David Steinberg: A Lifetime Of Laughter
In an interview, and with his new book on comic greats of the last half century, the former yeshiva student expounds on the world of comedy.
“Can you believe that’s not earmuffs? That’s my hair,” writes Steinberg of this October 1970 appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. (Courtesy of Robyn Todd)
Comedian David Steinberg and I have a lot in common.
We’re both sons of rabbis, grew up in small towns, went to yeshiva high schools, thought we were funny and set out at an early age to become stand-up comics -- using Biblical stories as the basis of our routines.
One difference: I did a few gigs for synagogues and sisterhoods before giving up my dream; he became one of the most successful -- controversial but lovable -- comedians in America, highly praised throughout the comedy world.
(OK, so it’s a big difference.)
I’ve been a Steinberg fan since the night I met him in 1968, just before his meteoric rise from a relatively little-known performer at Second City in Chicago to appearances on Johnny Carson’s “The Tonight Show.” Ever since, he’s been a major influence as a comedian, writer and director of TV shows (Seinfeld, Mad About You, Friends, Curb Your Enthusiasm).
So when I learned earlier this year that Steinberg, now 79, had written a book about his career and many of the greats, I was eager to read it. It’s called “Inside Comedy: The Soul, Wit and Bite of Comedy and Comedians of the Last Five Decades” (Knopf), and it has more than 300 pages of personal stories about Steinberg’s friendships with a Who’s Who of top comedians. It includes old-timers like George Burns, Lucille Ball, Mel Brooks and Groucho Marx, c current marquee names like Chris Rock, Larry David, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Dave Chappelle, and dozens in between.
The book also tells Steinberg’s personal journey: his Orthodox upbringing in Winnipeg, Canada, where his parents settled after escaping pogroms in their native Russia; his Hebrew school education in the community before being sent, at 15, to a yeshiva high school in Skokie, Illinois. It was there that young Duddy, as he was known to friends and family, performed Purim Torah shpiels (skits) based on Biblical stories, which became the basis for the satirical sermons that would make him famous.
In his book, he treads lightly on self-reflection, though he does note that, like many comedians, he has suffered from bouts of depression. He shares an insight from his psychiatrist on his desire since childhood to entertain, attributing it to the fact that as the youngest in his family, Steinberg was only three when his brother, Hymie, was killed in World War II at 19. It instilled in him the “life-affirming” pleasure, he says, of making others laugh.
Most of the interviews in the book are based on a series of one-on-one conversations Steinberg had with 75 comedians on his Showtime series, Inside Comedy (2012 to 2015).
The reader learns that Steinberg found virtually all of them wonderfully talented, brilliant, funny (surprise) and great friends of his. And he takes credit for helping to advance America’s love affair with comedy.
“I lived through a time when stand-up comedy was a poor relation to other forms of entertainment,” he writes, stating that he was “one of a group of people -- along with Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, George Carlin and a few others -- who pushed stand-up forward as an art form and made comedy an important part of the culture.”
Steinberg and his brainy, urban and decidedly Jewish brand of humor certainly made an impact on me, going back to a warm, spring night in 1968, when I first heard him perform. It’s a night he remembers as well.
Several Yeshiva University classmates and I had heard about this young comedian who had gone to Camp Moshava, a religious Zionist camp in Wild Rose, Wisconsin, had attended a yeshiva in Chicago, and used Biblical material in his act.
Intrigued, we took the subway from Washington Heights to The Bitter End in Greenwich Village to see him perform.
‘Do You Tear Toilet Paper On Shabbos?’
There were only a handful of people in the dark, narrow club so we sat in the front row, inches from the small stage. A buoyant, grinning Steinberg soon appeared, but just as he began his routine, he stopped short in mid-sentence, and, looking at us -- we were wearing kippot -- asked, “Are you guys frum [observant]?”
Before we could respond, he asked, “Do you tear toilet paper on Shabbos?”
We were laughing hard, and he was enjoying himself, all toothy grin and wavy dark hair, bounding around just above us.
He asked the rest of the sparse audience, “How many of you are Jewish?”
There was no clear response, and Steinberg said, “F-- you, I’m doing my act for these guys.”
Which he proceeded to do with great flare and energy, calling on his knowledge of Biblical minutiae to crack us up. Occasionally he would point to us while instructing the others in the room, “now watch these guys,” before calling out the Hebrew letters God etched into Cain’s forehead -- ending with “mem soffit!” Or riffing on Moses at the Burning Bush, being told by God to meet with Pharaoh:
Moses says, “Who shall I say sent me?”
God replies, “Whom! Whom! … I am that I am.”
Moses answers, “Thanks for clearing that up.”
“At The Vanity Fair Oscar Party with two of my favorite people, Martin Short and Larry David, February 2016,” writes Steinberg. “I think that’s the night Larry disappeared for an hour and took a nap on one of the couches outside during the party, but I could be mistaken.” (Courtesty of Robyn Todd)
More than two decades later, I interviewed Steinberg backstage prior to his performance at a major outdoor venue in Columbia, MD. I asked him if he recalled doing a show for four yeshiva students in kippot, and he did, wanting to know what material he used that night -- and he laughed when I reminded him.
