My great-grandfather played to Jewish stereotypes for laughs and fame. How should I feel about that?

I was bewildered when my great-grandfather, Julian Rose, came out of the closet. But unlike other coming out stories, this one was literal. My great-grandfather literally came out of the closet. Well, out of a tube, to be more precise.

Perhaps I should explain.

A few years ago, I was rummaging around my late grandfather’s office.

He kept every single scrap of paper that had accumulated over his 80 years, which he bundled into folders and wedged into tightly packed boxes on the floor of his office.

I was navigating my way through this bureaucratic wasteland when I spotted a Royal Mail postage tube in the office closet.

Carefully picking my way past five decades of National Geographic issues, I plucked the tube from its place and unfurled the poster nestled inside.

The poster was of my great-grandfather, the Hebrew comedian Julian Rose.

The picture is of Julian in his stage outfit; his head is bald, and he’s swaddled by ostentatious robes and gold jewellery.

A large round nose sits between a fuzzy beard and sneering eyes. The image is signed: “Our Hebrew Friend – Levinsky – 1934.”

I decided to look further into this bizarre character, and to learn more about our shared profession of comedy. Who was Julian Rose? And how would that affect who I was?

‘The World’s Great Hebrew Star’

I was greatly aided in my search by Daniel Appleby, a lawyer by training and an amateur historian.

His father had been a vaudeville comedian, and in the course of researching his own roots, Daniel had become fixated on Julian and the history of Hebrew comedy.

Together, we began researching Julian’s life.

Julian’s first job was as an accountant at the Bell Telephone Company in Philadelphia, where he would entertain his colleagues with jokes and impressions of a Russian-Jewish uncle.

This impression would later metamorphose into the character of Levinksy — the man I found hidden in a postage tube.

On stage, Levinsky would come to be known as “Our Hebrew Friend”.

Julian found his way onto the American vaudeville stage and very quickly became a hit.

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By 1911, my great-grandfather was touring the world and producing records for the Edison Phonograph Company.

His most famous monologue, “Levinksy at the Wedding”, had more than 500,000 copies made and can still be found on YouTube today.

I don’t even have 500,000 hits on my YouTube videos. Maybe I should copy Julian’s act?

Julian inspired comedians across the world, including in Australia when he toured here in 1911 and 1924.

In his memoirs, Australian comedian Roy ‘Mo’ Rene wrote:

“I was working at the Princess Theatre when the cast kidded me into doing some imitations of the famous Julian Rose … What started as a joke in the first place turned out to be the most important thing that ever happened to me in my career. That piece of … fooling led me to my eventually developing into a real comic.”

It’s important not to sound too sentimental when discussing Julian. His work was not appreciated by everybody, especially in the Jewish community.

The early 1920s were particularly hard for him — his act flopped on Broadway, and he faced pressure from management to tone down the Jewish stereotypes in his act.

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Hebrew humour had fallen out of favour in his homeland.

With his career on life support, Julian eventually took his wife and family to England for a second shot at stardom.

‘Our Hebrew Friend’

England was a Lazarus moment for Julian. (Although, as a Jew, he’d probably object to such a Christian reference.)

British audiences adored him, and he soon became a cultural icon.

He notched up more than 100 appearances on BBC radio, and was a featured performer at the 1933 Royal Variety performance for the King and Queen.

Julian also acted in a number of films while in England, including a star turn in the 1932 comedy Money Talks, a not-so-subtle copy of Brewster’s Millions.

Despite his fame, he died virtually penniless at the age of 66 in 1935. An ignominious end for such an outsized character.

Jew-ish?

Julian’s life and work raised compelling questions for me.

What does it mean to be Jewish, and who decides who is Jewish? What is the role of Jewish comedy, and how should I approach my great-grandfather’s work? Should I have written more jokes for this article?

Comedian Alice Fraser had some invaluable advice.

She is the granddaughter of holocaust survivors, and regularly discusses her own Jewish identity in her work.

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Alice suggested that Julian’s act may have served a useful purpose.

“If you’ve never met a Jew and you only know the worst ideas about Jews, then having a silly, funny clown Jew is the beginning of a process of becoming familiar with the humanity behind the character,” she said.

For myself, Alice counselled a practical approach, suggesting that “where it’s relevant and useful to you, you should feel comfortable with it”.

She also pointed out that “the process of wrestling with anything is a very Jewish thing”.

(So, in order to be Jewish, I have to question my Jewish identity? The less Jewish I feel, the more Jewish I am. I call this “Schrodinger’s Judaism”.)

Another great resource was Devorah Baum, an academic and author of the book The Jewish Joke.

She explained that Jewish humour has an “intimate relation to the macabre, because there’s sort of a no-nonsense dealing with it”.

She, like Alice, thought Julian’s act may have been an attempt to take ownership of his own “dirty origins”, and to come to terms with his identity in a world engulfed by anti-Semitism.

Devorah suggested that far from being an inappropriate response, humour is often the only rational means for people to contend with trauma.

As she put it, “the language of tragedy” is often galling, whereas the language of comedy can be used to make allusions to traumatic events in a less direct manner.

In uncovering my great-grandfather’s legacy, I’ve come to appreciate his role in my life.

Despite his many controversies, I feel proud to have another comedian in my family, and this journey has given me a new sense of Jewish identity.

I like to think that, were Julian alive today, we’d have a close relationship. Perhaps he would have been “my Hebrew friend”.

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