Life
Are you meshuga frum? Ashley Blaker has the definitive answer
Are you frum? Or meshuga frum? Comedian Ashley Blaker knows
January 23, 2017 16:53
Are you frum? Or meshuga frum? Comedian Ashley Blaker knows
January 23, 2017 16:53People keep telling me that weird things are going on in the world and that there’s this crazy new President in the United States. Personally I haven’t had the time to notice because I’ve been too busy performing my first tour of Israel and preparing for my second UK tour.
The Israel tour has been an ambition of mine for a while, partly because I missed out on going on one after my GCSEs. I was very excited but also nervous because I knew if I misbehaved and did anything inappropriate with a dead snake that I would probably be sent home and could even end up on the front cover of The JC.
Even worse, my parents would kill me.
Thankfully I managed to behave myself and thoroughly enjoyed playing in front of full houses in Netanya, Yad Binyamin, Beit Shemesh, Jerusalem and Raanana. And it was wonderful to finally perform in Israel because when I announced my new UK tour in September, I was inundated with messages on Facebook from people saying ‘Why aren’t you coming to Israel?’ Of course, inevitably, when later on I announced the Israel tour, the same people were messaging me saying ‘But when are you coming to Modiin? When are you coming to Haifa?’
Unfortunately Jews are never satisfied. I know if I had added a date in Modiin they would have been saying ‘But when are you coming to my street?’ Look, I’m playing in your living room. ‘But when are you coming to my bedroom? I don’t want to have to come downstairs!’
One of the interesting challenges of the tour was to make sure all the non-Brits felt included and understood everything I was talking about. And I did try my best to explain certain references as I went, although this did present the opportunity to have a bit of fun at some audience members’ expense.
When I realised that one American wasn’t aware of who Jimmy Savile was, I waxed lyrical about his charity works and marathon runs and insisted that the next time this man came to the UK, he should tell everyone what a big fan he was of Sir Jim. He was somewhat baffled why many in the audience were laughing.
So now I am back and, as is traditional, I will bang on and on about Israel tour for the next two years and base my entire social life around the people I met. That said of course, this coming Tuesday I start my new UK tour, Meshuga Frum. This wasn’t actually the original title. Having moved from performing in synagogues to playing in theatres,
I was a bit worried that I’d be losing all that free publicity from the shuls so came up with the idea of calling my show ‘Maariv’. That way every Shabbat morning, when someone got up to make the announcements and say something like ‘remember Maariv this week is at 7:45pm’ everyone would think ‘oh yes, Maariv, I must book my tickets’. I’d be on emails, text messages, I’d have people promoting me on flights to Israel, it would have been brilliant. I only changed my mind when I heard someone announcing a shiva with Maariv at 8pm and I worried it would look like I was performing in front of mourners.
So in the end I opted for Meshuga Frum instead and it’s not just a random title. It really is the whole theme of the show. I don’t want to give too much away but I’m fascinated by that phrase. People I know probably look at me and think it describes me very well. However when I go to shul, I look at other people and think that they’re all meshuga frum.
Basically, we all think anyone who is just slightly more observant than us is meshuga frum. But it struck me that we can’t all be right, so I have undertaken to once and for all come up with some kind of definitive answer as to who is and isn’t meshuga frum. And what is more appropriate than to have ten commandments: the ten things you have to do, if you want to be properly meshuga frum. What are they? Well for that you are going to have to come to my new tour. Who knows: maybe you’ll be surprised and find out that you are meshuga frum and didn’t even realise it!
