To elicit laughs from his peers in high school, Bob Alper used to tell people that one day he was “going to be a rabbi and a stand-up comic.”
The thought of being a stand-up comedian/rabbi seemed like a humorous oxymoron to Alper. But as he grew up, his two callings merged.
Now “I am a full-time stand-up comic,” said Alper in a telephone interview from his home in Providence, R.I. “I’ve been doing it for 15 years and each year it gets better.”
A graduate of Lehigh University, Alper is also a rabbi, ordained at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1972. “I still conduct High Holiday services in Philadelphia,” he said.
He also was the first Jew to earn a doctorate from the Princeton Theological Seminary.
Alper will be bringing his humor to Milwaukee when he performs at Congregation Shalom on Sunday, Aug. 19, 7:30 p.m.
Since the age of two, Alper said he possessed an innate ability to make people laugh. Yet he didn’t get his first professional foot-in-the-door until 1986. “That summer I opened up the Jewish Exponent [newspaper] and there was an ad that said, ‘You think you’re funny?’ It was for the Jewish Comic of the Year Contest. I sent them in 50 words why I thought I was funny.”
The people at the Exponent must have found Alper humorous because he was chosen as a semi-finalist and invited to hit the stage with his material.
Though his first shot at stand-up “was very hard,” Alper said being a rabbi gave him the advantage of having “had the opportunity to speak in front of people…. If I wasn’t a rabbi I probably would not be a comedian.”
The next step was to develop more material, which Alper said “is an ongoing process. Things happen and then I try it out and if it works I keep honing it.”
He said officiating at weddings “is a perfect time for working on your improv. People want to laugh because it relaxes them.”
Eventually, Alper began to get national and international recognition. He said Showtime ran clips of him performing, as did “Comedy Central.” He has also appeared on “Good Morning America” and “Extra.”
The only drawback to the publicity, said Alper, was that his “Extra” segment was eclipsed by a segment highlighting a certain actress’ anatomy.
He has also written two books: “Life Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This” — which the Detroit Free Press called “a volume of gems” in a four-star review — and “A Rabbi Confesses,” a full-color cartoon book.
A chapter from the former book will appear in the print and audio versions of “Chicken Soup for the Jewish Soul.” Alper also has a comedy cassette called “Bob Alper: Rabbi/Stand-Up Comic (Really)” that has sold thousands of copies.
Alper has performed in Britain, Canada, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico in front of Jews and non-Jews alike.
Performing in Puerto Rico was particularly memorable, he said, because after telling the punch-line of a joke, members of audience who understood English would laugh. “Then people would translate it into Spanish [and moments later] I’d get double the laughter.”
As for all the theories about why there are so many great Jewish comedians, Alper said, “A lot of people think that Jews are into comedy because of oppression … I don’t know.
“It is one part of it, but another part of it is because of our love of language. The Talmud and the Bible are very concise and compact. Comedy is the same way.”
Tickets for Alper’s performance are $18 in advance, $20 at the door, and they may be purchased at Congregation Shalom.
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