Michael Takiff recalls the fervent prayers of his rabbi and congregation on the Day of Atonement.
Can an atheist serve as a guide to the history, customs, and longevity of the Jewish religion and its adherents? Moreover, how can an atheist recognize that a man who has just died is with God? At first glance, this seems quite absurd. Yet neither for Michael Takiff nor for his audience does it appear to be a problem. Jews, God, and History (Not Necessarily in That Order), Takiff’s one-man show, is a roller-coaster ride through Jewish belief, identity, and practice.
Takiff’s survey begins with Abraham entering into a covenant with God, albeit reluctantly, and moves through cross-generational antisemitism, medieval persecutions, the Holocaust, à la carte Jewish affiliation, and contemporary communal life—and death—passages. Yet, under the deft direction of Brian Lane Green, the intense monologues and political and cultural diatribes are balanced by well-timed comic interludes and impersonations. Using a small stage and wearing a single black suit, Takiff satirizes multiple politicians and advisers—for instance, Henry Kissinger, whose deadpan, German-accented responses to Nixon’s rantings about Jews and mayonnaise serve as a foil to the late President’s closet anti-Semite.
Takiff reflects on the final moments of Yom Kippur in his family’s synagogue. Photographs by Pablo Calderon Santiago.
Matthew Chilton’s multimedia projections and otherworldly sound effects enhance the humor when God converses with Abraham and Moses; they also create a hotel-buffet backdrop for “Maury” Levenson, Takiff’s most colorful character. As Levenson, Takiff strategically engages his audience and interacts with Gladys, an excitable stalker-heckler, with whom Takiff, as a visibly irritated Levenson, restrains himself. Levenson is a loud, obnoxious man who is every anti-Semite’s dream, and Takiff’s Levenson sucks his audience into his farcical presentation.
At a Days Inn in Rochester, N.Y., Levenson conducts a seminar—a comic, oversimplified hodgepodge of Judaism. Its title? “I Wanna Be a Jew. But I Wanna Be a Good Jew. How Do I Do It?” In the morning, there are the rules, including being Jew-ish and kosher-ish but not too much of each. The theology part of the seminar comes after lunch, where shrimp is out. Levenson declares, “That’s not food for Jews. Feh.” Then he leads the audience in a boisterous repetition of “That’s not food for Jews.”
“Maury” Levenson yields the floor to the real Michael Takiff, who attempts to explain a perplexing reality about Jews: “We know what a majority can do to a minority. And that’s why, while we earn like Episcopalians, we vote like Puerto Ricans.” Takiff is distilling millennia of persecution to rationalize why most Jews, especially New York Jews like himself, vote almost exclusively as Democrats, when one would expect Jews to be Republicans.
Although Takiff rails against Christmas’s musical eclipsing of Chanukah by carolers and the visual and commercial splendor that dominates ’Tis the season,” in some respects he is grateful for Christmas. Without it, he jokes, he would not have gotten a bike, but instead a nickel for Chanukah.
When Takiff returns for the second act, there is a complete pivot in mood, tone, and content. It’s moving, and almost reverential, if that quality is possible to attribute to an atheist. Two indelible episodes from Takiff’s past carry that pivot forward: his experiences on Yom Kippur with the rabbi of his family’s synagogue, and his family’s bedside vigil during his father’s final weeks in a hospital.
“The intense monologues and political and cultural diatribes are balanced by well-timed comic interludes and impersonations.”
The projections of the synagogue intensify the somberness in Takiff’s description of the Day of Atonement services, and the congregation, even Takiff the atheist, is awed by its rabbi. “Even now, while I would never join an Orthodox shul, Rabbi Teitz remains my idea of a rabbi,” he says. “Look up Jewish in my dictionary. Definition one: Rabbi Teitz.” Yom Kippur, the play’s longest scene, is linked to the hospital scene by mutually somber tones and references to his family members. There is a palpable, almost spiritual sensibility about his dying father’s connection to that synagogue and holiday that belies Takiff’s dominant cynicism, atheism, and ambivalence about Jewish observance.
Although the parenthetical part of Takiff’s title for Jews, God, and History portends that the performance will be (Not Necessarily in That Order), the story unfolds, for the most part, in a linear way. We begin with Abraham and end with a 20th-century death in a metropolitan hospital. Jews, God, and history are inextricably intertwined in the play, and even Takiff, the atheist concedes that, in his own words, “if we forget our past, we have no reason for a future.” As ironic, satirical, and even critical his monologues are, it’s a sure bet that he’ll stick with the tribe.
Jews, God, and History (Not Necessarily in That Order) runs through June 5 at the Siggy Theater at The Flea (20 Thomas St.). Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; matinees are at 3 p.m. on Sunday. For more information, call (212) 226-0635 or visit jewsgodandhistory.com.
