The Jackie Mason Memorial Fund
Throughout a 60-year career, legendary comedian Jackie Mason delighted audiences with his brilliant wit and irresistible humor. His incredible flair for capturing the comical endeared him to legions of fans worldwide.
The Jackie Mason Memorial Fund was created by a core of family and friends to perpetuate Jackie’s memory by sponsoring charitable endeavors that were close to his heart. Among the causes he cared about most are Jewish education, adolescent mentoring and counselling, scholarships for higher learning, and careers in community service and development. The Fund will support institutions and organizations dedicated to these goals.
With the generous contributions of those who loved the world’s funniest man and appreciate the remarkable footprint Jackie left behind, The Jackie Mason Memorial Fund will ensure the perpetuation of his legacy for generations to come. Read more about the Jackie Mason Memorial Fund...
I’m the greatest comedian in the world only nobody knows it yet.
Legacy of Laughter
On July 24, 2021, the world lost a legendary, beloved comedian who delighted audiences from coast to coast with his brand of irresistible and sometimes irreverent humor.
Throughout a larger-than-life, 60-year career, Jackie Mason carved out a unique niche as a peerless entertainer whose sharp wit and piercing social commentary would continually bring down the house in thunderous laughter and applause.
From humble beginnings in New York, the Borscht Belt, and comedy clubs around the country, Jackie Mason’s career burgeoned in the 1960s, until he reached the apex of American entertainment culture as a regular performer on the nation's pre-eminent "Ed Sullivan Show."
His career took a dip of several years but made a striking comeback on Broadway in the 1980s with his extraordinary show, “The World According to Me,” that enjoyed an unprecedented two-and-a-half year run.
The show earned Jackie Mason a Tony Award, an Ace Award, an Emmy Award, and a Grammy nomination. It toured successfully in America and Europe for two years. He returned to Broadway with fresh performances—always writing his own material-- in 1990, 1994, 1996 and 1999, garnering consistent commercial success and ever-growing ranks of loyal fans.
Jackie returned to London over the years to the delight of British audiences in major theatres, and even performed solo for the Queen of England.
His jokes zeroed in on the comical absurdities of everyday life. He brilliantly satirized common foibles such as selfishness, disloyalty or false pride—including his own. He poked fun at political correctness, peppering his routines with iconoclastic comments. His political and cultural satire could be scathing but his listeners loved it.
He also produced feature films with his manager and wife Jyll, whose devotion and managing expertise friends say played a crucial role in Jackie’s 1980’s comeback and his subsequent long-running stardom.
He was the first person to ever receive a Tony award for comedy. “They created the award especially for him,” proudly reminisced his sister, Mrs. Gail Schulman.
I have nothing but love in my heart and everything I say is just an instrument for laughs.
The Other Jackie
Jackie’s extraordinary success was perhaps tied to the fact that behind the world-class comedian lurked “the other Jackie,” as his lifetime friend Raoul Felder expressed it.
“Jackie-on-stage might be tough and irreverent but ‘Jackie-backstage’ was a generous, kind-hearted person who had a soft spot for the underdog, for people down on their luck,” Raoul Felder said. “Theater-goers must have sensed this.”
“He’d make an effort to hire people who were out of work and tipped waiters and busboys extravagantly. “He felt for the little guy pitted against the establishment,” his wife Jyll said. “He was a kind, considerate person, sensitive to others’ feelings.”
Having grown up poor, Jackie empathized with the needy and helped those who were struggling. He was always there for his family, attest his siblings.
“When Jackie was first starting out on his career, he worked in the Pioneer Country Club so that in exchange, my Uncle Bernie would get a bungalow for his family for free,” reminisced his niece, Reva Wenger.
Often his help was given clandestinely.
“I found out only many years after my marriage that Jackie had paid for the whole event,” shared Reva. “He also helped us out financially during the time my husband was still a student. He did this in a roundabout way through my father, never telling us about it. We found out much later.”
“His brother, Bernie, a rabbi, wrote scholarly books on Jewish topics and Jackie paid for the publishing costs,” attests Raoul Felder.
