With his ‘Jewish or antisemitic’ viral videos, Eitan Levine is stepping into a comedy lineage
Though Levine hadn’t heard of Lenny Bruce's Jewish and goyish bit, his act relies on the same intuitive understanding of Jewish vibes
Lenny Bruce
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Culture I Dated Lenny Bruce And Knew Joan Rivers. ‘Mrs. Maisel’ Gets Them Wrong.
For 20 years I had a successful career as one of the first female sit-com writers, with credits including “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Maude,” among others. After a Writer’s Guild Strike in 1989, I moved from Los Angeles to New York and took a year off to re-connect with…
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Culture Why Brandeis University Cancelled A Lenny Bruce-Inspired Play
A production of Michael Weller’s “Buyer Beware” at Brandeis University was cancelled following objections to its Lenny Bruce-inspired content, The New York Times reported on Monday. Weller, best known for his plays “Moonchildren” (1971) and “Loose Ends” (1979), also wrote the scripts for the film adaptations of “Hair” (1979) and “Ragtime” (1981). “Buyer Beware” was…
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The Schmooze 8 Great Lenny Bruce Routines
Lenny Bruce died in August of 1966, but you can still hear his voice online. Here are a few clips that show the range, depth, and volatility of a man Complex magazine calls the most controversial comedian of all time. (Note: some clips contain profanity or other language that may not be appropriate for listening…
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Culture 50 Years After His Death, Lenny Bruce’s Spirit Lives On
How would you explain Lenny Bruce to someone who has never heard of him? You could say he was an American Jewish comedian born Leonard Alfred Schneider in October 1925, in Mineola, New York. Or that he died of a drug overdose 50 years ago, on August 3, 1966. You could say that after leaving…
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The Schmooze How 100 Years of Jewish Jokes Shaped Modern Humor
Not that it should come as any surprise, but Vulture’s recent list of merely affirms the widespread assumption that much if not most of what passes for contemporary humor was and remains directly or indirectly forged out of the tragicomedy of Jewish culture. With roots going back to the Old World badkhns through Yiddish vaudeville…
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Culture A Short History of Jews and Obscenity
● Unclean Lips: Obscenity, Jews, and American Culture By Josh Lambert NYU Press, 280 pages, $35 Among the Jewish traits I am most proud to be historically and culturally associated with is the way my people obstreperously defend our principles even when doing so goes against our best interests. I love the loudmouths and the…
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The Schmooze Jewish vs. Goyish — Holiday Edition
Some jokes just never get old. Take the famous routine by the Jewish comedian Lenny Bruce (1925 – 1966), for example, in which he explains the differences between Jewish and Goyish: “Eddie Cantor is Goyish… Ray Charles is very Jewish… The Army is Goyish, the Navy is Goyish, the Marine corps is Goyish. The Air…
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