Daily Podcasts Video Research

Legendary ‘King of Comedy’ Jerry Lewis placed a weekly Jewish deli order, his son recalls

JL;DR SUMMARY Jerry Lewis, born Joseph Levitch, was a prominent Jewish comedian renowned for his energetic humor and philanthropic efforts, especially his association with the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA). A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

JL;DR members get full summaries of all articles in the archive, including this one. Donate & start reading »

Tags

YiddishJewish IdentityHollywoodPhilanthropyJewish ComediansBorscht BeltJerry LewisMuscular Dystrophy AssociationTelethonsDean Martin

Places mentioned

Dallas, Texas, United States
"2,000 physicians, researchers, pharmaceutical representatives, journalists and rare disease patients mingled in Dallas"
Newark, New Jersey, United States
"who was born in 1926 as Joseph Levitch at Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey."
Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
"He died in 2017 at the age of 91 at his home in Las Vegas."
New York, United States
"performed his first stand-up routine in 1942, at the age of 16, in the heavily Jewish Borscht Belt of the Catskills."
Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv District, Israel
"When he came home, he had Tel Aviv stickers all over his luggage"
Jerusalem, Israel
"but didnt have time to go to Jerusalem."

Support this source

This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 57115
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2025-07-17 05:30:45 UTC
Curated 2025-07-17 08:31:12 UTC