Year ago people sent me clips from this character as if he was funny. I was struck by how irreverent, vulgar, disrespectful and פורק עול he was. Then - he "came out". רחמנא ליצלן ושומר נפשו ירחק ממנו.
Times of Israel and Jpost
Rabbi Bashevkin said he felt nervous about speaking onstage with Rosenfeld now that the comedian’s sexual orientation is public knowledge
Sitting onstage at a comedy club filled mostly with his target audience of Orthodox Jews, comedian Modi Rosenfeld said that he’s still booking gigs at plenty of Orthodox synagogues — even after opening up about being gay.
“I performed at this beautiful shul, Anshei Emuna in Boca,” Rosenfeld said at the event Thursday night at Stand Up NY, a venue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, referring to Boca Raton, Florida. “You heard of it? The woman who booked me for the event saw the article, she’s like, I would say, between 70 and — older woman, Florida — the whole thing. And it’s an Orthodox shul. And she’s walking around — ‘His husband’s here. Drop dead gorgeous. Drop dead gorgeous.’”
The club erupted in laughter.
The occasion was the first in-person taping of the Jewish interview podcast “18Forty.” The podcast’s host, Orthodox Rabbi David Bashevkin, moderated the conversation (and revealed that he once took a standup comedy class and was promptly told to find another career).
Orthodox reactions to LGBT identity
Bashevkin told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he originally booked Rosenfeld because comedy was the perfect topic for a Purim-themed episode. Then Rosenfeld gave an interview to Variety magazine in which he discussed being Orthodox and gay. Same-sex relationships are traditionally prohibited in Jewish law, and Orthodox communities have struggled with how and whether to accept and embrace LGBTQ community members.
Bashevkin revealed to the audience that he was a little nervous about speaking onstage with Rosenfeld now that the comedian’s sexual orientation is public knowledge, and he mentioned that he received an email from someone questioning the propriety of the event.
The audience was supportive of Rosenfeld, clapping loudly when he discussed taking control of his own story, and when he offered advice to parents who find out their children are gay (don’t make it about yourself, and tell your child you love them, he said.)
Apple rates “18Forty” as one of the most popular podcasts in the Judaism category, and after the show, Bashevkin hung around the entrance of the club as dozens of people stopped by to introduce themselves. Some mentioned how they knew him, or where they saw him on an airplane. Others complimented him on the show or expressed how much they love his podcast.
Ultimately, Bashevkin said, “I’m looking to raise up Jews and raise up our traditions.”
Sitting onstage at a comedy club filled mostly with his target audience of Orthodox Jews, comedian Modi Rosenfeld said that he’s still booking gigs at plenty of Orthodox synagogues — even after opening up about being gay.
“I performed at this beautiful shul, Anshei Emuna in Boca,” Rosenfeld said at the event Thursday night at Stand Up NY, a venue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, referring to Boca Raton, Florida. “You heard of it? The woman who booked me for the event saw the article, she’s like, I would say, between 70 and — older woman, Florida — the whole thing. And it’s an Orthodox shul. And she’s walking around — ‘His husband’s here. Drop dead gorgeous. Drop dead gorgeous.’”
The club erupted in laughter.
The occasion was the first in-person taping of the Jewish interview podcast “18Forty.” The podcast’s host, Orthodox Rabbi David Bashevkin, moderated the conversation (and revealed that he once took a standup comedy class and was promptly told to find another career).
Orthodox reactions to LGBT identity
Bashevkin told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he originally booked Rosenfeld because comedy was the perfect topic for a Purim-themed episode. Then Rosenfeld gave an interview to Variety magazine in which he discussed being Orthodox and gay. Same-sex relationships are traditionally prohibited in Jewish law, and Orthodox communities have struggled with how and whether to accept and embrace LGBTQ community members.
Bashevkin revealed to the audience that he was a little nervous about speaking onstage with Rosenfeld now that the comedian’s sexual orientation is public knowledge, and he mentioned that he received an email from someone questioning the propriety of the event.
The audience was supportive of Rosenfeld, clapping loudly when he discussed taking control of his own story, and when he offered advice to parents who find out their children are gay (don’t make it about yourself, and tell your child you love them, he said.)
Apple rates “18Forty” as one of the most popular podcasts in the Judaism category, and after the show, Bashevkin hung around the entrance of the club as dozens of people stopped by to introduce themselves. Some mentioned how they knew him, or where they saw him on an airplane. Others complimented him on the show or expressed how much they love his podcast.
Ultimately, Bashevkin said, “I’m looking to raise up Jews and raise up our traditions.”
[Listening to many of the episodes of the podcast would indicate other, less noble, agendas].
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From the podcast:
Modi: Let me tell you something. I do shows all over the world. I’ve been to more Chabad houses than Rabbi Kolowski, if you know who he is. And you get to a Chabad house and they’ve an audience, sometimes 400, 500, 800 people, they’re no longer this little house on the corner. They have these massive buildings, a day school, a yeshiva. They’ve built, not just a little shtiebel in the middle of a town. And the rabbi always gives you the hachana, what’s happening in the room. He’s going to, we have people who here are religious and many who are not religious. And then we have some Israelis and we have Latin Jews too. And then we have a few couples that are same sex, gay couples. The rabbis telling me this. They have gay couples and they’re wonderful. And their kids come to our day school and we love them. And they learn the Aleph Beis and they participate in the Shabbat we do. And they’re wonderful kids. And then we have this and that. And there you go.
