Raised half secular, half Satmar, comic Moshe Kasher is half serious on Judaism
Going head-to-head, newly married Jewish comedians Kasher and wife Natasha Leggero crush it in Netflix’s ‘The Honeymoon Stand Up Special’
Moshe Kasher often asks himself why Judaism arises so frequently in his comedy act — but as the son of a Hasidic father and atheist mother, perhaps it’s just the wealth of material available to him.
Kasher recently discussed his unusual upbringing and rise as a stand up comic in a telephone interview with The Times of Israel. The interview was timed to coincide with the release of his new Netflix three-part show, “The Honeymoon Stand Up Special,” which he made with his wife, comedian Natasha Leggero.
Steeped with sarcasm and Jewish humor, the special is divided into three parts. Kasher and his then-pregnant wife Leggero each headline on their own, before joining together in the final act. As a combined force, Leggero and Kasher bring fresh energy to the stage.
The duo opens with the story of Leggero’s conversion process from Catholicism to Judaism, and their subsequent Jewish wedding. After the rehearsed banter, they direct their energies at the live audience, calling couples onto the stage for a humorous — if borderline cruel — roasting session that leaves the victims red-faced and the comedic couple thoroughly amused.
Kasher said the filmed onstage tour was “one long paid honeymoon.” The couple married in October 2015 after dating for three years, but this was their first tour together.
“So they say in comedy, you get paid to travel and do the show for free and so Natasha and I decided that if we went on the road together, we could take out the worst part of it, which is being by yourself. We could be out there with each other,” Kasher said.
Now with a three-month-old daughter at home, Kasher said the “honeymoon special” is officially over.
It’s a funny story
While Kasher’s schtick now brings in stories from marriage and fatherhood, the bulk of his solo act in the special is rooted in his eclectic upbringing.
Born in Queens, New York, to deaf parents, the 38-year-old comedian moved to Oakland, California, with his mom and brother when he was a year old. The family survived mostly on food stamps and government subsidies.
“So my childhood was really split,” he said. “My mom being a secular, hippie-type who had sexual boundaries that would make Dr. Ruth blush. And my father, just to further the extreme dichotomy of my childhood, married into the Satmar community, which also had sexual boundaries but in a very different direction,” Kasher said, referring to the conservative ultra-Orthodox Yiddish-speaking sect.
Kasher and his brother spent summers with their father in Sea Gate, a heavily-Jewish neighborhood in New York.
Speaking about fitting in among the Satmars, Kasher said, “We would try our damn best but of course, you can’t fake knowing Yiddish. So I would try to gutturally do, ‘chu chu chu chu,’ but everyone knew I was a faker.”
In this Netflix special, Kasher focuses on his secular influences, sharing a story about the time his mother took him to a sex shop to buy erotica as a way to teach him “about the birds and the bees” upon hitting puberty.
Despite a humor-filled home life, Kasher said his comedic roots were formed in school.
“Especially going to Oakland public schools where as a white kid you have to figure out if you’re going to sink or swim socially, one of the main ways to stay buoyant was to stay funny,” Kasher said, noting he was one of the only non-black students in school.
“My vibe back home in Oakland was like, boundary-less, pot-smoking wildness. A lot of the special is about that. And my book is really about that interplay,” Kasher said, referring to his 2012 autobiography, “Kasher in the Rye,” which explores his fraught early years.
Kasher went through eight years of psychoanalysis before turning to drugs at age 12 and LSD at 13.
“One of the coolest things about being locked up in a mental hospital when you’re 13 is… wait, I’m thinking,” he wrote dryly in his memoir.
After getting kicked out of four different high schools in between stints in jail and rehab, Kasher sobered up on his own at 16 and earned his GED that same year. Kasher later became certified as a sign-language interpreter and graduated with a Religious Studies degree from the University of California Santa Barbara.
Breaking free
At one point Kasher considered becoming a religious studies professor, but he found himself moving towards comedy.
After seeing his friend from junior high, comedian Chelsea Peretti, perform at an open mic in New York, Kasher asked to come along to the next one and began showing up at open mic nights across the Bay area in the early 2000s.
Kasher moved to Los Angeles in 2008 and shortly after started appearing frequently on E!’s “Chelsea Lately” and Comedy Central while performing in LA’s comedy clubs. Kasher hosted his own Comedy Central talk show, “Problematic” for one season in 2017.
Kasher is now recognized by his frantic delivery-style and the unrelentingly Jewish nature of his comedy.
But the comedian often gets flack for being a harsh critic of ultra-Orthodox religious life — such when he referred to Haredi Jews as “fat Amish penguins” in his book.
Kasher believes his critics miss the point.
“I was talking to Elon Gold, a very funny, very Jewish and religious comedian. And he was just like, ‘You hate God, right?’ Because I think I said something about Shabbat dinner. He was like, ‘Why would you be doing that? You’re a heretic, correct?'”
Kasher said that its his affinity for Judaism, and even the less-than-friendly ultra-Orthodox sect of his father, that consistently moves him to use it on stage.
“For all of the lumps and warts of the Satmar community, there are also a lot of beautiful parts. And also my brother is a rabbi and I have family throughout Israel in Me’or Modi’im,” Kasher said, explaining his Jewish identity.
Kasher said he has visited Israel over 20 times and performed once in Jerusalem’s Off the Wall comedy club — an experience he spoke about on Comedy Central.
Kasher concluded, “I sometimes wonder why I talk about Judaism so much in my act, and the reason is that it’s such a huge part of who I am, and I only make fun of stuff that I care about. I care very much about Judaism for better or for worse, and there’s plenty of both.”
