The lights dimmed, and the announcer cued, \u201c…And here\u2019s MODI.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Rosenfeld, who goes by MODI professionally, stepped into the spotlight and made the audience laugh for a full hour\u2014myself included. By the end of the first set, mascara ran down my cheeks, and my face ached.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When we spoke a few months later, MODI, who showed up in gold aviators which he kept on the whole time, admitted, \u201cI never imagined myself as a performer.\u201d No one, not even MODI himself, knew that he was funny until he was in his late twenties.<\/span><\/p>\n Born in Israel but raised on Long Island in an Orthodox Jewish home, he had a severe stutter as a kid. Somehow, when he sang, the stutter lifted. School was a struggle, too. \u201cI had horrible SAT scores,\u201d MODI said. \u201cLuckily, I was the star of my school play, \u2018Fiddler on the Roof.\u2019 For some reason, colleges love it when you play Tevye.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Though he majored in psychology at BU, a subject that continues to offer him insight into how audiences react to jokes, his elective voice classes at the College of Fine Arts also had a lasting impact. In rehearsals, he learned that by redirecting his voice to sing or speak from the front of his face to the back of his throat, he could stop tripping over L\u2019s and S\u2019s.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n After graduating, MODI got a job as a technician in a hospital\u2019s psychiatric ward, then switched gears to a career as an investment banker. During lunch breaks, he entertained cubicle mates with dead-on impressions of colleagues.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When a friend suggested he take the jokes to a local open mic night, MODI agreed on a whim. He stepped onto a stage for the first time in 1993 and brought the house down.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt was such an ego boost.\u201d He was instantly addicted.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n What started as a hobby somersaulted into a career. By 1994, MODI was \u201cpassed\u201d at\u00a0 New York City\u2019s quintessential standup venue, the Comedy Cellar, the same club where many of the big names in the industry got their start too, from Jon Stewart to Kevin Hart. That meant he became a paid regular, which he considers the \u201cthe real start\u201d of his career. After he appeared on Comedy Central and HBO, he quit his day job in 1999 and went all-in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n MODI deeply defined and built his repertoire after he was booked to perform in the Catskills at the kitsch all-inclusive resorts that formed \u201cThe Borscht Belt\u201d where generations of Manhattan Jews historically summered. Sadly, \u201cthe Yiddish Alps\u201d scene, which boomed from the 1920s through the 1960s, was peppered with closings and demolitions by the time MODI took the stage in the late 90s\u2014and is now totally defunct.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI was only 25 years old, the youngest comic by at least 50 years up there,\u201d he says. For a few years, he delivered two daily shows, with sets ranging from ten minutes to a full hour. There was always a band onstage, too, and MODI often accompanied them with a song at the end. \u201cThe Catskills took me from being a comedian to being a performer.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n There, he was deeply influenced by the older comedians he met, such as Stewie Stone, Freddie Roman, and Mal Z. Lawrence. His greatest hero among them was the legendary Jewish comedian Jackie Mason, whose advice steered MODI\u2019s career: \u201cKnow your audience, and the rest will follow.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Modi took Mason\u2019s advice to heart and leaned into entertaining the Jewish community around the country, headlining nonprofit fundraisers and synagogue galas.<\/span><\/p>\n Much of his content still comes from that national circuit. He mocks the organizing committees\u2019 thank-you speeches, a staple at Jewish fundraisers, and jokes about how he\u2019s often called onstage while a gala audience is still teary-eyed after watching a video about a rare medical condition. Once, at a fundraising luncheon at a nonprofit board member\u2019s private home, the stage was set up in front of a Holocaust remembrance statue. While this scenario would make most people cringe, for MODI, it presented an invitation to broach sensitive subjects.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He now deliberately refers to the Holocaust in each act to raise awareness. For example, Josef Mengele, the notorious Nazi \u201cAngel of Death,\u201d sneaks into one joke\u2019s punchline. \u201cI hope that people who don\u2019t know who Mengele is will Google and learn about the atrocities,\u201d MODI said.<\/span><\/p>\n In 2020, MODI married <\/span>Leo Veiga<\/span><\/a>, a millennial he met on the subway in a love-at-first-sight scenario. Until announcing their wedding, MODI hadn\u2019t come out as a gay man because, as he told <\/span>Variety<\/span><\/i><\/a> in 2023, he was always out. \u201cI never spoke about having a girlfriend or a boyfriend. I was always speaking about being Jewish,\u201d he said. \u201cMy comedy is observational. So naturally, all my life observations right now are about living with this man.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n With the first COVID-19 lockdown, MODI panicked, assuming that his entire schtick, which at the time was modeled around in-person performances, had shut down, too. But Veiga, a creative professional, helped MODI pivot by positioning his husband as an internet sensation, with a viral YouTube channel, bite-sized Instagram reels, and by launching a weekly podcast. <\/span>And Here\u2019s MODI<\/span><\/i> celebrated its 100th episode with <\/span>a live recording<\/span><\/a> at New York\u2019s 92nd Street Y in February 2024.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When pandemic restrictions were lifted, MODI had grown so popular that in addition to bringing in money from his online work, he also started selling out theaters all over the United States, Europe, and Israel for the first time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n On October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel and war broke out, MODI\u2014in the midst of a six-performance tour\u2014was jolted awake by air raid sirens in his Jaffa hotel. He caught a flight back to New York City, and threw himself into pushing out even more content incorporating current events and rising waves of Jewish hate\u2014consciously choosing to create a place for people to go for relief in between refreshing their newsfeeds for war updates.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"\/cas\/files\/2024\/08\/Modi_42-e1723579324930.jpg\")
From Comedy Clubs to the Borscht Belt<\/b><\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"\/cas\/files\/2024\/08\/modi_special-636x354.png\")
Going Viral<\/b><\/h3>\n