There’s a gay couple. They have their kids in this Chabad day school. And the rabbi is treating the kids the same way he wants his kids to be treated at whatever yeshiva they’re going to. Vehavta Larecha Kamocha that mashiach energy. So when a rabbi tells me this, that there’s the kids of a gay couple in his day school, that to me is mashiach energy. You understand what I’m saying? That’s my mashiach, that’s what I see mashiach energy as. Whoever’s starting the clapping, on April 27th, I’m taping my special. I’m going to need you there.
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“This article is showing that I’m a veteran comedian and I’m married to a man,” said Rosenfeld, who is known to his friends and fans by the nickname Modi. “This is it. It doesn’t feel like a coming-out piece to me because I’ve been out.”
Anyone who has listened closely to Rosenfeld’s podcast in the last year would know that he and his husband have been married since 2020. The pair talk about living and traveling together, and in a recent episode revealed they would be vacationing on Fire Island, which has a famous gay scene, with prominent gay Jewish cookbook author Jake Cohen.
But the news could easily have come as more of a surprise for one swath of Rosenfeld’s core audience: Orthodox Jews from communities like the one where he grew up, where LGBTQ inclusion remains an unfamiliar and often frowned-upon frontier. Rosenfeld has delivered his signature blend of highly informed Jewish comedy, which often digs into the technical details of Jewish law, on kosher Passover cruises; at benefits for Orthodox organizations including yeshivas, Young Israel chapters and Hatzalah, the Orthodox ambulance service; and on the annual Chabad-Lubavitch movement telethon. But until recently, his routine has contained little whiff of his personal life — in fact, some of his jokes suggested to his fans that he had a wife named Stacy.
“Stacy” is in fact his manager and husband, Leo Veiga, a millennial raised Catholic in South Florida whom the 52-year-old Israel-born, Long Island-raised comedian met on the New York City subway in 2015. The split content has reflected Rosenfeld’s long-espoused belief that the only way comedy can work is to tailor the set to the crowd.
“Even though some religious organization has brought me in and people are coming to see me, I understand I’m under the umbrella of a certain demographic that I need to respect and know the audience,” Rosenfeld told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “If you put me in front of an audience, I give them what they need. And they don’t need gay material — they need the material for this audience.”
“But when I’m on the road doing my material, I can do whatever I want,” he added. “They came to see me.”
The Variety article was born of Rosenfeld’s deepening belief that it’s possible to merge his Orthodox and gay identities more publicly — something that he has long done as a congregant and sometimes-cantor at the Modern Orthodox synagogue he attends in the East Village.
“The prayers are done in an Orthodox way. And somehow, gays have been attracted to come to this synagogue,” he said. “We have a whole group of gay people and we have a whole group of trans people welcome.”
“The rabbi’s thing is no one should ever feel bullied, no one should ever feel excluded,” Rosenfeld said. “Be you. Be a proud Jew and be you.”
Rosenfeld’s “not a coming out piece” is significant and part of a broader recent pattern, according to Rabbi Steve Greenberg, the founding director of Eshel, an advocacy organization for LGBTQ Orthodox Jews and their families.
“You used to leave. Coming out meant [you] had to go. Because you could either stay and be silent, or speak up and leave,” Greenberg said. “What has begun to change the story is people insisting on not choosing between their religious identities and their queer identities and insisting on staying in Orthodox communities.”
The Variety piece comes at a time of tension around LGBTQ inclusion in Modern Orthodoxy. Yeshiva University — where Rosenfeld studied at the Belz Cantorial School of Music — has made headlines for fighting for the right not to recognize an LGBTQ student club. This month, a synagogue affiliated with the Modern Orthodox flagship also made news for its treatment of a transgender congregant; Yeshiva’s top Jewish law authority said she could no longer pray there.
The episode ignited strong feelings for Rosenfeld.
“To torture someone like that, somebody who’s religious, who’s keeping the mitzvahs, who’s teaching, who’s doing that, and to open that up and to do what they did is so terrible,” Rosenfeld said. “It’s so, so terrible. That’s the only thing I can tell you.”
For Rosenfeld, there’s no tension between Jewish observance and being gay — although his articulation of why reveals an awareness of the pain that others might feel in trying.
“Being gay, you can keep Shabbos, you can keep kosher, you can keep anything you want to do,” he said. “You can learn Talmud, you can learn Torah, the only thing you can’t do is kill yourself. You can’t commit suicide. That’s not even on the table as an option.”
When Rosenfeld shared the Variety article on his Instagram page, the vast majority of the nearly 800 comments left by fans and friends showed support for his public embrace of his gay identity.
“It’s amazing that you announce that you are gay,” one fan wrote. “You are an example to all the Jews struggling with their gayness. You are a role model to me. Cheers.”
“I think it’s great you can be out with so many of your orthodox fans,” wrote Peter Fox, a freelance writer and Jewish community advocate. “What a wonderful gift of visibility.”
But a few commenters said they would boycott his work in the future, some citing interpretations of Jewish law.
“I can’t believe you are gay,” wrote one person. “What a giant Hillul HaShem [desecration of the name of God]. I lost all respect for you. Unfollowing now. And good luck to you when it’s time to be judged by The Almighty.”
Rosenfeld doesn’t anticipate that the Variety article will lose him any gigs. If anything, he says, it might actually increase his audience. Since he has started adding gay material to his repertoire, his audiences have been increasingly LGBTQ, like at some of the “Holidazed” shows he performed in December at Sony Hall in New York.
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A very popular Chabad internet personality had an approx. one hour congenial conversation with Modi on Modi's podcast.
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SWEEEEEET FRIENDS - This is a rebellion and renunciation of the Torah and Kedusha. That is why I don't remain silent and it is forbidden to remain silent.
