Segel may be the most soulful of the Jewish comic-romantic leads, a list that also includes Ben Stiller and Paul Rudd, and for this he partly credits his childhood, which, like that of many comedians, had its share of strife. Segel’s father is Jewish, his mother is not, and while he was raised Jewish, he attended an Episcopal middle school, followed in the afternoons by Hebrew school at Kehillat Israel in Pacific Palisades.
“At Hebrew school they told me I’m not Jewish, because my mother is Christian, and at Christian school I was the only Jewish student, so they didn’t like me,” he recalled. “It was kids standing around me in a circle, jumping on my back and chanting, ‘Ride the oaf!’ ”
Then there was the matter of Segel’s bar mitzvah invitations: “I got called into the principal’s office, like I’d done something wrong, and he said, ‘Everyone is very excited about your little party, but they don’t know what a bar mitzvah is. Would you mind getting up in front of the school and explaining?” he recalled. “So there I was, standing in front of the assembly, voice cracking, puberty-ridden Jason Segel, croaking, ‘On Saturday, I become a man’ — and it literally direct-cut afterwards to me getting punched in the face.”
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