The wildest bar mitzvah TV musical ever made

Singing bagels and pastrami sandwiches, oh my!

In the early 2010s, one of my favorite comfort watches was a show called “Raising Hope.” The sitcom from Greg Garcia, the maker of “My Name Is Earl,” was about a 23-year-old pool boy, Jimmy Chance, played by Lucas Neff, who accidentally got a convicted felon pregnant and was stuck raising his young daughter — yeah, you guessed it — named Hope by himself. His parents — Virginia, played by Martha Plimpton, and Burt, played by Garret Dillahunt — who dropped out of high school when they got pregnant with him, support Jimmy in the task, as does his grandmother who suffers from dementia, Maw Maw, played by the incredible Cloris Leachman, of blessed memory.

The show feels to me like the antithesis to one like “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” a show about poor people, about human connection, and fond humor much more than kvetching — which means that it also isn’t very Jewish. That is, aside from one episode in season three, titled “Burt Mitzvah: The Musical,” which may be at once the most offensive and most enjoyable episode of Jewish TV you’ll ever watch.

In the episode, Burt’s parents come into town for Easter and reveal to Burt that they discovered that his mother is Jewish and that therefore he’s Jewish, too, and should have a bar mitzvah. Burt’s mother convinces him to do this by laying on some of her newly found Jewish guilt (sigh).

Oh, and Burt’s parents don’t celebrate Easter anymore, so Virginia is tasked with hosting her first Passover dinner, optimistically believing she’ll be able to do something with all the Easter ham she got to impress her in-laws and lamenting that she can’t find any Passover recipes on the Paula Deen website.

“Raising Hope” often had elements of musicality, but in this episode, they fully leaned into it, with a total of three over-the-top musical numbers. I mean, the truly authentic way to have a Jewish American TV episode is to make it musical, after all.

The episode was directed by Eyal Gordin, an Israeli-born director who had also worked with Garcia on “Earl,” and co-written by Paul A. Kaplan, who I assume is also Jewish (please forgive me if my assumption is wrong, Paul!!). It’s why a lot of the Jewish details in this episode are pretty perfect, from the way the rabbi pronounces the Hebrew words, to the way they’re written on the board, to the way it gets the Passover story, which is retold in a musical number at the supermarket aisle, to the seder’s rituals, including the consumption of salty tears.

When Burt tries to figure out what being a Jew really entails, he goes to the first place he can think of — a Jewish deli, of course. There, the owner, Saul, and his wife, Rose, break into a number called “What Makes a Jew a Jew,” which is slightly offensive and full of stereotypes about Ashkenazi Jews but also has a singing pastrami sandwich and bagel, so maybe I can forgive it.

There’s literally a man dressed up in a Hasidic costume with a bottle of Manischewitz on his head dancing to klezmer music in this number! And when the family sings about what a Jewish family is made up of, they declare it’s “overbearing mothers, movie-making brothers, fathers who earn money, schlubby sisters who are funny,” which is both incredibly rude, dated, offensive and also uncannily insightful, at least for this (sometimes) schlubby, funny Jewish sister.

Burt, convinced that he gets being Jewish, seeks out the local rabbi, Rabbi Zwerin, played by Jason Kravits, who has been in a TON of things you’ve definitely seen, and who also played a rabbi in the very Jewish Amazon show “Hunters.” That scene includes lots of accurately pronounced Hebrew words and one unfortunate joke about Jews being bad at sports.

The second musical number takes place at a grocery store, where Virginia is hoping to get seder tips from the store manager, who launches into a song with lyrics like, “My ex-wife was cruel/bordering on shrew-ish/but luckily for all of you, she happened to be Jewish." Virginia is there to drink in all the information, which is, as I’ve said, quite good and accurate, as she sings "I'm just a silly shiksha" while holding a sleeve of white bread and mayonnaise.

If the first two songs in the episode left me hanging between being offended and enraptured, then the last musical number is the one that really won me over. Titled “Rock the Torah,” it’s a Def Leppard style rock tune that I think should be a hype song for every b-mitzvah celebration. “They’re gonna lift you up/high on a chair/While we sing and dance the horah/You’re gonna know every word, you’re gonna know every prayer/You ain’t a schmendrik, you’re gonna rock the Torah,” Neff, who does have a Jewish father, though I’m not sure had an actual bar mitzvah, sings, the perfect hype words for his dad ahead of the ceremony. Rabbi Zwerin then rips his dress shirt to reveal a leather vest and giant Star of David bling as he sings, in reference to the Torah scroll, “don’t hold back, just rock and roll it.” There are women in Star of David bikinis and heels, the pastrami sandwich joins in, and Burt and Jimmy have an “Aladdin”-esque scene in which they float above U.S. cities upon a giant Torah scroll — slightly sacrilegious, but I’m sure no Torahs were harmed in the process.

Basically, it’s perfect.

The Jewish characters in the show, from deli owner Paul to Rabbi Zwerin, are all painted in such a positive light. They’re generous with their time and knowledge (and delicious food), and they help Burt feel at home in the Jewish religion and traditions. Yes, it’s “Ashkenormative,” but I mean, so are most Jewish delis and many Jewish communities in this country. The only people painted in a bad “stereotypical Jewish” light really are Burt’s parents who SPOILER ALERT aren’t even Jewish, but just throw the party so they can get those hefty bar mitzvah checks and use the money for a cruise.

When asked about why he made shows about “trailer trash” culture, Garcia once said: "I just like this world... growing up I had a friend that lived in a trailer park, and it was like Disneyland to me, it was exciting, and so I find myself writing these characters and I try not to laugh at these characters but laugh with them.” And while both “My Name Is Earl” and “Raising Hope” have some offensive jokes about this stratum of American society, they also give a human and affectionate portrayal of it — a kind of ode to this particular brand of Americana, and people who put family and friendship at the center of their lives and sometimes fail, like all of us. '

That’s how I feel about the Jewish representation in “Burt Mitzvah: The Musical”: There’s a constant undercurrent of deep affection for Jewish American Ashkenazi culture through this entire episode, and that’s why, despite some problematic aspects, I still love it so much a decade after it aired.

“Raising Hope” is available to stream on Amazon Freevee, so you can watch the whole episode for free!

Have you watched "Raising Hope?" What's your favorite bar/bat mitzvah TV episode? Let us know in the comments.