“Jackie wasn’t just kind to family, his compassion extended to people from many different backgrounds. Some of the people you’d regularly find around his table were people struggling either professionally or in their personal lives,” Jyll reminisced. “He could have been hobnobbing with celebrities but he preferred the company of ‘ordinary’ people. He would never turn anyone away.”
“His friends were all simple people that he felt he could trust,” recalls testified Rabbi Mike Fine, a member of Jackie’s close inner circle. “He wasn’t looking for bells or whistles…”
During the Covid-19 lockdown period, he found ways to channel money to people in financial straits,” Rabbi Fine said. “He did it indirectly to avoid making them feel demoralized about accepting charity.”
Jackie’s sister, Mrs. Gail Schulman, sees Jackie’s trait of taking pity on the unfortunate as an extension of the way she and her siblings were raised. “My father was the rabbi of a congregation on the East Side of Manhattan. He and my mother made it a way of life to host the lonely and downtrodden,” she recalled. “Jackie continued this tradition his whole life.”
Raoul Felder echoed these thoughts. “I’d be with Jackie when he was frequently stopped on the street. He was totally accessible. Beggars, broken people would stop him and he’d get into their life story and had to be pulled away. Injustice pained him. He’d hear about someone who was wronged and would try to find a way to ease the person’s situation.”
Jyll recalls their practice of taking a long walk every day. “Strangers, sometimes immigrants who could barely speak English—would come over to talk. He always gave them a sympathetic ear. He never looked down at them.”
Although he was a man of means, he wasn’t attached to his possessions, noted Rabbi Mike Fine, especially at the end of his life. “I recall when a new bathroom was being built in a wing of his house, with exquisite décor. We looked at it together and he said to me, ‘At this point, I’d be just as happy with a one-bedroom apartment,” he quipped. “Give me a bed and a lamp, that’s all I need…I’d give all my money to poor people or my nephew’s yeshiva…”
I have a great identification with Judaism as a religion and as a culture, and all the values that created such a great history, and the Jewish contribution to the betterment of all humanity.
Pride in Being Jewish
The world’s consummate comedian came from a long line of rabbis, and in his twenties, he too served as a rabbi before switching careers. His unabashed pride in his Jewishness remained a key linchpin of his act.
Jackie was a staunch defender of Israel and during both Gulf wars, performed for the troops in a show of solidarity and to lift morale, Jyll recalls.
His religious upbringing instilled in him an appreciation for Jewish moral and ethical values. He supported Jewish education as the essential link to Jewish continuity. His nephews speak about his generous subsidies for their yeshiva tuition and rabbinic studies over many years.
“I remember how he helped me out in my studies when I was younger,” recalled his nephew, Rabbi Avi Shulman. “I was once trying to earn 300 points toward a grand prize…’Get your uncle to study with you and I’ll give you fifty points,” my teacher quipped. “Jackie took it seriously and helped me review until I reached the goal. Later in life, he was there for me as well, supporting me through rabbinic school. More recently, he was a staunch supporter of a major undertaking I launched; building a college for advanced Jewish studies.”
“A few months before he passed away, I visited him and showed him the architect’s rendition of our new campus and his eyes lit up with pleasure. He looked through the photographs of young men studying the Torah. I could sense his pride that he had a role in grooming these young men for their role as future Jewish leaders.”
At the end of life, the love, kindnesses, and value we have given authentically to others is our remaining treasure. Jackie seemed to embody this truth in his final days.
“Jackie was a hundred per cent conscious until the very last moments of his life,” attested Rabbi Fine who was at his side until the very end. Together they recited the traditional Jewish confessional prayer before one’s demise.
The doctors and nurses attending to Mason, who had been hospitalized for two and a half weeks, wept when he died, Raoul Felder said.
“They were all fans of his. They were all crying,” he said. “He was like a shooting star that comes every 100 years.”
“He had such a verve for life, nothing can fill that void,” said his wife Jyll. “We miss him terribly.”
A legacy of laughter
Donate To The Jackie Mason
Memorial Fund
To make a donation that will be tax-deductible in the UK, please visit www.achisomoch.org and select 'The Jackie Mason Memorial Fund'.