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Richard Belzer was a Jewish comedian. Why didn’t his obituaries say so?
(JTA) — Ever 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 this 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-inflected 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. To be sure, there were bits and pieces of Jewish material that can be found scattered about his comedic oeuvre, though to have the broad appeal he achieved, he understood that he had to deal in comic generalities. 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 Schaffer, and told him he wanted to do something “Jewish” for the show. Schaffer 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,” together with songs sung by Neil Sedaka and Barbra Streisand.
Which 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,” identified as Jewish. Obituaries, after all, are meant to be the final 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 Shaffer, 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 as anything but Jewish.
To call Burt Bacharach an “American composer” or Barbara Walters a “pioneering woman newscaster” is accurate, but misses a significant ethno-cultural aspect of these people, one that was integrally responsible for making them who they are and influencing their creative choices. 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 difficult 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 definitive work on the topic. The book, however, deracinates the history of the field. 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, or that Jewish history and culture might have had at least a nominal influence in their work and in their field. It’s like a history of opera that doesn’t bother to mention Italians: They weren’t the only ones involved, but the field would have been far poorer without their distinct contributions.
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 film 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 different 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. Suffering 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 find themselves victimized by Jew-hatred. Even though it’s often denied, the mystery of Jewish difference, 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 first 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.”
Alan Zweibel, a comedy writer who worked with Belzer beginning in the mid-1970s on “Saturday Night Live,” added, “Belz made no bones about being Jewish in his act or in his life.” Zweibel once took Belzer to his parents’ Long Island home for a Friday night dinner, over which the comedian bonded with Mr. and Mrs. Zweibel over milchig and fleishig issues, the minutiae of keeping kosher. Alan’s father pointed to Belzer and told his son, “You could learn a lot from this guy.”
“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 Schaffer also recalled how Belzer once accompanied him to say Kaddish for Schaffer’s father at the Carlebach Shul on the Upper West Side. “I didn’t know what kind of Jewish education he had,” Schaffer 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.
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The post Richard Belzer was a Jewish comedian. Why didn’t his obituaries say so? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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When a Jewish prisoner died in Ohio in 1918, four fellow inmates left the penitentiary in civilian clothes to ensure he got a proper burial
Jack Nast wanted to be buried in a Jewish cemetery.
He died in April 1918 while incarcerated at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. Little is known about the circumstances that brought him there, but another prisoner, Morris Hess, preserved an account of his final days.
As he lay ill, Nast cried out that he was a Jew, Hess wrote. He expressed pride in Jewish history and its achievements, faith in the teachings of Judaism, and regret that his own life had not lived up to its principles. He wished to receive a burial befitting someone “born in the House of Israel.”
With the aid of others, his request was granted.
Isaac B. Jashenosky and Jacob Myers, two men who regularly visited the Jewish prisoners, were with Nast before he died. Jashenosky, whom the prisoners called “rabbi,” conducted the funeral service at an unidentified Jewish cemetery, likely in Columbus. When Nast’s relatives, whom Hess described as wealthy, refused to contribute toward the expenses, Warden Preston E. Thomas permitted the prison’s Jewish inmates to contribute to a collection for the funeral.
Four prisoners were also allowed to attend the burial in civilian clothing. They listened as Jashenosky delivered his remarks and Nast’s remains were returned to the earth.
“Kaddish was said and will be said every week for him,” Hess wrote.
The account appeared in The American Israelite, a Cincinnati Jewish newspaper, under the heading “Prisoners in Ohio Penitentiary are Grateful.” Hess signed the letter with his name and prison number, 45511.
Jewish life behind prison walls
The men who helped bury Nast were part of a larger effort to sustain Jewish religious life inside Ohio’s prisons. By 1899, prisoners were being excused from work for Jewish holidays and provided with special food. In 1902, about ten Jewish inmates received matzo for Passover. By 1913, religious services were also being arranged at correctional institutions in Mansfield and Lancaster.
In 1915, Charles Albert Rosenbaum wrote to The American Israelite about B’nai B’rith’s efforts to reach Jewish prisoners in Ohio.
For years, Rosenbaum wrote, Jewish prisoners had watched representatives of other faiths visit their institutions, “not with envious but with saddened eyes.” They wondered why their own people had been so neglectful. In prison libraries, they read of “the beauties and the godlike charities of the Jewish peoples,” but turned from those pages, looked at “the cold steel walls of their cells” and doubted.
“How all of this has been changed!” Rosenbaum declared.
Rosenbaum credited Jashenosky, Myers and other Columbus volunteers with organizing visits and religious services. With Warden Thomas’ permission, more than 100 services had been held over the preceding two years, he reported, without guards present.
Hess was among those who recorded these gatherings. In 1917, he described a service attended by Jashenosky and Myers, noting that one visitor, Mrs. I. J. Shatz, had distributed cigars to the prisoners.
Freedom in the penitentiary
In 1920, Hess described Passover services held with the cooperation of Warden Thomas and his wife, Mary Thomas. Women from Columbus’ Ezrath Nosheim Society provided a holiday meal.
Jashenosky preached that although everyone desired liberty, true freedom came through “the awakening of the soul.” He told the prisoners that, “Freedom is not alone a privilege, but a lifelong obligation.”
In December 1921, another prisoner, Harry Joseph, writing on behalf of the Jewish inmates, described the work of B’nai B’rith, the Council of Jewish Women and the Ezrath Nosheim Society.
He recalled the holiday meals that women from Columbus had prepared and served, including a dinner following Yom Kippur services. Their presence, he wrote, reminded the prisoners of “the Jewish fireside with its family love.”
He continued, “The knowledge that someone cares is an incentive to reach the end of this rocky road of adversity and become useful citizens.”
