Vampire Weekend's Surprising Jewish Stories
5 min read
Throughout Soresi’s impressive career, he’s embraced his Jewish identity onstage and off.
Last November, Gianmarco Soresi made his debut on “The Late Late Show with James Corden,” immediately jumping into his Jewish background and how it affects him in his everyday life.
While getting drinks at a bar from a German bartender, Soresi’s Jewishness came up.
“The bartender told me, ‘I’m so sorry for the Holocaust,’” Soresi told the Corden crowd. “How am I supposed to respond to that as a Jew? ‘No worries! Don’t let it happen again!’ I didn’t know, so I just said, ‘Could I get a free beer?’ And he said, ‘I would, but my boss would get mad,’ and I said, ‘I get it. You’re just following orders.’”
Soresi isn’t afraid to push the envelope, a trait that’s gotten him far in comedy since he started doing standup in 2016.
“Before that, I was just failing at acting,” he said. “And then I wrote an autobiographical play for the New York Fringe Festival, and a lot of the positive feedback was for the part where I was talking to the audience.”
Since stepping into standup, in addition to appearing on James Corden Soresi has also been a New Face at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal, a prestigious honor that has propelled many other comedians in their careers. He appeared with Tiffany Haddish and Billy Crystal in the movie “Here Today,” starred in his own special on Amazon Prime, and performs standup on the road 45 weekends a year.
“Doing standup is a real rush,” he said. “Everything is rockin’ and rollin’ and you feel the joy of getting laughter. When I’m offstage, my mind is always wandering, whether it’s because I’m ADD or OCD or just Jewish. When I’m on stage, I’m very present and alive and I’m in the moment.”
Soresi grew up in Potomac, Maryland, with a Jewish mother and an Italian father. However, he didn’t do much in terms of his Jewish practice. When his mom was a child, her parents asked her if she wanted to do a bat mitzvah or a sweet 16 party.
“She said she wanted a sweet 16,” he said. “That was the end of her really doing much practice. We went to temple maybe two times a year. We’d always do Pesach seder, and like a good theater kid I’d eagerly await when I could hold the book and read it out loud.”
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When the comedian was 26, he went on Birthright to Israel, and today he’s dating a woman with more of a background in Judaism.
“She grew up Chabad, which has definitely brought me close to Judaism,” he said.
Soresi lives on the Lower East Side, a neighborhood that was predominantly Jewish around the turn of the 20th century. He lives across from the Tenement Museum, a remnant of the Jewish history there, and he’s near Russ & Daughters, a legendary New York eatery that features top-quality smoked fish and lox.
Soresi is happy to go to Shabbat dinners and collaborate with a Chabad rabbi – together, they made a video promoting his standup dates. He also performs at Jewish community centers and entertains Jews of all ages.
“It feels like I’m being welcomed with open arms, even if I wasn’t raised to practice Judaism,” he said. “I enjoy being welcomed into that world.”
Judaism is something that he is deeply connected to, and he is proud of it – especially in the face of antisemitism. When he performed in a few places on the road, he mentioned he was Jewish on stage and received some pushback.
“People made an ‘eck’ comment,’” Soresi said. “This makes me feel more Jewish. I’m not going to pretend I was persecuted or anything, but their negative reaction makes me say, “Take a hike. This is who I am.”
When he posts about being Jewish online to his large following – he has 249,000 followers on Instagram and 595,000 on TikTok – he sometimes receives antisemitic comments as well.
“I’ll get 10 comments about ‘Free Palestine,’” he said. “It’s irrelevant to the thing I’m saying in the video. I’m an American Jew.”
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The biggest incident that stands out in his mind is when he got messages from an audience member that said, “I hope Hitler sends you back to a concentration camp so you can write some new material.”
Soresi joked, “I think he had a misunderstanding of what a concentration camp is. It’s not an artists’ retreat. But I can take this in stride because I don’t feel threatened. This person was obviously going through something.”
Looking ahead, Soresi hopes to keep touring as well as film a one-hour special. He also has a podcast he records regularly – it focuses on cynicism.
“My podcast is called ‘The Downside,’ and it’s all about complaining,” he said. “It’s even more Jewish than I thought it could be.”
He’s enjoying being on stage and making people laugh, and would keep doing it no matter what happens with his career.
“Someone messaged me and said, ‘I’m going through chemotherapy, and your clips brought me joy,’” he said. “I get so much joy because this is exactly what I want to do. I would keep doing standup even if someone messaged me and said, ‘I hate your comedy.’ But I am glad that people enjoy it.”
Featured photos by Mindy Tucker
To a man who obviously outgrew his background and found his identity: Welcome to ongoing Jewish life. In your upcoming project about complaining, let me suggest a key word to you. The word is KVETCH. We all do it. It's the sound and the gesture of objection, protest -- complaint. Could be the theme of a great show!
His comedy is indeed edgy. In view of the horrors of the Holocaust, I believe he may be going too far. There are too many who had family killed by the Nazis and will not and should not find anything to laugh about. I’m shocked that Aish would allow that clip and and story of it to be put up on their site. I often repost your articles on Facebook but won’t do so here because I don’t want to offend anyone as he is doing.
Last thing, you mention his Jewish mother and an Italian father without saying if the father was an Italian Jew or a Gentile. Yes there are Jews who are Italian.
Yeah, I heard a survivor finally died and went to Gan Eden and tried telling a Holocaust joke. When HaShem didn't find it funny the Jew remarked, "(To find it funny), I guess you had to be there."