“Free, Funny, and Full-of-Food.” That is how we advertised for Comedy Club Shabbat, which occurred last Friday night. A free dinner-show style buffet began at 7pm and the comedy began as dessert was served at 7:45pm. Two members of Miami University’s stand-up comedy club started the night off, warming up the crown with some humor perfect for a college-aged bunch: playing on stereotypes and more-than-slightly inappropriate. Then Comedian Joel Chasnoff took over for the rest of the night.
Joel is the author of The 188th Crybaby Brigade: A Skinny Jewish Kid from Chicago fights Hizbollah, and since returning from his sting in the IDF he has been touring the world on various comedy tours. It didn’t take long for the audience to warm up. Almost as soon as he took stage, he had everyone hooked to their seat, laughing at his jokes, interacting at times, and disappointed that it had to end.
For the last two years as Religious Coordinator for Hillel I have been struggling to find the right way to have one big, successful Shabbat. Obviously services and dinner alone were not going to cut it. Bringing in a rabbinical student or intellectual speakers doesn’t help much, either. I wanted to plan a Shabbat that was a mini-version of Cornell’s infamous Shabbat 1000 — I was just going to knock off one of the zeros and shoot for 100. Finally I settled on the idea of bringing a comedian — something not objectionable, fun, and appealing to a wide array of people. And the event turned out great!
We “only” had 85 people – I planned a very targeted marketing strategy after realizing that Hillel only owns 103 chairs – but people’s experience was more than I could have hoped for. The regular, but unadvertised, service at 6pm had over 40 people and was very spirited. Dinner was delicious and the newcomers to Hillel were happy with free food. Everybody left smiling at the end of the night and more than a few people told me it was their favorite Hillel event of the year — some of their entire Jewish college experience! — and that they want more such events in the future.
