Seinfeld is Crying

Jerry Seinfeld is not known for showing his feelings. The man doesn’t do schmalz. He’d rather make you laugh. He’s a joke machine. Put a quarter in and he’ll tell you something funny. That’s what I’ve always thought about him. I wasn’t judging him. He was telling us this about himself. What he cares about and truly loves are jokes. 

But then, later in his life he got married and had kids. We began to see a slight shift in his comedy going from perfectly crafted bits about the yo-yo, to equally stellar routines about being married. Wait, he’s human? Apparently. Ever since he got married, both the comedian and the person began showing signs of maturity and genuine humanity. (Amazing what a woman can do!) But any time I’d ever see him on TV or in person, like when he popped into the Comedy Cellar, he was still just talking shop. He and Chris Rock are my two favorite comedy gurus to talk all things comedy. Every conversation, a master class. Still just about jokes, though. When I’m with Jerry, he doesn’t tell jokes, he just analyzes the craft of comedy like a physicist analyzing quantum mechanics.

When I’m with Jerry, he doesn’t tell jokes, he just analyzes the craft of comedy like a physicist analyzing quantum mechanics.

Then I watched my friend Bari Weiss interview him on her Free Press podcast, “Honestly” and I saw something I never thought I’d see: Jerry showing emotion. Jerry getting choked up when talking about his trip to Israel post Oct. 7. Jerry Seinfeld? Crying?

The man who spent much of his life refining bits about Pop-Tarts and then spending the past two years writing and directing a movie about the famed breakfast treat. The guy who, with his writing partner on Seinfeld, Larry David insisted that all episodes must abide by “No hugging. No learning.” They didn’t want their perfect comedy show to elicit feelings or any kind of teachable moments. Just laughs. Laughs are what matters to them. 

However, we are living in a different world now. Jerry has shown us his human side and his Jewish side. (His Judaism was another aspect of his life he barely even referenced on stage or in his sitcom). If getting married to Jessica and having three kids made him more human, then going to Israel with them and boldly speaking out about it made him a proud Jew.

If getting married to Jessica and having three kids made him a human, then going to Israel with them and boldly speaking out about it made him a proud Jew. 

Jerry’s personal growth, along with our new awful reality has made our greatest clown sob. That is how bizarre our society is right now. That even the guy who never showed us his tears or his Jewish pride have them both now on full display. 

Everything is now upside down right. Evil is good. Rape is resistance. Lies and false narratives are “my truth.” Israel is the bad guy and Iran are the good guys. Hamas and even bin Laden are modern-day heroes. Gen Z (the Z stands for Ztupid!) thinks it’s cool to side with barbaric terrorists and scream about a fabricated, blood libelous genocide while calling for an actual one.

Society is not doing well right now. And if the King of comedy is crying, we should all be bawling our eyes out.

Elon Gold is a comedian and actor.