KOSHER KOMEDY

Man plans and G-d doubles over in hysterical laughter, this particular saying can comfort, enlighten and end an argument, it has always been my personal favourite. As a nation we are adept at making fun of ourselves, Indeed finding the silver lining in the darkest of days is probably one of the many reasons which has helped us survive in exile. They say, “Laughter is the best medicine” – if that is the case, we are a nation of doctors. We all know the best remedies and finest consultants, and have had the same symptoms only much much worse.

 

We draw on a wealth of material - our heritage, The golus experience, stereotypes of Jewish family members, There comes a time in every man's life when he must stand up and tell his mother he's an adult. This usually happens around age 45. We chuckle over comparisons between contemporary culture and our own, Chanukah bush anyone?

 

It seems not only are we good at seeing the lighter side of life, it’s a mitzvah! It is a commandment to bring joy to the hearts of the bride and groom –Sameach chosson vekallah. It’s positively de rigueur to spread the cheer – Hevei mekabel es kol ha’adam besever ponim yafos, and what can be more laudable than bolstering the spirits of someone bedridden or depressed – bikkur cholim. That’s another thing about being the people of the book, we tend to pretty much take the book seriously. If the Torah says, be happy, you can be sure it will be an interesting way to gain the celestial brownie points.

 

Jewish humour - a category so big it could sink a ship, with no loss of life of course.  A subject so diverse and perhaps controversial that until now, we could never actually agree on how to give it over. There will always be someone who knows a better punchline! Or so they would like to think.

 

 The traditional Wedding Badchan has always been male for reasons of modesty. So far, the man in the beard waxing lyrical about the Kallah’s yichus with a few jokes in Yiddish thrown in for good measure has been our version of stand up comedy. Women have discovered their inner funny bone, I would like to point out that we had it all along, we just couldn’t get a word in edgeways.

 

A successful comic has to have superb wit, first rate verbal and adlibbing skills, creative use of irony, satire, bags of confidence and huge doses of self-mockery. After all, we Jews know a thing or two about guilt – or is that just my mother? The new generation of female badchanim are careful however, not to mock everything in sight. They show taste and good sense when turning their material into a show stopping performance, in front of female only audiences – naturellement!

 

The female role in Jewish comedy, which until now was exclusively taken up by the wonderful Jewish mother/mother in law and JAP, is now the straight talking, non loshon hora spouting, clean joking girl up on stage!

 

I talked to two wonderful women to find out how that happened. What wonderful twist and comical turn in hashgacha led them to lead a life of funnies in the frum world? 

 

 

Her name – Ayelet.

Her mission – to entertain and inspire Jewish women.

Her motto – Research has shown that laughter burns calories!

 

Ayelet is lovely and personable; she grew up in Long Island and moved to Hollywood to pursue her career in showbiz. She appeared in various films, television shows, and commercials. Ayelet was also an up-and-coming Stand-Up Comic - try saying that three times very fast! She performed at various well-known clubs.  Her surname is not important – she is simply AYELET. You may know her as – the Kosher Komic. She mentions her lineage – she is of Polish and Transylvanian descent – if you believe the stereotypes – she’s one dumb vampire! 

 

While auditioning in LA, she became involved with the organisation – Aish Hatorah and befriended Orthodox rabbis and their families. She admits the original intention was to find a Jewish husband but with The Al-mighty’s usual inimitable sense of humour and gentle hashgacha ended up finding a rebbetzen!

 

After trying to integrate her career with being shomer shabbos, keeping kosher and becoming a self proclaimed “flaming baalas teshuva” she came to the conclusion that the two worlds – like the proverbial oil and water – would never merge successfully. She made the difficult decision of leaving her dreams and goals behind her in LA and moved to Eretz Yisroel to enrol in EYAHT – the Aish Hatorah academy for girls in Jerusalem.

 

While in Seminary, Ayelet used host’s Shabbos tables as a forum for flexing her funny muscles. She performed her “Glatt Kosher Airlines” routine and fine-tuned it, until - The penny dropped – A clean comedy routine could be created for a female only audience! Women in the Charedi world generally have limited opportunities for entertainment outside the home, comic or otherwise. With this in mind, a potential audience and a group of encouraging friends and Rebbetzens she set out to conquer the theatre halls of chareidi lady land.

 

 Ayelet began to perform at fundraisers in Israel and received an amazing response from her female only audience. Little did they know they were taking part in what I call the Entertainment Revolution for chareidi women circa 2000 – A revolution that brought quality entertainment to our auditoriums and shul halls, Whether it was raising money for Zir Chemed or the first London Showcase, women now have the kosher outlets for their G-d given talents! 