Jashenosky died in April 1930, at the age of 79. Newspapers reported that he had served as a prison chaplain for more than half a century.
Before he died, Jashenosky made one final request. He wanted two Jewish prisoners, Abe Shapiro and Adam Sikorski, to attend his funeral.
Warden Thomas granted permission.
The post When a Jewish prisoner died in Ohio in 1918, four fellow inmates left the penitentiary in civilian clothes to ensure he got a proper burial appeared first on The Forward.
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Houston Astros hire former Team Israel manager Brad Ausmus as skipper
(JTA) — The Houston Astros hired Brad Ausmus as manager, the team announced Wednesday, making the former Team Israel skipper the lone active Jewish manager in Major League Baseball.
This will be Ausmus’ third managerial stint in MLB. He previously led the Detroit Tigers from 2014-2017 and the Los Angeles Angels in 2019. Ausmus, 57, owns a 386-422 career managerial record. He will be introduced at a press conference at Houston’s Daikin Park on Friday.
Ausmus most recently served as the New York Yankees’ bench coach from 2024-2026 and also previously worked in the front offices of the San Diego Padres and Angels. He had interviewed for the Astros’ managerial opening in 2020 and for their general manager role in 2022.
Ausmus spent 10 of his 18 MLB seasons with the Astros. He finished his playing career with a .251 batting average, .325 on-base percentage and .344 slugging percentage. The New Haven, Connecticut, native managed Team Israel during the qualifiers for the 2013 World Baseball Classic, served on its coaching staff in the 2023 WBC and managed the team in the 2026 tournament.
“Regarding Aus, he is just a perfect big league manager in every way and there are not many people you can say that about,” Nate Fish, the CEO of Israel Baseball Americas and a former Israel player and coach, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “He is smart. He is calm. He has the experience. He is a good fit for any team but a perfect fit in Houston considering he played 10 years there.”
Fish also pointed out that “this is the second time [Ausmus] has been hired to manage in the big leagues following a stint managing Team Israel. Just sayin’. There is a pattern!”
Israel won two of its four games in the 2026 tournament, securing a spot in the 2030 competition.
“I am honored and excited to take on this role,” Ausmus said before the March tournament. “I’ve been incredibly proud to be part of Team Israel’s journey. My focus remains exactly where it has always been: building a cohesive, competitive team that proudly represents Israel on the world stage. We have a solid foundation, and I’m ready to hit the ground running with our talented staff and players to achieve our goals for 2026.”
Ausmus, a former catcher, played for the Astros from 1997-1998 and again from 2001-2008. He won three Gold Glove Awards for his defense with Houston and was an All-Star in 1999 with Detroit. His 1,971 career MLB appearances are the most ever by a Jewish player, according to the Jewish Baseball Museum.
“I am very excited to be back in Houston,” Ausmus said in a statement. “The Astros and the city of Houston have been a huge part of my life, and I’m thrilled to create a new chapter as the team’s manager. I can’t wait to get to work.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Houston Astros hire former Team Israel manager Brad Ausmus as skipper appeared first on The Forward.
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Netanyahu’s son calls dad’s opponents ‘saboteurs’ in book to be distributed by Simon & Schuster
(JTA) — Simon & Schuster will distribute a new book by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son, which says that foreign and domestic Israeli enemies coordinated to unseat his father.
Yair Netanyahu, a 35-year-old political activist, has authored “Two-Front War: Inside Israel’s Fight for Survival — Against Foreign Enemies and Domestic Saboteurs.” The book is set to be released by RatPac Press in March 2027.
A blurb for the book on Simon & Schuster’s website said Yair Netanyahu was “a proud Jew and a devoted Zionist” who discovered that Israeli institutions conspired against his father.
“When the institutions that govern Israel — its prosecutors, judges, intelligence bureaucracy, military command, media networks, and foreign-funded NGOs — turned their attention toward removing his father from power, he found himself inside a Kafkaesque system that few citizens ever see,” the description said.
The prime minister has been on trial since 2020 in three corruption cases, facing charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, which he has denied. Yair Netanyahu has alleged that prosecutors and police involved in his father’s trials sought to stage a “coup” and committed “treason.”
The blurb also said the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel “unmaskted” [sic] an “alliance between neo-Nazi, radical Islamist movements, and far-left ideological networks,” which targeted Israel as the first obstacle in “a broader project to destabilize the West and erod [sic] the foundations of free civilization.”
Yair Netanyahu is a divisive figure in Israel known for social media posts that back his father’s politics and can advance far-right conspiracy theories. In 2017, he drew international condemnation for sharing an image that featured Jewish philanthropist George Soros controlling his father’s political adversaries, a post that earned him praise from the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer. He alleged this week that Israel’s Oct. 27 election was rigged against his father, saying the vote was “stolen by enemy states that bribed Arab voters.”
Yair Netanyahu’s publisher, RatPac Press, is part of RatPac Entertainment, founded by filmmaker Brett Ratner and Australian billionaire James Packer. Ratner immigrated to Israel in 2023 after sexual misconduct allegations stalled his Hollywood career, though he denied the allegations. He was a special guest of Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2023 and posted a photo of them together on Instagram.
Packer was named in one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption indictments, which alleged that he gave the prime minister and his wife gifts of cigars and champagne between 2014 and 2016. He told Australian Federal Police agents in 2017 that he was “happy to give him presents, many times at his request and his wife Sara’s request,” according to Israel’s Channel 10. Packer sold his stake in RatPac in 2017.
Simon & Schuster and RatPac Entertainment did not respond to requests for comment.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Netanyahu’s son calls dad’s opponents ‘saboteurs’ in book to be distributed by Simon & Schuster appeared first on The Forward.
