Yeshiva students learn from 'Funniest Rabbi in New York'

This article is about four years old (in case math is hard for you.) Since then I've continued teaching and doing other things in my school. I also have a steady flow of performances. Shuls, schools, single events, fundraisers. They call me. What can I do - say no?

I just felt like posting this, sharing what I think is a nice article. The article also appeared in The Jerusalem Post as well as several syndicated Jewish Papers. Enjoy.

One disclaimer. The lines are crafted, don't assume real things about me or the people I've dated or my parents or my students or anyone based on these lines. Thanks. G-d Bless.

RNF

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yeshiva students learn from 'Funniest Rabbi in New York'

Thursday, January 11, 2001

By DEENA YELLIN
Staff Writer
The Beregen Record


-- PARAMUS
The Rabbi of Shtick fingered his closely cropped beard and squinted at his audience.

"Your generation is very interesting to me," he quipped. "You're the first generation to be raised by the Simpsons."

The classroom of high schoolers in Paramus broke into giggles.

Holding up his watch, the clever clergyman said, "My grandfather on his deathbed . . . sold me this watch."

Bada-boom.

Welcome to the Rabbi Neil Fleischmann show.

His students don't need to go to a comedy club for laughs. They can catch them for free in Room 17 at The Frisch School, a yeshiva high school in Paramus.

They're regularly treated to the quips and antics of their Bible and Talmud teacher, who just happens to be the reigning Funniest Rabbi in New York, a title bestowed by Stand-Up New York, a Manhattan comedy club that chose Fleischmann over 10 other rabbis with a joke to tell.

His title has earned him gigs at Caroline's and the New York Comedy Club, as well as at several hotels in the Catskills, and community centers, schools, and synagogues throughout New Jersey and New York.

But Jackie Mason, an ordained rabbi himself, need not move over quite yet.

Fleischmann has no plans to quit his day job in Room 17, where his penchant for mixing humor with teaching Jewish studies draws rave reviews from a crowd that's normally tough to please.

"I brought home a girl I liked and my mother didn't like her, so I stopped dating her. Then I met another girl and brought her home, but my mother didn't like her, either, so I got rid of her. Finally I found a girl who was exactly like my mother. I brought her home and my father threw her out of the house." Big laughs.

But Fleischmann's class is not a steady stream of belly laughs -- there's no monologue or banana peels -- just a Joke of the Day at the end of class. Mostly, his lessons are as serious as Lot's wife, with a lot of textual analysis and stories of rabbis from Talmudic times. But that doesn't stop him from peppering his teaching with a zinger or two to keep his students alert.

Among his audience of 10th- and 11th-graders, he's earned something akin to celebrity status.

"He's the coolest," sighed one 10th-grade girl.

"I never met a rabbi who is as funny as he is," said Marcia Kahnowitz, a 12th-grader from Livingston.

"Most rabbis try to be funny," said Danielle Bruck of Paramus. "But he really is."

Fleischmann, who shuns blue material and insulting jokes, often hinges his humor on self-deprecating quips.

"There's a certain gentleness to my humor," said the Washington Heights resident, who calls himself a disciple of the Woody Allen school.

"Most people associate humor with 'Saturday Night Live,' where you are breaking down what's sacred, making fun of people, or trying to shock. The healthy kind of humor is where you are strengthening, not hurting. You don't have to be dirty or offensive to be funny. Bill Cosby is very clean."

There's a Catskill-like quality to his style -- his lines resemble some of the zingers tossed out by old-style borscht belt comedians such as Henny Youngman or Jack Benny. You almost expect to hear a drum roll after each one.

His killer quips lament the challenges he finds in being single: "I sat down at the restaurant and ordered my dinner. My date ordered hers -- to go."

Or this, referring to signs in restaurant restrooms reminding employees that they are required to wash their hands: "My favorite thing is to come back from the bathroom and wave my hands and say, 'Thank goodness I'm not an employee.' That happens a lot on first dates because there's never a second. I don't know why."

Steve Marshall, a comedian and professional comedy coach who numbers actor John DiResta of "Miss Congeniality" among his clients, is a big Fleischmann fan.

"People expect rabbis to be nerdy and anal," said Marshall, who remembers his own bar mitzvah training all too well. "But he's so open and casual. He's self-effacing, and that's very disarming."

Marshall acknowledged that Fleischmann needs to develop more as a comedian before he'll ever become a household name. But, he said, "If he sticks to it, he's got a real chance. He's softer and less aggressive than Jackie Mason. He's like what Jerry Seinfeld would be if he were a rabbi."

Fleischmann has his own doubts about whether he could become a late-night host or sitcom star. But that's mostly because as a Sabbath-observant Jew, he doesn't work Friday nights or Saturdays and is intent on keeping his values intact.

Freddie Roman, creator and star of the show "Catskills on Broadway" and president of the New York Friars Club, remembers Fleischmann's performance last fall at the Funniest Rabbi Contest. "He had good material. Some of the rabbis sounded like they were delivering sermons. He sounded more like a comedian."

Fleischmann, a native of Queens, discovered comedy as a youngster listening to records of Robert Klein and watching Laurel and Hardy movies. He wrote his own scripts and, when he was 12, started performing stand-up for his school and synagogue youth group.

He put his comedic aspirations on the back burner while he pursued his religious studies at Yeshiva University. He became a teacher and a part-time pulpit rabbi in Staten Island. But all the while, he continued cracking his jokes and thinking about comedy. When he heard about the contest in Manhattan, he couldn't resist.

Although he loves performing, he said he doesn't want to trade the fulfillment of the classroom for a nightclub billing. Instead, he wants to combine both worlds.

Fleischmann noted that the Talmud advises teachers to begin their lessons with a joke to get their students' attention. "Humor is a big plus for a teacher," he said. "It's made me more popular with students. It's not what they expect of a rabbi."

Rabbi Yamin Goldsmith, assistant principal at Frisch, likes one of Fleischmann's standard gags in particular. "When people ask him where he's a rabbi, he says, 'Everywhere I go.' That's true because he's saying that it's not just something he does on the pulpit, but a way of behaving all the time."

As for Fleischmann, he joked that when he got started in comedy, he was nervous that it conflicted with Jewish law. "So I went to my rabbi and performed 20 minutes of my best stuff. When I got through, the rabbi said, 'There's no problem with Jewish law, but there's another problem: You're not funny.'

"A few days later, I'm flipping through the channels on TV and there on 'Late Night,' I see my rabbi. He's performing all my best stuff."

The class laughs and the bell rings.

As his students leave for their next class, Fleischmann bids a warm farewell to his fans and preps himself for his next act.

"Thank you," he says with a mock bow. "Thank you very much -- I'm here all week."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Staff Writer Deena Yellin's e-mail address is yellin@northjersey.com


Copyright © 2001 North Jersey Media Group Inc.