 

Her comedy set includes routines about shidduchim, kids, Pesach, diets, and much more, in fact nothing to make you blush but everything to make you laugh.  It’s light, it’s funny, and it’s always within the rules and regulations of halacha but never actually feels like it’s confined and restricted, it simply ensures that this is truly “good, clean fun” and in very good taste.

 

Her kosher komedy work has tickled the funny bone of aishet chayalot from Neve Yakov to New York, Ramot to Toronto, Lawrence Five towns, to Edgware, London and for varied organisation such as Aish, Beth Jacob events, chabad drug rehab fundraisers and shidduch organisations (Made in Heaven in London) An impressive line up by anyone’s reckoning! She is versatile; she is funny and performing in a shul hall near you.

 

Ayelet insists that writing kosher material is very easy.  “ Life is hysterical!  I just take normal life and put a twist on it.  You do not need to be smutty to be funny! G-d has the best sense of humour.  I see it in every day life, always.  I think HaShem especially likes to deal with me in a humorous way since He knows I totally appreciate it.  Ha-Shem is the original comic.  Look at the story of Avraham and Sarah - it's the perfect illustration of successful kosher comedy, The couple is 'old', well past child-bearing years, and just when the set up is in place, we get the punch line, and a big laugh and total simcha, in Yitzchak, whose name comes from tzchok, laughter!”

 

Her story of dreams not so much unfulfilled but altered to fit in with her new life is a truly inspiring Kiddush Hashem. “I know I can’t ever be world famous; my audience is Jewish women. It’s limited to a very small percentage of this world. I put my values and connection to G-d before my career; I am using my gifts to bring happiness and joy to Jewish women around the world.”

 

Ayelet isn’t just a barrel of laughs, Her analytical mind and flair for saying it like it is, or should be, means she is more than cut out for the role of personal coach for young Jews striving to walk the same path to Orthodoxy. She has written many thought provoking articles, some of which have been published on the Aish website, my personal favourite being an article on davening at the kosel for 40 days for someone else.  She writes gently, whilst pulling no punches, the reader is left with a profound impression that the author has found fulfilment in her life and has made it her goal to help others find the path to truth.

 

Ayelet is also looking for her bashert – for information in that department read the page on her website, it’s in Ayelet’s usual unique style and that young man, whoever he is, is like any other typical male, the only reason he hasn’t found her is because men refuse to ask for directions, I’m hoping he got a satellite navigation system for Chanukah.

 

"You can have it all" she reminds us. "You can be true to yourself and still have a good time."

 

Her name – Marion

Her mission – to develop opportunities in performing arts for talented women and nurture and develop her own talent.

Her motto – Feel the fear and do it anyway.

 

 

Anybody in London who has not heard of my next funny female, Marion Hermes must have lived in a cave for the last five years. Marion, originally from Manchester but living and working in London is the driving force behind Showcase – the annual ladies only entertainment extravaganza that showcases the plethora of talent in the community.

 

Proud Jewish mummies send their girlies to tap/ballet and elocution – Marion was one such little girl. She greeted her friends with “how now brown cow” and “The rain in Spain falls mainly in the Plain.” However unlike the rest of the class she soon discovered that the Almighty has blessed her with a talent – and I don’t mean for reciting Profound Rhyme. As part of her elocution career, she took acting exams for the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and discovered her passion for performance.

 

Marion sealed her future when she won a school poetry competition with an entry that brought the house down! By the time Marion had reached high school, her reputation as a “bit of a drama queen” had established it self. She enjoyed taking on the role of class clown and imitated hapless teachers to the amusement of her classmates. Whenever an opportunity presented itself for performing (she laments that they were few and far between, as mainstream schools including hers, did not usually cater for the child who enjoyed the performing arts!) she was ready and waiting. Marion has fond memories of directing – Minderella – her sister’s adaptation of the children’s fairytale Cinderella - complete with ugly sister sidekicks – Chaya Vilda and Eezevel.

 

Now for some major Jewish mother kvelldowntime – Marion credits her parents for nurturing her performing abilities. They continued to pay for elocution lessons until her late teens, She acknowledges that her exam success gave her a confidence on the stage that is evident today.  She has an enviable stage presence, I remember the first Showcase I attended where she stood centre stage and explained in gory detail what would happen if a mobile phone rung during the performance. It involved sensors, a robotic arm, and the offending member of the audience being whipped out of her seat and suspended upside down from the ceiling for the duration of the show to serve as a warning to others.   The audience winced, guffawed and promptly switch off their phones.

