Los Angeles-based comedian Antonia Lassar is bringing her show, The Best Jew, to the Mayerson JCC on Sept. 13, as part of the J’s Take Me Higher event, an alternative Elul experience.
Lassar originally trained as an actor at Boston University and began exploring comedy when she became frustrated with the roles she was cast in, before moving into the comedy world.
“I realized I had so much more agency if I just wrote and performed my own material,” she said. “So, stand-up is the obvious venue. You just have so much more power as a performer.”
She has trained and performed at the Upright Citizens’ Brigade in New York and Los Angeles. Lassar is a comedy writer, stand-up, and co-hosts the podcast Yenta with fellow comedian Raye Schiller.
Her performance style and spiritual outlook began to collide early on in her career as she was exploring different forms of Jewish spirituality through music in Brooklyn, New York.
Lassar grew up at a Reform synagogue in Newton, Mass., and described feeling less connected to her Judaism during her childhood. She began to feel more connected when she left for college and began exploring other spiritual music traditions, which led her to explore Jewish spirituality through music.
“I found my way to a Chabad in Brooklyn that had a big musical community, and like, found my way into the nigun circle communities,” she said.
Exploring her spirituality more deeply influenced how she created her comedy, as she sought to recreate the experiences she had while being part of a spiritually engaged crowd.
“I love religious experiences, because experiencing any kind of, what they call collective effervescence is…it’s like a drug…as an artist, I’m fascinated with it and kind of obsessed with figuring out how to replicate it, both in my spiritual life and in my artistic life,” Lassar said.
That exploration now shapes her comedy and her show, The Best Jew, as she uses song and shared melodies to build the same sense of collective energy she once searched for in spiritual spaces.
It was through this exploration and the pandemic that Lassar began putting together her show after posting some Jewish bits on TikTok that went viral, which led to her doing stand-up in less “traditional” spaces.
“All these rabbis started reaching out, being like, Do you ever perform in synagogues? And I was like; I could definitely perform in your synagogue,” she said.
As Lassar began performing more comedy in spiritual spaces, she found that her comedic instincts were in constant conversation with her spiritual side.
“Being a comedian in a religious setting means that I am making snarky comments about every single thing that happened, including the profound spiritual journey that I am there for,” she said. “So, both my comedy and spiritual side talk to each other a lot.”
The show is different than a traditional stand-up show. It is an exploration of the question of why we continue to go into religious spaces and what people gain from the experience. One of the answers for Lassar is music, and her show incorporates music. Lassar came up with the title of the show because it deals with sensitive topics, and she hoped to put her audience at ease.
“I thought it would really add a level of credibility if I came in letting everybody know off the bat, I’m the best Jew… don’t worry. You can trust me. I’m the best one.”
Tickets are on sale for Take Me Higher, an Alternative Elul Experience.
