Laughs, legacy and Jewish pride: Eitan Levine to headline Jewish Sports Hall of Fame dinner
Comedian ready to remind Pittsburghers about 'Jewish joy'
If annual dinners get a prize for generating laughs, the upcoming Jewish Sports Hall of Fame of Western PA event may take home a gold medal. The gala, which is marking its 42nd installment on May 4 at Rodef Shalom Congregation, will be hosted by comedian Eitan Levine.
Hailing from New York City, the self-described “comedian, writer and loud Jew” whose work has appeared in “The New York Times” and “New York Magazine,” and on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and “The Daily Show,” is looking forward to riffing on a subject he’s long mined: Jews and sports.
Both on Instagram, where he has 59,000 followers, and TikTok, where he has double that, Levine has offered countless hilarious takes. For instance, during Jewish heritage day at Citi Field with the New York Mets, he pondered which franchise may be the “least Jewish” in Major League Baseball. After considering the San Diego Padres, whose mascot is a monk with a baseball bat, Levine said, “Let’s be honest, monks with a baseball bat? That was the Spanish inquisition.”
On Instagram, while discussing the “most Jewish” professional team, Levine mentioned the Chicago White Sox.
“Our big thing is to wear black shoes and white socks up to here,” the comedian said while pointing to his knees.
Levine’s approach to comedy is heavily influenced by the “Barstool Sports” model of people “yelling and being funny, and living and dying, by how good or bad their team is doing,” he said. It lends itself not only to Jews and sports, but to Judaism and the issues many Jews face when discussing Israel, Oct. 7, the plight of the hostages and antisemitism. Whether it’s traditional media or legacy organizations, there are constant restrictions on what’s appropriate to say, “and because of that censorship, it prevents you from doing genuine content that feels genuine to the viewer,” he said. “I think that every entity has not done a good job at taking the money that they’ve been getting and churning out content that prevents antisemitism.
Like, we spend all those dollars every year, we spend billions and billions of dollars going into entities like the ADL — and antisemitism is still a huge issue, where their messaging is all farkacht, and it doesn’t get taken seriously.”
Jewish vitality and safety require an alternative approach, he explained.
“Within the Jewish community, the conversation for years has been the Pew Report, and it’s been about how Jewish numbers are always slipping. I think the biggest thing that people need to do is just chill out with this stuff,” he said. “Communities have to, obviously, enforce their level of religiosity — I would never tell a synagogue not to do certain rules — but I would say just to embrace different people with different religiosity.”
Levine, who was raised modern Orthodox and graduated from Yeshiva University, said that behind each of his posts and projects is a quest for Jewish joy.
“I love Jews and I love Judaism, but we all need to chill out a little bit,” he said. “The past 500-plus days have been a chaotic nightmare. And I think that through all of that we’ve lost a good sense of Judaism, like the royal Judaism. I think that we’ve made so much of the content that so much of our brain space is about defending against antisemitism, which is such a f—— problem, I don’t deny that, but it’s all been about defense, defense, defense. You know, they’re coming for us. How do we shore up the walls? And it’s never about the Jewish joy thing.”
The comedian referenced his social media channels and said, “I talk about antisemitism and talk about Israel, but that is not the only thing that I talk about. … If your entire relationship, if your entire involvement with Judaism, is just the health of Israel, and just what the current events are, what’s happening in Israel, I just implore you to remember that there are so many other parts of Judaism that are so joyful. You can experience the Israel stuff — I’m never taking away from that — but also make sure that when you’re talking about Judaism, and when you’re acknowledging Judaism, you’re also celebrating the apolitical Jewish excellence parts of this. Remember that half of the f—— NHL (National Hockey League) All Stars are Jews. Remember that we’re dominating in other spaces. Three out of four college basketball coaches in the Final Four were Jews.”
Levine referenced Bruce Pearl, the head coach of the Auburn Tigers men’s basketball team, who began a March 22 postgame NCAA Tournament press conference by calling for the release of Edan Alexander, an American-Israeli hostage held in Gaza by Hamas.
“Bruce Pearl, you know, he’s not a sympathetic character,” Levine said. “We’re not sympathetic characters. We’re badasses.”
In addition to Levine’s appearance, the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame dinner will honor Keith Dambrot for coaching, Sid Dambrot (posthumously) for basketball, Phil Elson for sports broadcasting, Beth Goldstein for track and field, Jay Jacobs for baseball and Stan Lederman for baseball. This year’s Ziggy Kahn Award recipient will be Sam Clancy. Mel Solomon is slated to receive the Manny Gold Humanitarian Award.
Dinner tickets and information is available at jccpgh.org/jewish-sports-hall-of-fame. PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
comments