 

 

Inspiration is a funny thing, you can get it anywhere and anytime. Marion was definitely at an advantage as everyone in her family has a well-developed funny bone, apparently it could be her DNA that lends a hand, she has Ropschitz blood running in her veins. The Ropschitzer Rebbe was said to have had an excellent sense of humour! Mamma Hermes was the inspiration for her first comic sketch, this entailed a conversation between an anxious mother and a daughter whom she is desperately trying to marry off – I have seen this particular sketch and it is hilarious. Trust me.

 

Marion is not a stand up comic per se; she is more of a “comic actress.” She performs comic sketches portraying everyday situations and stereotypes, the Jewish mother or the kindergarten teacher sketch being my particular favourites. Her ability to imitate accents and quirks so perfectly means one side of the body can be dressed up as the mother and one side as the daughter, all she needs to do is turn her body, change her voice and mannerisms and voila she is transformed! There is no need for a supporting actress, in fact it’s the quick changes of costume on stage that tend to amuse the audience and tantalise them with the notion, What on earth has the woman got up her sleeve for us?  She has performed her sketches portraying the idiosyncrasies and paradoxes of the “committed life” in front of packed female audiences in the UK and abroad.

 

Marion never thought she would be a teacher. She had a talent but did not know how to channel it in the frum community. Her dream to become an actress was perhaps a little unrealistic as the option of attending drama school was out of the question. She was encouraged to enter the teaching profession as an “outlet” for her talent. Once she relaxed and settled in, she started to enjoy teaching and surprisingly it did prove an outlet of sorts Performing in front of a classroom does, she admits, help focus the children’s attention. The rapport she has with “her kids” is something Marion holds close to her heart.

 

Six years ago, Marion quite “by chance” discovered a dusty battered copy of a Shakespeare workshop activity book on a class bookshelf. The book was a summary of the story of Macbeth with a series of drama activities to stimulate the children’s interest in the narrative. Marion promptly launched her lunchtime drama club at school followed by her own drama classes outside school and has never really looked back. She takes classic stories from Dickens, Conan Doyle and Shakespeare and explores them through drama.

 

There is a maxim among photographers and directors – “Never work with children and animals.” Thankfully for Golders Green, Marion Hermes has never heard of that. She loves working with tweens and teens. Youngsters are naturally uninhibited and have excellent fertile imaginations. They surprise you and keep throwing you curve balls, Marion maintains that it will be the quiet children who will often bowl you over with their ability to improvise or portray a character in a play to perfection.  Marion is inspiring and bolstering the confidence and self esteem of the next generation. I mentioned how wonderful it is to finally have all these opportunities to express ourselves, whereupon Marion pointed out that although there are opportunities for girls to actualise their talent, there are not enough similar outlets for boys.

 

 

I asked Marion how the concept of Showcase evolved; she replied the blame lay at the feet of none other than the old devil himself; Boredom. Hashem had blessed her with a talent to be used and that’s really the story in a nutshell. She had participated in ladies plays for several years and felt she needed to move on. She felt strongly, that there must be many women in the community who can sing, dance or perform in one way or another and never get the opportunity to showcase their talent. Showcase was born.

 

Her “kishkes” told her this could work. Innards generally don’t lie! One week before the first showcase, She was told that only 60 out of the 500 tickets they had to sell to break even had been sold. The gloomy advice was – cancel the show. After putting her heart and soul into the project, I don’t think devastation would be a strong enough emotion to describe her feelings that day, however the cast took the bold decision to perform to those 60 people. Boruch Hashem, Everything was all right on the night, typically most of the community had set their watches to Jewish Mean Time and turned up to purchase their tickets at the door. The first showcase performed to a packed audience! 

 

What is remarkable about this annual project is the sheer variety of talent in the performing arts, which previously lay latent in the community due to sheer lack of excuse and opportunity. Women are brought together from across the spectrum of the religious community in a celebration of talent and any excuse to raise money for charity, and that’s just the audience!  You can expect anything and everything, from opera to a high school gym dance, from an elderly woman singing yiddisher mamma to Ayelet the Kosher Komic, from a musical performance of Fiddler on the roof by Louise Leach, Caroline Cohen and company to Tap dancing numbers and singing quartets. Every Showcase is another experience, each one is jam packed with show stopping acts and they have all been fantastic girlie kosher night outs. Marion has a method to her madness and by golly it entertains.

 

Man plans and G-d doubles over in hysterical laughter, He definitely works in mysterious ways.  

 

To book Ayelet - See her website for more information, www.kosherkomedy.com.

To book Marion Hermes call her on  +44 20 8202 9440.