Modi Rosenfeld had studied cantoral music in college and worked as an investment banker in his early 20s when he got a laugh out of his friends by imitating the secretaries at the firm he worked at. One open mic night at a comedy club later, and Rosenfeld is now the mononym MODI on stage and on his podcast And Here’s Modi, which he hosts with Periel Aschenbrand and his husband/manager Leo Veiga.
Ahead of his first (non-synagogue) performance in Minnesota at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul on Nov. 24, Modi talks about his rise from open mics, bringing the community together, and the need to laugh during a difficult past year.
(Editor’s note: The questions and answers have been lightly edited for clarity.)
TC Jewfolk: What got an investment banker into comedy?
Modi: I did that open mic night. It was the first time I ever did it, and the owner of the club said, ‘You got something. You should work on this.’ I got on at the Comedy Cellar in April 1994, and I kind of marked that as my date of beginning comedy, because the Comedy Cellar is like the Mecca of comedy. I was doing both jobs; I was doing investment banking and and comedy full-time. I was every night at the comedy clubs, and then on weekends doing whatever road gigs or Catskill gigs that were still around. Five years later I left banking to be full-time in comedy.
TCJ: How have you seen comedy evolve in your 30 years of being on-stage?
Modi: [That’s a] loaded question with so many angles. I’ll tell you a story where I knew comedy changed: There was a show called Last Comic Standing. I’m making a living doing stand-up comedy, doing well, bought an apartment. They asked people who are stand-up comedians to audition for this thing. And there was a line around the the place where they were auditioning of thousands of people who considered themselves stand-up comics. And that’s when I realized, this is not good. That was one big shift in stand-up comedy. And then you have, obviously, the internet, where you have all these people with an insane amount of followers because of one or two clips. But then you go see their show, and they are not stand-up comics.
TCJ: Your most recent special is Know Your Audience (recorded in April 2023, released a year later, and available to watch on YouTube), and there are so many moments where I’m laughing because it’s funny, and also shaking my head because all of these observations of Jewish community and Jewish life are true. Does that limit your potential audience?
Modi: It’s not just an hour-long riff. There’s me talking about being married to my millennial husband. There is the fundraising aspect of it. It’s literally a portal into the Jewish world through laughter and pride. It’s not just the same note being hit. But it was, it was a great special. And it’s, it’s doing great. it’s hard for them to watch a whole thing for an hour, but the clips, the one-minute, one-and-a-half-minute clips on Instagram and TikTok, those are in the millions. [An] insane amount of views because of the way people’s minds are. With the podcast now, the main reason for them is to grab clips from them. But when you go to a live comedy show, you go and laugh and have this moment. And it’s very healing. You feel great after a comedy show. It’s a live event, you’re with friends, you’re laughing, your phone’s away. It’s a different experience to see a live show.
TCJ: As a comedian and as a Jew, how has comedy changed for you since Oct. 7, 2023? Or has it not changed in the way that you tell some of these jokes and these stories, because people’s tolerances are different for that kind of thing now.
Modi: When the war began, we were in Israel. I had just done a week of shows for Sukkot. Then we flew to Paris and I had my first of four shows Oct. 9. The decision was, do we do this or not? We decided to do it. And I did the show as if nothing happened. And in the end, we sing Hatikvah. And I’ve been singing it at the end of every one of my shows. It gives the audience that feeling of we just laugh for an hour and a half. Is it okay? There’s a war going on. and then, boom, we focus. This is where our hearts are. All the energy we just created here. Let’s send that to Israel and I see it.
My favorite part about my show is we’ve been seeing people who I call “goyim, gays, and theys” coming to the show. We’re seeing that because of social media, all of the people who aren’t Jewish are bringing in their Jewish friends. All of the Jewish people are like, “You got to see this Jewish comedian.” So that’s been happening, and then we sing Hatikvah and it refocuses everybody. On top of laughing together for an hour and 20 minutes, we’ve just had another moment of just connecting together. The new tour, is called “Pause For Laughter.” You’ve gotta just pause for a minute laugh and then go back to your world…Even when there’s people in the audience cracking up, rolling over, I’m having the best time, and it’s cathartic. It’s just a great thing to do for your mental health.
