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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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‘Iran Says School Massacre’ and the Media Repeats: How a Regime Claim Became a Viral Headline
An Iranian flag flutters, as Israel and the US launched strikes on Iran, in Tehran, Iran, February 28, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
On Saturday, February 28, Israel and the US launched a joint military operation against the Iranian regime, targeting senior leadership, including Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei, and military commanders. The operation has also seen a significant targeting of military infrastructure, including air defense systems, missile launchers, and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) command centers.
The Iranian regime, like its terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, has embedded its infrastructure within civilian locations. As protests broke out at the beginning of 2026, the movement of weapons and military equipment into protected civilian locations, such as schools and hospitals, was widely observed. This prompted Iranian civilians to take protective measures and warn one another of the dual use of protected spaces.
Geolocation/Correction/Additional Info:
1. Confirmed geolocation: The Imam Ali school in Arak, Iran (34.088253, 49.687137) @GeoConfirmed .
2. The photo is from as early as January 8th, 2026 – Per earliest reports it just depicts them as “Security forces”.
3. This school appears… https://t.co/6y7INfX8Fx pic.twitter.com/JWAZJ34bch— Tal Hagin (@talhagin) January 27, 2026
When the IDF targeted an IRGC compound in Minab, southern Iran, Iran’s state broadcaster, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), immediately claimed that the US had purposefully targeted the Shajareh Tayyebeh school full of young girls.
Al Jazeera soon published the story, blaming Israel for the deaths of children.
The Western media, without questioning the credibility of the source, immediately reported on the strike and followed Al Jazeera’s lead by holding Israel responsible.
In doing so, the media further amplified and legitimized claims from the same regime that has spent the past two months executing its own civilians in the streets protesting for freedom.
The same outlets that included a caveat about their inability to independently verify the number of protesters killed by the regime were the same ones that published and continuously updated alleged casualty figures without any verification other than a regime source.
This is not to say that innocent civilians may not have died in the strike, but they were certainly not the target of Israel or the US. Moreover, a civilian building was purposefully exploited by the Iranian regime, putting civilians in immediate danger.
The school, reportedly intended to be for the children of military personnel, was built directly next to an IRGC naval base, according to anti-regime media.
Independent geolocation analysts further indicated that the Shajareh Tayyebeh school was located in the same premises as the Sayyid al-Shohada barracks of the IRGC Navy’s Asef Brigade. While it remains unclear whether many civilians were present in the area at the time of the strike, witnesses have reported that the school was not targeted but rather the adjacent IRGC buildings, where missiles were reportedly being stored.
This information was, of course, omitted from IRIB’s reporting of the strike. As a result, when Western outlets covered the story, the school’s proximity to — and apparent integration with — an IRGC military complex was missing from the coverage.
The Iranian Embassy in Austria continued with the disinformation campaign on behalf of the regime, sharing a now-viral image on X of a backpack that reportedly belongs to one of the schoolgirls killed in the strike.
However, research analysts have found the photo to be AI-generated, as a Google Gemini watermark was detected hidden in the image.
Adding to the uncertainty surrounding the already disputed casualty figures, basic questions remain unanswered, most notably who exactly was killed in the strike.
As of the time of writing, The Telegraph reported 165 casualties, including 81 pupils, citing Iranian sources. That leaves 84 individuals not identified in the public breakdown. And given that the school was located within an IRGC compound, it is legitimate to ask whether any of the remaining casualties were affiliated with the regime, a distinction that has not been clarified.
The disinformation does not stop at pro-regime sources. A widely-circulated photograph online purported to show a misfired IRGC missile that had fallen inside Iranian territory and struck the school, shifting the blame onto the Iranian regime.
However, independent analysts found that the school was located more than 1,000 kilometers from where the photo was taken. They also show that the structure in the photograph faced a direction inconsistent with the alleged missile trajectory, making it unlikely that the image depicted the Shajareh Tayyebeh school.
The Iranian regime has taken a page out of Hamas’ notebook. For the past two and a half years, Hamas has made exaggerated and false claims, which the media repeatedly amplified before doing their own due diligence. Corrections, when they came, rarely traveled as far as the original headlines. That same cycle of rapid accusation, viral spread, and delayed scrutiny is now playing out in Iran.
The nature of war between Israel and the Iranian regime means that vast amounts of information are released in real time, often before facts can be fully verified. When reporting omits key context or relies heavily on regime-affiliated sources, narratives can solidify before the truth has a chance to catch up, leaving the public with a distorted understanding of events.
