Posted on June 8, 2008 by Steve Pollak

Lewis Black: 'Can I get an amen!'

Check out comedian Lewis Black promoting his new book, “Me of Little Faith.”

Black apparently had been fairly well-versed in Judaism at one point. According to a recent article in the Chicago Sun-Times, he had a vocabulary of 50,000 Hebrew words.

But, as he told the Sun-Times interviewer, his Jewish practice has become a thing of the past. Here's what he said when asked how his Jewishness has evolved over the years:

It's evolved into practically nothing [laughs] in terms of my showing up at temple or practicing. I won't go to Passover… I'm constantly being invited to Passover seder. And for lots of my friends it seems to be something they find a great deal of joy in. And Passover just makes me slightly miserable. But I did find that kind of leaving the community on a regular basis and in essence being defined as different created an empathy for me with people who are different. And it made it easy to be different once I didn't feel threatened by not buying the party line.

If for no other reason, you should check out the rest of the interview just for laughs.

Me of Little Faith” is published by Riverhead. (256 pages).

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