5 things you didn't know about Jackie Mason

For 60 years Jackie Mason has been a stand-up comic, actor, and outspoken advocate for a united Israel. He uses perfect timing to deliver his style of a mixture of political satire, everyday observations, and insults to leave his audience laughing. In his acting career probably two of his more memorable role were in “Caddyshack II” and a recurring role in “The Simpsons”. In 1989 he was given his own sitcom “Chicken Soup” but it didn't even last a full season.

There is much to Jackie Mason than the comedy. The following are 5 facts that you might not have known about him:

He was an ordained Rabbi

In the early 1950's Jackie Mason, Yacov Moshe Maza, followed in the footsteps of his three brothers, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather that all were called to be Rabbis. Not long after being ordained he realized that being a Rabbi wasn't for him. After three years he left the Synagogue to peruse his comic dreams. In some of his routines he jokes about his time as a Rabbi and how his jokes would attract gentiles to his serums. As he put it in routine “I was the only Rabbi with an all gentile congregation.”

His was fired from his first comedy job

Jackie Mason grew up in an area referred to as the borscht belt, a Jewish region of New York. Just like comics of that region have been doing for decades he started his stand-up career at the Fieldston Hotel in Swan Lake, New York. He worked their for much of the Summer of 1955 but the Hotel let him go when it was apparent that audiences where uncomfortable with his routine that they felt was ridiculing them.

He sued Ed Sullivan

On an episode of the Ed Sullivan Show, in 1964, Jackie Mason was accused of giving Mr. Sullivan the finger. The result of that incident was that Mr. Mason was banned from the show and his contract 6 more appearances was torn up. Mr. Mason brought a libel suit against Mr. Sullivan and won. The resulting feud between the two lasted for years until Mr. Mason was invited back in 1968. Even though he made a return the incident still hampered his career until the early 1980's.

He married late in life

With his busy career Jackie Mason didn't have have much time for dating. It wasn't until he was well established that he even thought about marriage. In 1991 he finally decide it was time to tie the knot. So, at the age of 60 he married Jyll Rosenfeld who also became his business manager. Their marriage did experience one straining moment in 2012 when Jackie Mason was involved in a domestic dispute with another woman.

He sued the group Jews for Jesus

In 2006 Mr. Mason filed a lawsuit against the group Jews for Jesus when they used his imagine on one of their pamphlets with the question “Jackie Mason...a Jew for Jesus?”. The suit was dropped when the group relented and removed the image and apologized to the comedian.

“We would have liked to get some money for Israel out of this,” Mr. Mason’s lawyer, Raoul Felder, said yesterday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, minutes after both sides announced a settlement.