[bright music] - I am from this really racist part of Boston called Boston, and... [audience laughs] - [Hari] Alex Edelman is a comedian who was raised in an Orthodox Jewish household in Brookline, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston.

He's appeared on "Comedy Central," "Stephen Colbert" and "Conan."

- I've never had bacon, I'm that kind of Jew.

I've never tried bacon.

I've tried cocaine, but I've never tried bacon.

[audience laughing] - [Hari] His humor reflects his upbringing and examines antisemitism, racism, and Jewish identity.

- Judaism is the Hotel California of religion.

[audience laughs] It is a mailing list you can never unsubscribe from.

- [Hari] We met up with Edelman in his hometown to talk about humor, hate, and where the two meet.

- I actually, I think comedy and discomfort are right up there against each other, especially the best comedy.

We used to have great antisemites.

[Hari laughing] We did, and we had Henry Ford, and Henry Ford invented cars, created jobs.

These were antisemites, you know what I mean?

- [Hari] Edelman's one man show, titled "Just for Us," includes the story of how he crashed a meeting of neo-Nazis in Queens, New York.

You'll have to come to the show to find out how that worked out.

The production has toured through Boston, London, and New York and opened on Broadway in June.

- Wow!

[laughs] - Alex?

- Yeah, hey, Hari.

- [Hari] Come on in.

- Hey, this is bananas.

[playful music] Let's go get something to eat.

- Yeah.

- This is my neck of the woods, and I think a lot of the restaurants I grew up with are still open.

So Boston was a great place to grow up, and it's a big, little city, so everyone comes through.

You could go see the Dalai Lama on a Friday night.

It was like a mixture of big worlds and small worlds, especially for me, it was religious.

- When did you get into comedy?

- I was 15.

- Okay.

- Maybe a little older, I can't remember.

- Did you think you were funny?

- No, I still don't think I'm funny.

[Hari laughs] I went to go see a show called "Comics Come Home," and it blew my mind.

The jokes were these really beautiful, little funny ideas and not a single one of them was Jewish, [Hari laughs] not a single one.

But there was something very Talmudic?

I don't know, also, who doesn't love to laugh?

I want my show to be a night out for people even if they're gonna have to think about something, and there's a little more heft there.

It should be a night at the theater where you're laughing.

And I remember the first time I was aware of being Jewish.

I should have been aware like eight days in, but the first time I was aware, [audience laughing] The first time you're changed by it, right?

But the first time I was aware, I was at a children's birthday party at a Chuck E. Cheese in Natick, Massachusetts.

And I reached for a slice of pizza that had some sausage on it or pepperoni, something not kosher, and my grandfather was there, and he kicked my hand, kicked, [audience laughs] and he said, "You can't have that David, we're Jewish."

And I said, "What does that mean?"

And he said, "It means you'll never be happy."

[audience laughs] - Milchig.

- Milchig.

- Milchig and fleishig, fleishig means meat, that you can't have a restaurant that is Milchig and fleishig.

It either has to have milk or it has to have meat.

- Got it.

[car door closes] - So this place is Milchig.

- Okay.

- And this place is fleishig.

Rami's is probably the best.

Do you have shawarma today?

- Yes, we do.

- And what's good for a vegetarian?

- Falafel.

- All right.

- [Employee] That's what we're known for.

[bright piano music] - Oh, that looks good.

- It's really good.

- Taking you back?

- It was the taste of my childhood, right here.

- In your show, you talk about how you met a comedian who was kind of telling you comedy's potential.

- I ran into a comic that I really admire, and she said to me, "Hey, you should try to make "your comedy a little more ambitious.

"You should write a political show."

I took this as a little challenge to do a show that was personal and funny and accessible and specific and political, and it took years to put together.

It took like four years to put together this show.

The show is about me going to this meeting of White Nationalists - Some would say going to a meeting of White Nationalists was an unusual choice for a Jewish comedian.

What made you want to go to a place, well, I guess what was the hook that drew you in?

- I'll go anywhere.

[Hari chuckles] All I ever wanted was to go to different places.

Like I'm curious, it's my defining characteristic, being curious.

I'm earnestly interested in people whose lives are different from mine.

I'm curious about the reasoning behind it.

Sometimes you get there and find that there's not much reasoning.

That meeting that I went to is not the only time I've hung out with people who have lots of hate in them.

I grew up in Boston.

[laughs] - What would you like people who experience your show to feel or think as they leave?

Is there anything else, as the creator of this work, that you have an intent for?

- Yeah, that's such a good question.

I love to induce doubt.

My show is, in some ways, it's sort of tangentially about this relationship between Jews and whiteness.

'Cause to me it's a show about assimilation, and it's show about identity, which is why I think you can enjoy it if you've never met a Jew in your life.

I did the show in Wales to people who came up to me afterwards and said, "We've never met Jews," and totally fine.

They loved the show, it was fine.

- Do you think that antisemitism is worse now than when you were growing up as a kid?

- I don't know, genuinely, I have no idea.

- Is it just because we're seeing it more, because you have Twitter- - That's what I mean, I don't know.

I think antisemitism, I've never been surprised by antisemitism, that's the thing.

I know that lots of Jews don't feel safe.

- I know some of that is correlated with how Jewish they appear, which is really a problem.

People come up to me after shows in comedy clubs in places that are not in New York and Los Angeles and tell me, very happily, that they don't like Jews, but then I'm okay.

And now I'm just like, "Okay, thanks."

- Wow.

[bright piano music] - This is a bookstore that carries the- - The Israel Bookshop, wow.

- The Israel Bookshop.

- This is Little Israel.

- This could be the poster for my show, just me running a whole bunch of, you know...

This is such a hyper specific thing.

Some of these titles won't even make sense to you.

So if you're raised this specific, you have to talk about it.

I didn't want him for a long time.

My full name, get ready, isn't Alex Edelman.

My full name is David Yosef Shimon ben Elazar Reuven Alexander HaLevi Edelman, that is my full name.

I go by Alex now, and my family has noticed the change.

[audience laughs] [bright piano music] - [Hari] Oh, oh, now you're talking my language.

- The rugelach is really solid.

[Hari and Alex talking] - You're going to Broadway.

How'd that happen?

- Genuinely, this is the craziest thing that's ever happened to me.

So I started doing the show in like 20 person rooms.

It's kind of built and built, and we got some really nice reviews, but I never ever thought I'd get a chance to do a Broadway show, you know what I mean?

- Well, it's just interesting that it keeps having this set of legs.

- Jews feel seen by the show, because it's specific, but it's still comedy.

It's still really accessible for folks, and people seem to really appreciate the standup and the jokes and the questions that are in it no matter if they're Jewish or not.

Afterwards I stand outside, and I answer any question anyone has about identity or Judaism or the show.

And I've had a whole bunch of really interesting, crazy conversations.

[bright music continues]