Stand-up: Nik Rabinowitz: Mountain Jew
8 October, 19:30
HMS Bloemhof Centre
The first sign that Nik Rabinowitz: Mountain Jew would be no ordinary stand-up show was the giant screen mounted at the back of the stage.
As the audience filed into the HMS Bloemhof Centre, it glowed with an image of Rabinowitz dressed up as Moses, holding aloft the burning bush – on what looked like Mount Sinai. On either side of the bush stood a mirrored Rabinowitz in a suit and tie. It was a startling introduction to an even more startling performance.
The show, Rabinowitz explained, answers a question he has been asked all his life: “What kind of Jew are you?”
His answer has never changed: “I’m a hunter, gatherer, mountain Jew.”
That answer set off a genealogical journey through his family history, beginning with his great-grandparents who left Lithuania for the tip of Africa.
Using a slideshow of family photographs, ancestral documents and detailed research, Rabinowitz pieced together who he was in front of the audience, in real time.
Nik Rabinowitz performs his stand-up show Nik Rabinowitz: Mountain Jew at HMS Bloemhof Centre on 8 October. PHOTO: Supplied/Woordfees
And what family tree is complete without a visit to Mavericks (a Cape Town strip club)? While receiving a lap dance from an Eastern European dancer, he told the audience, he learned the correct pronunciation of his surname, which means “son of a rabbi” in Russian.
The audience responded warmly to the retelling of the life of his father, Hyme. After fighting in the Second World War, Hyme abandoned his plans to become an accountant, then appeared on the cover of Huisgenoot in 1949, and eventually settled on pottery.
On a road trip through the Wild Coast, Hyme and Rabinowitz’s mother, Jenifer, discovered she was pregnant. According to Rabinowitz, his father proposed at the entrance to the hospital, and the couple went straight to the magistrate’s office to get married.
Fast-forward through his birth, circumcision and delayed puberty, and Rabinowitz still never dreamt of becoming a comedian. He wavered between becoming a professional cricketer, a rugby player and, like his father, a potter. But in the end, it seemed a career in comedy found him.
Rabinowitz closed with an account of his father’s death. It was a sombre note to end such a funny performance, but it suited the story: Bringing his family history that had led him to the stage to its close.