In a time of instantaneous reporting and with clear evidence that narratives are being deliberately shaped for strategic purposes, rigorous scrutiny by the media is essential to ensure the truth prevails.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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History Is Not Over: From Cyrus to Today’s Iran
Protesters gathered on Jan. 24, 2026, at Joachimsthaler Platz in western Berlin, Germany, to rally in support of anti-regime demonstrations in Iran, calling for US military intervention. Photo: Michael Kuenne/PRESSCOV via ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
In 539 BCE, a Persian king made a decision that changed Jewish history.
Cyrus conquered Babylon and founded a nation in exile. The Jews had lost their Temple, their sovereignty, and their center. He could have absorbed them into his empire and tightened control. Instead, he allowed them to return to Jerusalem and rebuild. That decision altered the course of Jewish continuity. Our presence in the Land of Israel today traces back to that moment.
Jewish memory holds Cyrus in a rare place of honor. He was not Jewish. He did not belong to our covenant. Yet his choice shaped our destiny. History records his decree. Our tradition preserves it. That act still echoes through our prayers and our national life.
History does not disappear. It accumulates. One decision becomes a foundation for generations.
Today, the Iranian people live under a regime that governs through coercion. Protesters have filled the streets demanding dignity and paid for it with imprisonment and violence. Women have risked everything to challenge laws that strip them of agency. Families live under surveillance and fear. The regime’s ideology has isolated Iran from much of the world and directed hostility outward, including toward Israel.
The Iranian people are not synonymous with the regime that rules them. They carry a civilization older than the Islamic Republic. They carry the legacy of Persia, which once intersected with Jewish survival in a decisive way.
As Jews, we understand exile. We understand what it means when rulers decide the limits of your freedom. We also understand what it means when a ruler makes a different choice.
Jewish values are anchored in memory and responsibility. We are commanded to pursue justice. We are taught that every human being is created in the image of God. We are told to remember our own experience of oppression so that we do not become indifferent.
When I teach self-defense, I speak about responsibility in the present moment. If danger is forming, clarity matters. Early action changes outcomes. Waiting for harm to fully unfold reduces options and increases damage. Self-defense is rooted in awareness and accountability.
History functions in a similar way. Cyrus acted at a critical moment. His choice redirected a people’s future. That decision still shapes Jewish life more than 2,000 years later. A single act of leadership can move through centuries.
The regime in Tehran has chosen a path of repression and confrontation. That choice is shaping the lives of millions of Iranians today and influencing the security of the broader region. Regimes are temporary. The consequences of their choices are not.
Wishing for change in Iran is not an expression of hostility toward its people. It is a recognition that societies thrive when citizens are free to speak, build, and lead without fear of their own government. A different Iran would serve its citizens first. It would reduce instability across the region. It would allow the country’s ancient culture to reemerge from beneath layers of coercion.
Nothing in history stands alone. The decree of a Persian king continues to reverberate in Jewish life. The decisions made in Iran now will shape futures we cannot yet see. Jewish memory teaches that liberation can begin with one moment of moral clarity.
A Persian ruler once enabled Jewish restoration. The Iranian people today seek their own restoration. History is long. Memory is longer. The question for us is how we carry that memory forward and how we allow it to inform our understanding of freedom, responsibility, and the power of timely choices.
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Tsahi Shemesh is an Israeli-American IDF veteran and the founder of Krav Maga Experts in NYC. A father and educator, he writes about Jewish identity, resilience, moral courage, and the ethics of strength in a time of rising antisemitism.
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Big Tents Need Moral Boundaries: The High Cost of Institutional Cowardice
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivers a speech during his inauguration ceremony in New York City, US, Jan. 1, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
In the vocabulary of modern leadership, the “big tent” is a sacred cow — the hallmark of pluralism and the supposed proof of a movement’s vitality. But as we navigate the geopolitical shockwaves of early 2026, we are witnessing a fundamental law of institutional physics: a tent without a frame will eventually collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.
The recent joint military operations against Iran have provided fertile ground for a virulent strain of demagoguery. We are seeing a shift from legitimate foreign policy criticism to “vice-signaling” — the intentional, ostentatious breaking of moral taboos to prove one’s “authenticity” to a radicalized base. Equally dangerous is the growing unwillingness to shun those who egregiously violate these taboos.
