On the evening of Tuesday, Nov. 11, Brandeis University’s Jewish on Campus Chapter President, Samantha Przybisiki ’27, in collaboration with other university students — Abby Spitzer ’27, Vice President of Programming; Hannah Churwin ’27, Treasurer; Emma Solini ’27, Communications — presented “Comedy and Conversations: A night with Mikey Greenblatt” in a stand-up comedy event. Jewish on Campus’ core principle and mission is to actively advocate and combat antisemitism in a modern way. Their website explains, “Since our founding, Jewish on Campus has led the next generation of Jewish advocacy, giving voice to Jewish students online and on social media. Now, we’re bringing our movement directly to your campus.” The group wanted to host an event rooted in advocacy but also get many people involved. Pryzbiski first encountered Mikey Greenblatt on social media. When she later found out that he was close with Vice President of Programming Abby Spitzer, they officially went through his agent to book him.

Mikey Greenblatt, a modern Orthodox Jew, originally grew up in Englewood, New Jersey and now lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Greenblatt is a stand-up comedian who makes his way on a religious circuit and performs at temples and two to three clubs surrounding the area he finds himself in on tour. Greenblatt performs around 18 times throughout each week and he recently came back from a tour in Canada. 

Greenblatt started the night off with crowd work, admitting that it went on much longer than expected because “we,” the Brandeis student body, just gave him so much material to work with. He riffed on the fact that there were only two athletes in the audience and then went on to poke fun at the absurdity of the Brandeis Quadball Club. Right off the bat, Greenblatt had the audience laughing non-stop. He spit out his water one time because the “quadball thing” was too good to be true. During this crowd work he identified the two non-Jews in the audience and after each religious joke would turn to them, ask if they understood and further explain. One of the non-Jewish audience members, Angelina Scaduto ’29,  expressed how funny she thought the whole bit was and really felt included in an event where otherwise she wouldn’t have known what was going on. She said, “I really felt included, and he made an effort to explain — in a funny way — to explain the more deeply rooted Judaism jokes. It worked really nicely with the material he had already prepared.”  

Greenblatt then transitioned into his scripted material. He told the audience about his previous shows and tours, what being Jewish in the modern world is like and his past dating experiences. Greenblatt spent a considerable amount of time performing material surrounding the conflict in Israel and Palestine. The jokes started lighthearted before he transitioned into an anecdote about an encounter he had had in Central Park in which a woman spit at him and told him to “go back to Israel.” Greenblatt ended the more political and polarizing material with the personal conclusion that living in New York City right now is scary and at times dangerous. However, each segment of the show provided more and more laughs and the audience lined up for pictures with Greenblatt at the end. 

Greenblatt talked about social media and his complex relationship with it. While Greenblatt uses social media in order to reach larger audiences, he also sees it as an outlet for hatred. Greenblatt explained how regardless of what he posts, there is always a “Free Palestine” comment, regardless of the fact that his video is unrelated. Since he is categorized as a Jewish creator, people who Greenblatt sees as “non-functioning” humans will use that as an opportunity to spread hatred. 

The night concluded with Samantha Przybiski hosting a question and answer segment where the audience learned more about Greenblatt’s writing process and goals of being a stand-up comedian. Greenblatt explained that being a stand-up comedian is a lot harder than one might think. In reality, comedians practice one hour of material for years. What this means for Greenblatt is that he often writes material before or during a show and executes it to see the reaction it elicits from the crowd. The reception of the jokes is highly dependent on the audience they are being performed for — Greenblatt said that Brandeis students were a great audience in comparison to the congregants of a Jewish temple he performed at prior who weren’t laughing at anything. That is the reality of being a stand-up comedian. Still, he does it for the purpose of trying to humanize Judaism and not just to perform the stereotypical, antisemitic jokes about bagels and coffee and being loud — though he did make his fair share of circumcision jokes. Greenblatt revealed that his comedy hero is Jerry Seinfeld, who he learned his greatest material from and looks up to for inspiration. Pryzibiski asked Greenblatt if he views comedy as advocacy and a form of protest, and his answer was yes. Greenblatt touched on the fact that when Jewish people have accomplishments, their feats are often overshadowed by the fact that they are Jewish. He views Judaism as the backdrop of his being and believes that one should be proud of being Jewish, but also just proud in general of one’s being and accomplishments.