The last thing one might expect from Jeff Ross — the perennially raunchy, abrasive insult comedian known as a “one-man verbal assault unit” — is a poignant and hilarious Broadway show that, at times, feels like the most Jewish production on the Great White Way since “Fiddler on the Roof.”
Ross is best known as the “Roastmaster General,” thanks to his decades of hosting and appearing on celebrity roasts at the Friars Club and on Comedy Central and Netflix. In this role, Ross’s language is often saltier than schmaltz herring; his pointed barbs have made him comedy’s successor to the late Don Rickles.
All that, however, takes a back seat at Broadway’s Nederlander Theater, where Ross’s delightful and very Jewish solo show, “Jeff Ross: Take A Banana For The Ride,” written by him and directed by Stephen Kessler, is playing until Sept. 28.
I’ve known about Ross’s gentler side for quite a while. Around 2015 or so, I was chatting with him in his dressing room at the Westbury Music Fair when a family of European tourists were ushered in for a brief hello. Ross greeted them graciously, saying, “I’m Jeff; so nice to see you.” He then pointed to me, a bearded man in my 60s, adding, “And this is my lovely wife, Denise.”
I wasn’t aware, however, of Ross’s passionate feelings about his Jewish heritage, which was a driving force behind the creation of his Broadway show. “I thought of the achievements the Jewish people have brought to the world,” he said, “the inventions, the creativity, the ingenuity. That’s thousands of years old.”
Born in Newark, New Jersey in 1965 as Jeffrey Ross Lifschultz (a last name that, he contends, is “an old Hebrew word meaning, ‘Hey, you oughta change that’”), Ross was raised in a loving and somewhat eccentric Jewish family that ran a kosher catering hall founded by his great-grandmother Rosie (hence his middle name).
He credits his older relatives, all fans of Borscht Belt comics, with helping him develop his sense of humor. “I wasn’t old enough to watch those Catskills comedians, but I lived with people who were watching them,” he said. “My parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles were all funny, and I felt that energy, that delivery, that timing, that sarcasm. All that stuff seeped into my brain.”
Ross soon learned that humor could be a useful tool to disarm antisemites. In high school, Ross faced “a bully who called me ‘a dirty Jew’ and used to jump out of hallways and punch me in the nuts,” he recalled. “I thought, the next time he comes after me, I’m gonna get up and hit him back. But when he punched me again, it hurt so bad I was writhing on the floor and couldn’t. So instinctively, I started making fun of him. When I did that, everyone laughed except him. He was embarrassed and a bit humiliated, even though I was the one on the floor. And I learned the power of the insult.”
I asked Ross what exactly he said to the bully. “I remember he had hairy knuckles and was bigger than everyone else. He had a big forehead, so I said, ‘Is that a forehead or a five-head?’ Everybody laughed, and a young roastmaster was created.”
“Take A Banana For The Ride,” peels away Ross’s usually rough persona and takes the audience on a revealing, sweet, sad, funny and moving ride through his often pain-filled life, which is clearly rooted in the Jewish experience. His mother died of leukemia when he was 14, and his father succumbed to a cocaine-induced brain aneurysm when Ross was 19. Following college, he lived with his grandfather, who had served in World War II as a shipbuilder. After the U.S. Navy captured a Nazi U-boat, it was then “schlepped to Baltimore,” as Ross puts it. There, Pop Jack, as Ross calls him, removed a bolt and made it into a ring. Ross wears that ring to this day, showing it to the Broadway crowd.
In fact, the name of Ross’ show comes from something his grandfather used to tell him when he was just starting out in standup comedy, taking the bus from New Jersey to clubs in Manhattan. Pop Jack would always advise him to “take a banana for the ride” just in case he got hungry.
Ross agreed with my guesstimate that perhaps 80% of those attending this show are non-Jews, which makes the Judaic content of the production somewhat surprising. Along with references to brisket, bar and bat mitzvahs, Hanukkah, his possibly antisemitic German shepherds, and the fact that his uncle helped liberate a concentration camp, there is one particularly stunning moment that caught the attention of the prominent Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of Manhattan’s Central Synagogue. She commented on social media that she knew she’d laugh at Ross’s show, but “I didn’t expect to be so moved and touched by this comic reflection on mortality, caregiving and some Nazi rescue dogs. (Nor a full audience singalong to ‘Don’t F*** with the Jews.’)”
During the show, Ross goes through a litany of Hebraic heroes — running the gamut from the Maccabees to Mark Spitz — and asks the audience to join him (and two onstage musicians) in a cheerful ditty with the refrain, “Don’t f*** with the Jews/If you wanna hear cheers and not boos/Never again, f*** with the Jews.” He also lists inventions by Jews, from matzah balls to Prozac to the theory of relativity.
Ross wrote the play before the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent rise in antisemitism around the globe. In light of that, I asked whether his expressions of Jewish pride have taken on new meaning. “I don’t overthink it,” he said. “Like any song that resonates, it hits at the right time. For me, it’s an anthem of cultural pride, in that I come from a family of caterers and war heroes and firefighters and hardworking, blue collar union people. To me, setting a good, strong Jewish presence in the world is my mission. But the song is not to combat antisemitism; that’s not my lane. To me it’s about putting your chin up, keeping a positive attitude in the face of the hatred that’s out there in the world.”
Ross had a deep personal need for that positive attitude last year, when he was diagnosed with colon cancer. Following surgery and chemo, “I feel great,” he said. “This show is the perfect medicine for me.”
Next month he’ll mark his 60th birthday – halfway to the traditional Jewish optimal age of 120. At one point in the show, he sorrowfully laments the too-early deaths of his close friends and comedy colleagues Bob Saget, Norm Macdonald and Gilbert Gottfried, all within an eight-month period.
Given his lifetime of loss and tragedy amidst the laughter and applause, I asked whether he had any particular advice for surviving it all. “You know,” Ross said, “I do a mental trick, which is to put a fake smile on my face. And more often than not, it becomes a real smile. It actually has gotten me through some very difficult times.”
“Jeff Ross: Take A Banana For The Ride” is at the Nederlander Theater (208 West 41st St.) through Sept. 28. For tickets and information, click here.
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