Passover With Jewish Comedians- Mo Mandel

Passover is just a couple days away. Time to get together with family, eat good food, and share stories.

Shalom Life asked 5 of our favorite Jewish comedians to share a Passover memory.

What did Mo Mandel have to say?

Memory #1- Mo Mandel

My favorite memories of Passover are of watching the movie the “Ten Commandments” on TV year after year. They’d always put it on one channel or another around this time and it was one of the only movies that my parents would ever let me stay up late to watch. It was a like an action movie with Jews! I’m not sure that I ever gathered any religious significance from the film, but, at that age, Moses was the closest that I could get to watching James Bond. Turning his wooden stick into a snake? That dude was badass! I would practice for hours in my yard, hurling a piece of wood around as though I were playing fetch with an imaginary dog. Though I never successfully pulled off the trick, it made me happy to think that at one time Jews were tough and possessed the necessary skills to build a pyramid if need be. These ancient Jews were different from the Jews that I grew up with. They would put their babies in baskets and float them down the river. This seemed a far cry from my father who wouldn’t even start the car unless I was already wearing my seatbelt. I imagined myself living back in this time; fighting for freedom and wandering the desert with beautiful dark haired women whose perfect make up some how held up flawlessly beneath the boiling sun.

It’s funny to look back on this movie now and realize that Moses was being played by Charlton Heston. I don’t know much about the guy, but I’m hard pressed to imagine him having a Bar Mitzvah, unless it involved Jesus and ample firearms.

But, I guess like most memories, this one is best when I don’t think too much about it. It’s special not because of what was actually going on but because of the thoughts and feelings that it brought up for me, as an innocent kid whose mind always went to places of magic and wonder. So who cares if it was historically accurate, held any religious significance, or if the guy playing Moses was circumcised not? I’ll just be grateful for the happiness that it brought me, smile, and keep trying to turn that stick into a snake.

Buy Mo Mandel’s latest Comedy Central CD, “The M-Word” on iTunes here

Visit Mo at www.momandel.com

Mo Mandel is a talented young comedian and actor who regularly appears on the hit show CHELSEA LATELY and who will be starring opposite Hank Azaria in a new sitcom on NBC this fall called FREE AGENTS. Mandel has also made appearances on MODERN FAMILY, CONAN, LOVE BITES, CRAIG FERGUSON, and in his own highly rated COMEDY CENTRAL HALF HOUR SPECIAL. Mandel's first CD, "THE M-WORD" comes out soon on Comedy Central Records. Come see him now before he becomes successful enough to justify having a full-blown drug addled meltdown.