For years, the Jewish community and synagogue leaders have fought the trend of dropping membership and attendance. Now the Pew study provides an answer (“Jews Serious When It Comes To Humor,” Oct. 11).
According to the polling organization’s statistics, Jews consider a sense of humor to be a more important defining quality in a Jew than observance of ritual and mitzvot. Let every synagogue associate with a comedian and replace the rabbi’s sermon on Shabbat with 15 minutes of stand-up, topical to the parsha. New members would flock to the David shul, the Reiser shul, the Crystal shul, the Sandler shul or the Franken shul (“that one I wouldn’t set foot in”).
Ecumenical weekends with guest rav Rosie O’Donnell or Chris Rock would draw large crowds, and you wouldn’t have to drive to the Catskills.
Manhattan
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