When an institution stops enforcing its boundaries, it becomes a host for pathogens that eventually kill the original mission.
The Case of the Hollowed Right
Consider the recent trajectory of Tucker Carlson. What began as a debate over “America First” isolationism has curdled into something far more dangerous.
In recent weeks, Carlson has platformed “Khazar theory” genetic tropes — suggesting Jews should undergo DNA tests to prove their provenance — and hosted uncritical interviews with Holocaust revisionists under the guise of “just asking questions.”
This is not a policy debate; it is the systematic dismantling of the moral taboos that once kept overt bigotry out of the mainstream. When a leader uses a massive platform to single out the world’s only Jewish state as the sole source of domestic suffering, they aren’t making a fiscal argument; they are constructing a “permission structure” for hate.
By framing this as “skepticism,” Carlson avoids the social consequences that such rhetoric once commanded, even while he uncritically associates with avowed bigots like Nick Fuentes.
It is hard to imagine a pundit cozying up to David Duke without facing immediate social ostracization — a “moral guilt by association.” Yet today, the outrage often lasts only for a news cycle, leaving few lasting consequences for those who sanitize hate.
The Danger of Permission Structures
The real threat, however, isn’t just the demagogue; it’s the silence of the moderate. Since October 7, 2023, the boundaries have been trampled because those inside the tent refuse to act as the “immune system.”
When we fail to hold our own side accountable — whether it is the Left’s refusal to condemn the dehumanization of Israelis in the name of “resistance,” or the Right’s willingness to ignore antisemitic dog-whistles to preserve a voting bloc — we are complicit. This is true not only in political associations but also within religious institutions.
As I have written regarding the responsibility of the Christian faithful to denounce those who espouse bigotry in Christ’s name, all institutions must draw a clear moral boundary and shun those who cross it, while attempting to maintain the benefits of the affiliation. If the local pastor or the Vicar of Christ stays silent as the Cross is used as a bludgeon against the neighbor, the silence becomes permission.
The Democratic Vacuum and the “Mamdani Reversal”
This rot is cross-partisan. On the Left, the refusal to enforce boundaries against an illiberal fringe has led to the “Mamdani reversal.” In New York City and on elite campuses, we see a movement so focused on “intersectional solidarity” that it can no longer condemn the targeting of civilians if the perpetrators fit a certain ideological profile.
When a “human rights” organization cannot unequivocally condemn terror because it might offend a “coalition partner,” it has ceased to be a moral arbiter; it has become a hostage to its own “big tent” philosophy. While groups like the DSA may not fully control the Democratic Party, their hand is firmly on the wheel, steering it toward illiberalism and anti-Americanism, with only a brave few willing to call out these fundamental taboo violations.
A Principled Path Forward
To save our institutions, we must return to a disciplined moral order. This is not a call for the reactionary excesses of “cancel culture,” which often lacks objective standards. Instead, we must solve this in a principled way by restoring universal moral taboos.
As I’ve outlined in my work on the “Lawful but Awful” zone of social behavior, there are four essential principles for this restoration:
- The Red Line: Limit actionable taboos to overt bigotry, dehumanization, and the endorsement of violence.
- The Consensus Test: Distinguish between subjective offense (partisan) and a “Shared Moral Violation” (universal).
- The Private Mechanism: Enforce standards through civil society, never government coercion.
- The Open Door: Ensure the goal of consequence is correction and redemption, not permanent destruction.
Reclaiming the Obligation to Say “No”
True pluralism requires “definitional clarity” — the courage to say that while many are welcome, those who actively undermine the core tenets of the mission cannot be given the keys to the kingdom.
Leaders must stop treating moral boundaries as “divisive” and start seeing them as “protective.” The Left long ago ceded this ground by allowing reverse discrimination to be normalized within social justice “power dynamic” frameworks. Now we see a similar rise of illiberalism on the Right, rooted in distortions of theology or in foreign policy critiques that only hold up if their double standards against the Jewish state are ignored. If this parasitic fringe is not immediately exorcised, it will corrupt and destroy its host.
A positive vision for an organization can be broad, but we must reclaim the right to draw a clear moral boundary. We must say “no” to those who cross it. Only then will our “yes” mean anything at all.
Erez Levin is an advertising technologist trying to effect big pro-social changes in that industry and the world at large, currently focused on restoring society’s essential moral taboos against overt hatred. He writes on this topic at elevin11.substack.com.