Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

July 27, 2021

Jackie Mason, a Great Talent Who Struggled with “Cancel Culture” before It Had a Name—and Recovered

An unabashedly Jewish comedian who won over audiences of all faiths.

Born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin to immigrant parents, Yacov Moshe Maza was descended from four generations of rabbis, and, along with his brothers, attended a distinguished yeshiva and received rabbinic ordination. But he had second thoughts about following in his ancestors’ footsteps and—taking the name Jackie Mason—launched a career as a stand-up comedian in the borscht-belt tradition. Mason died on Saturday at the age of ninety-three. As Thane Rosenbaum observes:

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