He pointed out that only a few days after that long-ago evening, a rave review of his Bitter End act appeared in The New York Times -- just when he was about to close due to lack of an audience. He credits the piece (“Gospel According To Steinberg Is Strictly From Old Testament”), which described him as a cross between Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen, with jettisoning his career.
Soon after, Steinberg was delivering his Bible sermons on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” a prime-time CBS show that was No. 1 in the ratings. One night he did his Burning Bush routine, “basically saying that Moses burned his feet on the bush,” Steinberg recalls in his book, and noting: “There are many Old Testament scholars who to this day believe it was the first mention of Christ in the Bible.”
That was “the last straw for CBS,” Steinberg wrote, banning the hit show from the air -- the Smothers Brothers later sued and won. Steinberg went on to host a short-lived ABC show of his own, “The Music Scene,” perhaps best-remembered for his “booga booga” shouts playing a zany psychiatrist.
But it was “The Tonight Show” that made him a star. He was a favorite of host Johnny Carson, and he used the platform for his urbane, edgy Jewish humor. (“I was taught as a child that Jews are smart and gentiles sell their children for whiskey.”)
Reform rabbis were “a natural target,” he later recalled, often beginning his mock sermons by intoning, “God -- whom I’m sure you’ll remember from last week’s sermon …”
By 1969, Steinberg was a guest host of “The Tonight Show,” the youngest ever, and in all, he appeared on the show 140 times -- second only to Bob Hope.
A Lesson From ‘Purim Torah’
One of the most enjoyable interviews I’ve had as a journalist was with Steinberg for an hour and a half one afternoon in 2014 at the Hotel Carlyle Tea Room in Manhattan. We spent most of the time sharing stories about growing up as sons of rabbis, finding humor in our study of Jewish texts and in our confusion over English words that sound like Yiddish (svelte, spatula, foil, Mitzi Gaynor, mosh pit...).
Steinberg spoke of the lasting impression his high school Purim shpiels had on him, marveling at “the complete irreverence” students could get away with on that one anything-goes day of the year. That included turning the Torah’s logic inside out and even imitating the rebbes to their faces.
“You could say anything,” Steinberg said, “and I thought, ‘I’m going to have a Purim Torah for the rest of my life.’ It’s not a bad way to go.”
“You cannot survive yeshiva without a sense of humor,” he observed, noting that his feelings, looking back now on the experience, are “affectionate, not rebellious.”
“I was outrageous,” he says, “I was irreverent.”
Before saying our good-byes, Steinberg offered up a parting thought, quoting his friend George Carlin: “A comedian’s job is to find the line. And then cross over.”
“I do. Sometimes,” he grinned.
David Steinberg found that delicate balance as a high school yeshiva student and has never looked back.
Steinberg at 17, in Israel in 1958, on a scholarship to the Hebrew University. (He speaks Hebrew and Yiddish.) Courtesy of Robyn Todd
‘Groucho Made Me Laugh The Most’: An Interview
After reading “Inside Comedy,” I corresponded with Steinberg over the last several weeks, and here is an excerpt from our exchange:
GR: How did the rabbis at your yeshiva respond to your Bible routines?
DS: At the yeshiva, I studied the Torah every day -- as I did as a child, since my dad was a rabbi. My Bible sermons were me just having fun with those stories (Jonah, Moses, Jezebel, Lot).
I remember when I was performing at Second City, the priests and students from the seminary across the street would come often because they loved my sermons and would make suggestions to stump me.
I started many of my sermons: "Will the congregation please be seated. God -- whom I'm sure you'll all remember from last week's sermon..."
The Orthodox rebbes from Skokie enjoyed it, I think, because I was doing a Reform rabbi.
GR: Who made you laugh the most?
DS: Of course there are many comedians I find funnier than the others. Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman and all of the comedians in my book. It's hard to pick a favorite. Groucho Marx did make me laugh more than anyone, though.
GR: What did your parents think of your comic career when you were starting out?
DS: I really didn't do that much material about my Mom and Dad. Although I do remember saying, "My Dad never realized his dream of an all-Yiddish-speaking Canada".
My family members were all funny. They never expected much from me. I was the youngest by many years. I was always cutting school to go to the movies. I loved the Marx Brothers and would see their movies over and over. I was getting an education at the time and didn't know it. I always had a sense of humor. I remember my Mom often saying "Duddy finds everything funny" (not always meant as a compliment).
I remember my Dad coming to see me at Second City and he couldn't get over how popular I was. He came home and said, "Even the priests like him!"
GR: How would you define Jewish humor in ways that distinguish it from other forms of humor?
DS: From Vaudeville to the Borscht Belt to the Catskills and beyond, Jewish humor has always been an institution, and that continues today. Jews laugh at themselves. We're self-deprecating. We don't take ourselves too seriously and we're always kvetching. That's who we are. Remember, the more personal the humor the wider the audience.
A segment of this piece appeared in The Jewish Week in 2014.
I don't remember where I read: a Jewish joke is one that gentiles don't understand & Jews have already heard (though, personally, I disagree w/ that second clause).