A packed house filled the ballroom at Bruriah High School to greet Elon Gold and welcome him to the neighborhood. Virtually a “native son” to the area, Gold has many friends in the community who knew him growing up, from high school, or from other Orthodox institutions during their youth.
Stand-up comedy is notoriously regarded as one of the toughest comedic performance challenges. Further, Gold quipped, Jewish, and in particular Orthodox Jewish, audiences are the toughest crowd. But Gold was totally up to the task, and there were hardly more than a few seconds that the room was not engulfed in laughter. Jewish audiences, he explained, are his favorite, and the substantial majority of his material was not only Jewish, but Orthodox-focused and exceedingly well placed.
Gold “hit for the cycle,” in baseball terms, navigating the hot topics universally targeted in a comedy routine: politics, religion and social media, and including a very funny but tastefully polite visit to “personal-social behavior”—usually viewed as taboo in an Orthodox setting—the “sex” topic. He spent most of the time elaborating on his favorite eccentricities of being Orthodox in a modern world. Everything from kiddush, to food and the dairy-meat dilemma, davening and bentching times and the comedy content restrictions of a Chabad performance setting. He made a point of differentiating between “making fun of” and “poking fun at” our own eclectic traditions and minhagim, and our day-to-day management and perspective of them. He was spot-on and hilariously poignant.
Gold also ventured casually yet boldly into another customarily forbidden zone for a mainstream Orthodox audience, in mention of his family of origin. Expressing appreciation to his parents, grandparents and siblings, he also included admiration and support to youngest brother Avi, a vocal performer and lyricist who is openly gay. Also incumbent upon a comedian, he certainly gave President Donald Trump his due. Though he added that the president has been a good friend to Israel, drawing applause for the remark.
In a post-performance interview with The Jewish Link, Gold offered a few remarks about comedy as a career.
“Comedy has gone from being ‘just jokes,’ to becoming much more personal. Now, you hear comedians like Chris Rock talking about their divorce…it’s more real and more raw. Starting with comedians like Richard Pryor and George Carlin.” Also people and audiences want to hear about themselves, “not me and not you.”
Asked for his advice to aspiring young comedians, Gold had strong words of pragmatism. “Don’t go into comedy unless you are prepared to struggle for years. Now I’m successful, but only after years of ups and downs. Unless you’re lucky and hit bigtime, you’re gonna struggle.”
He continued, “I don’t want to discourage people, but be prepared. If this is what you were born to do and you are passionate, okay, but be prepared for… rejection and a lot of heartache and go for it.”
Gold said he “started with impressions and got lucky the first time, doing performances at colleges” etc. “I had a Lexus at 20, then struggle and success alternating, a lot of little doors opening at different times, lucky breaks”—no one big defining moment. “But,” he said, “I can’t imagine doing anything else. I’m in my peak of game now, less nervous and enjoying it more.”
He also relates to and appreciates the other few Orthodox Jewish comedians. “We all have two acts: the ‘show business’ and the ‘shul business.’” Gold stated that he “loves relating to my people on that kind of level where we really understand each other”; for example, something that is universal to observant Jews, like our obsession with “minutes on the calendar, is something never seen by non-Jews… who only ever look at days on a calendar.”
“We have nowhere to share events of Jewish life except at events like this,” with a fully Jewish audience, he said. His take on this topic was not only funny, but excruciatingly accurate and unexaggerated.
The group of us who attended together notched Elon Gold a “10” for his performance and delivery, and one even gave him a 12. He can be reached for booking inquiries online at [email protected].
By Ellie Wolf
