When Jake Ehrenreich was a kid, the American and Jewish sides of his personality seemed like two separate things to him. Now 54 and the author/star of a one-man, off-Broadway hit show, “A Jew Grows in Brooklyn,” Ehrenreich said those once-seemingly-divergent sides of his persona have melded into a seamless whole.
Ehrenreich will take audiences along on his journey to acceptance — with lots of jokes and songs and a few tears along the way — when he comes to town next mo nth for four performances of “A Jew Grows in Brooklyn,” (See below for details)
The show is being staged at the White Theatre as a fundraiser for five local Jewish groups: three synagogues, KU Hillel and the Jewish Community Center.
JCC Vice President for Cultural Arts Herb Buchbinder said he saw Ehrenreich do it in Phoenix a couple years ago.
“My goal is to bring in Jewish entertainment that is relevant and that will also sell tickets,” Buchbinder said. “You don’t have to be Jewish or from Brooklyn to enjoy the show, but I happen to be both, so I really liked it. He’s got a good story to tell. … It wouldn’t have played off Broadway for a year if it was only for a Jewish audience.”
Ehrenreich has earned a raft of raves from critics up and down the East Coast, starting with the New York Times in 2006. And while, with its rock soundtrack and homage to the Catskills, “A Jew Grows in Brooklyn” seems tailored to Baby Boomers, Ehrenreich said people of every age and ethnicity have responded to the show.
“The story is serious,” Ehrenreich said. “But for people to stay engaged in what is ultimately a serious, tragic story, I try to tell it with humor and music, and at the end there is a rebirth. The overriding theme for me is that we all have challenges to deal with, and we have the opportunity to deal with them in way that supports life and future and joy. … But you can’t just say that, so I wrap it up with jokes and stories and songs.” Ehrenreich, who sings and plays the drums, trumpet and trombone in the show, (he has a backup band onstage with him), said he has been a musician for most of his life. No, it’s not the Fonz, it’s Jake Ehrenreich, creator of ‘A Jew Grows in Brooklyn.’
“Later on, I would sing from behind the drums, and later I got up and started to sing for real. I did jingles. I led a band at the Rainbow Room. I sang in a lot of different styles … and then I started to be asked to do shows as a singer in musicals.” He even toured in “Beatlemania” as Ringo. “But I have always been a musician, and I still consider myself one,” Ehrenreich said. “I came very close to getting the gig with KISS when Peter Criss left in the ’80s. That was cool. I almost got a lot of gigs; Edgar Winter, but I did end up doing a lot of work.” Rock ’n’ roll was part of the dichotomy of Ehrenreich’s early life. “My life was really split in two halves,” he said. “One was wanting to be an American kid. I loved rock ’n’ roll and Christmas music and Mickey Mantle. And then there was the other part — my parents’ lives. They were Holocaust survivors, and our family spoke Yiddish at home and played Yiddish music. And for me, as a kid, they didn’t match up.” Ehrenreich’s struggle for identity is reflected in the various first names by which he has gone during his lifetime: Yanki, Jack and Jake. Ehrenreich said the new book version of “A Jew Grows in Brooklyn” gets even deeper into it than the stage show. Subtitled “The Curious Reflections of a First-Generation American,” it came out in April from HCI, publisher of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series. Although his given name is Jacob Isaac, “I was called Yanki growing up,” Ehrenreich said. “Later I called myself Jack. I’m Jake because in the early ’80s I got the opportunity to do a show about Jewish immigration to America, ‘The Golden Land,’ off-Broadway, which I did at the behest of my dad. And at that point I thought ‘If I am ever going to use my real name, this is the time.’ … So they asked me my name … and everybody called me Jake, and that kind of stuck; it came to me organically. Jack came out of embarrassment.” Survivors’ story Ehrenreich said his parents survived the Shoah by spending the war in a Siberian work camp. “My sister, Wanda, was born in a Siberian work camp. My sister, Joanie, was born in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany. I was finally born here,” Ehrenreich said. “My parents dealt with their circumstances in very different ways. … My mother was really not right; she never got over the loss of her family. My father (Ed. note: Jonah Ehrenreich) was a scholar, and he became a great writer. He wrote 500 articles about Yiddishkeit and the shtetl that were published all over the place. He was a simple, wise person. ... Unfortunately, both my mother and my sisters developed early Alzheimer’s disease. So I understood that the way we deal with stress has a lot to do with our health and happiness. I made a conscious decision to try to live in joy as much as possible. “So when I tell my family’s story, ultimately, I remember the good times. What I hope people take away from it is that, regardless of the challenges in their lives, they have a choice; what their challenges mean to them, they define it. You don’t get to choose your circumstances, but you can focus on the things you can be grateful for, and that really defines a person’s life.” “I think laughter opens us up emotionally,” he said. “It’s very healing. … Families like mine had a place like the Catskills, a resort area that we went to in the summer. The early comedians worked there. I remember seeing people like Jackie Mason, Shecky Greene. … And as a kid, I watched as my parents laughed, and you would just see that they forgot their cares for a little period of time. … For people like my folks, it was a way that they started to learn to laugh again.” Ehrenreich said synthesizing the disparate parts of his heritage first in a stage show and now in book form has been highly rewarding. “I sneak four Yiddish songs into the show,” he said. “I throw it in because that’s what I grew up with. The same with the Christmas medley. Growing up, I didn’t see them as religious songs, but as American. “So I have this double life. But now I realize it’s one life. We are all of those things. And that’s the beauty of our country. So I got to tell my story on stage. I got to tell it in a book. I couldn’t have dreamed a better scenario for me. I have a 12-year-old son, so it’s ultimately a story of rebirth.”
Struggle for identity
Healing power
Ehrenreich is grateful for having caught the tail end of the Catskills resort era, first as a youth, spending summers in its pastoral bungalow colonies, far from the concrete fields of Brooklyn, and later as a performer.
‘A Jew Grows’ at White Theatre
The Jewish Community Center, KU Hillel and Congregations Beth Shalom and B’nai Jehudah and Kehilath Israel Synagogue present Jake Ehrenreich in “A Jew Grows in Brooklyn” at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sunday and Monday, Dec. 4, 5 and 6, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 5, at the White Theatre at the Jewish Community Campus, 5801 W. 115th St. Tickets are $50 and can be purchased online at jcckc.org/brooklyn or at the box office.