian wrote in 2007. Over the next years he went through a series of conversions and then moved to Jerusalem. He says he makes sense of life’s unexpected turns through his comedy routine.
“Comedy and being able to laugh is cathartic for me and helps transitionally,” Cambell told the Jerusalem Post. For me, it’s a gift and a way of connecting to people.
Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
