At a time when being Jewish feels so fraught, the “Roastmaster General” Jeff Ross gets on stage six days a week and makes an entire Broadway theater sing “Don’t Fuck With the Jews,” karaoke style. The song was inspired by Jeff’s fierce Jewish great-grandmother, Rosie, and instead of a plain bouncing ball booping across the screen, the audience gets a bouncing matzah ball to guide us through the lyrics of the song.
It’s one of many wonderfully affirming moments in Ross’ one man show, “Take a Banana for the Ride.” The title comes from Ross’ grandfather, a WWII veteran, with whom the comedian lived as a young man. Some nights, he’d send Ross into the city, armed with bus fare and a bright yellow dose of potassium, to follow his passion at the Big Apple’s comedy clubs.
The bananas paid off. Most of us know Ross, born Jeffrey Ross Lifschultz to a working-class Jewish family in Newark, as the “Roastmaster General,” the emcee of roasts for the likes of Tom Brady, Gene Simmons and countless other icons (including, yes, President Donald Trump).
But Ross’ career making fun of cultural icons is not what takes center stage here (though the show does include clips of him making fun of Dr. Ruth and Bea Arthur). It’s Ross’ family, the one he was born to and the one he chose, comprised of two-legged and four-legged companions, that is at the center of what is probably the biggest warm hug of a show one can find on Broadway right now. It is an ode to Jewish family with a touch of tikkun olam.
Dressed in a yellow “bruised banana” suit, as he calls it in our interview over Zoom, Ross takes the stage and talks about his loved ones: His mother, who died after a battle with leukemia when Ross was just 14. His grandmother Rosie who helped start the family business, Clinton Manor, an event hall and catering business that Judy Blume once said was where every New Jersey girl dreamed of getting married. His father, who died from a brain aneurysm due to cocaine use when Ross was 19. His grandfather, who wore a ring on his finger made out of a piece of metal he took from a Nazi submarine when he was a soldier. His late friends, Bob Saget, Gilbert Gottfried and Norm Macdonald. He shares how lucky he feels that despite having lost so many loved ones, he still has a really big roster of emergency contacts who are there for him in his toughest moments.
Ross had me howling with laughter — and on one occasion, literally howling! In a tribute to Ross’ late pet, his German Shepherd Nana, he sings and leads the audience in howls — it was my favorite moment of the show. In a haze of isolation and loneliness during the pandemic, an ex-girlfriend dropped Nana off in Ross’ backyard, and the comedian took to her, even adopting a younger fellow German Shepherd as her friend. Ross, of course, unable to resist a good Nazi joke (this is the man who gave us the historical roast of Anne Frank, after all) would imagine the dogs as persistent German-accented soldiers who would question him, “Where are you hiding the treats, Jew? In the attic?” And as Nana was ailing, he would blow marijuana smoke and imagine her thinking to herself: “You’re one of the good ones.”
“Take a Banana for the Ride” is full of Jewish moments and Ross’ Jewish American lived experience. Aside from “Don’t Fuck With the Jews,” which also contains a list of Jewish inventions (from vaccines to kugel), he takes us to bat mitzvahs, Hanukkah celebrations and Jewish funerals. He gives us little glimpses of being a working-class Jew. There are multiple mentions of “Fiddler on the Roof,” puns about Barbra Streisand and mentions of past Jewfros (RIP). There’s a heart-wrenching nod to Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” Ross’ mother’s favorite song, a heavy does of Yiddishism and a few fortunate (or perhaps unfortunate) Jewish Jesus jokes. (I mean, it’s Jeff Ross — he had to go there.)
In a big theater, Ross does the equivalent of opening his family’s photo albums to us. Behind him on golden framed screens are changing pictures and videos of him with his family and with his friends. He reads old love letters his parents sent each other. He shares missives his parents left for him — with blueprints of how to love someone, how to take accountability, how to be vulnerable and caring — that it’s clear are imprinted in Ross himself. He brings to life intimate conversations with his grandfather and precious moments with his friends — singing “Sunrise, Sunset” with Gottfried, sharing a video birthday message from Saget — and shares vulnerable moments of his own, filling the screens with hospital selfies from his battle with colon cancer just last year and even bringing his dog on stage for the final curtain call.
And Ross doesn’t keep all that love to himself. At the end of every show, in his own version of tikkun olam, the comedian walks down the orchestra with a camera crew and a black tote filled with bananas.
He asks people who have troubles or simchas they’d like to share to stand up.
He roasts them. (His roasts are filled with love, and made everyone in the room feel closer.)
Then he gives them a banana for the ride.
As Ross walked through the crowd at the show I attended, he made people feel seen in a way I’ve never seen in a Broadway theater. He shared his raunchiest jokes with an overjoyed 10th grader. He cheered on a small-town transplant to the city. And when a man, who Ross joked looked like a “Law and Order SVU” extra, talked about how he was grieving the fresh loss of his sister, Ross asked him for her name — and then dedicated the evening’s show to her.
Finding myself laughing, weeping and feeling tied to a moment of communal grief with an entire audience at the Nederlander Theatre was not how I ever expected to spend a Saturday night in the city — but I am so grateful I did.
“Take a Banana for the Ride” is on at the Nederlander Theatre through Sept. 28, 2025.
