Did comedian Yisrael Campbell convert to Judaism for the jokes? If so, he might have tried to avoid the three circumcisions he underwent en route to becoming a member of the tribe.
Then again, maybe his new off-Broadway show, “Circumcise Me,” wouldn’t be as funny.
When the Catholic-born Campbell stumbles onto the stage at the start of his one-man play — scheduled through Jan. 3 at the Bleecker Street Theater in New York — he looks like a fervently Orthodox Jew. He sports a long beard and side curls, a black hat and long black coat, and appears clutching a plastic bag filled with books.
“I brought with me my haredi briefcase,” he jokes.
Referring to his side curls, the Philadelphia native cracks, “These payes are just the beginning of a comb-over.”
Over the course of the hourlong play Campbell, 46, uses humor to bring to life the story of his transformation from lapsed Catholic to observant Jew.
In an interview, Campbell cites Jewish funnymen Woody Allen and the late Lenny Bruce as his comedic inspirations. He says his jokes are styled after their irreverent and self-deprecating routines.
Campbell also holds the late Richard Pryor in high esteem, especially for the way he incorporated the less savory parts of his life into his act.
“Pryor talked about the most horrible situations,” Campbell said. “When you can make people laugh with the story of how you lit yourself on fire,” referring to Pryor’s infamous free-basing cocaine accident, “then I say ‘kol hakavod.’ “
Like Pryor, Campbell talks candidly about his unhappy childhood, struggle with alcoholism and failed relationships.
“I’m the first-born son of a manic-depressive Italian woman and a pathologically silent Irishman,” he tells the audience. “That makes me wildly emotional … in a very quiet way.”
During those years, Campbell says, he remembers feeling a spiritual void that yearned to be filled.
Enter Leon Uris. In his early 20s, Campbell was given a copy of the author’s famous novel “Exodus” by a Jewish woman he was dating at the time. He was taken in by the idealistic descriptions of Zionist men and women toiling under the sun and turning the desert into fertile land.
“I dreamed of plucking out avocados from the ground,” he recalls. “I didn’t know they grew on trees.”
A few years later Campbell signed up for classes on Judaism with a Reform rabbi and liked what he learned so much that he decided to convert.
Not so fast. Though Campbell was circumcised at birth, he still had to undergo the ritual penile blood-letting to enter the fold of Judaism.
“Afterwards I was given a document confirming the circumcision,” he said. “I neatly folded it into my pocket; I was not going to lose this document.”
Campbell underwent two more blood-lettings when he converted to Conservative Judaism and finally to Orthodoxy. He moved to Jerusalem, changed his first name from Christopher to Yisrael and married his Talmud teacher Avital, with whom he now has three children.
“If I’m not Jewish by now, there’s a cheeseburger somewhere with my name on it,” Campbell quips.
Campbell’s amazing journey became the subject matter of a comedy routine he put on at venues in Jerusalem, and then of a documentary, also titled “Circumcise Me,” that was released in 2008.
Spurred by his success, Campbell has adapted the routine for the stage.
“In many ways the dream has come true for me,” Campbell said. “And all I had to do was change my religion, nationality, and marital and parental status.”