What was unusual about Jon Stewart's bar mitzvah?
A. Actress Bebe Neuwirth (known for her role as Frasier Crane’s wife Lilith) grew up in Princeton near Jon Stewart (then known as Jonathan Leibowitz). She is four years older than Stewart, and actually worked as his bar mitzvah tutor at the Princeton Jewish Center.
B. Stewart and his family were not religious and he did not have a bar mitzvah at age 13. When he started doing stand-up in New York in the mid-1980’s, he was taken under the wing of Manny Dworman, owner of the Comedy Cellar where Stewart got his start. When Dworman learned that Stewart had not had a bar mitzvah, he arranged for Jon to do so at the club on Stewart’s 26th birthday, which they billed as Jon Stewart’s Double Bar Mitzvah and Comedy Hootenanny.
C. Jon’s bar mitzvah parsha was Lech Lecha. In his speech, he quoted Chapter 17, verse 5 where God said, “Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham.” Stewart then said that God “called me last night and said ‘Neither shall thy name any more be called Jonathan Leibowitz, but thy name shall be Jon Stewart.’ So please make out the bar mitzvah checks to Jon Stewart. That’s S. T. E. W. A. R. T. Thank you and good Shabbos.”
D. He was on crutches because he learned the hard way that “playing basketball on a skateboard” wasn’t a good idea right before your bar mitzvah.
E. Jon’s parents had divorced when he was 11, and his mother struggled financially. Jon had a bar mitzvah at the Princeton Jewish Center, but there was no party. After the ceremony, his mother took Jon and his three brothers to lunch at Jon’s favorite restaurant, Arby’s, or as Jon called it, “Arby’s. The fast food restaurant that makes a Jew long for kosher meat.”