By Ben Sales
Back in December of 2022, Alex Edelman sent an audience of Baltimore Jews into fits of laugher with his one-man show “Comedian. Jew. Sweetheart,” a fundraiser for The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore.
Now, the world knows about Edelman as well.
On Sunday night, Sept. 16, Edelman won an Emmy for “Just For Us,” his comedy special about attending a white supremacist meeting that put a spotlight on contemporary antisemitism and the place of Jews in the United States.
He took home the Emmy for outstanding writing for a variety special, the latest accolade since “Just For Us” premiered on Broadway last year following an off-Broadway run. The Emmy was for the show’s move to HBO and Max, where it premiered as a comedy special in April.
The show centers on Edelman’s experience attending a meeting of white nationalists in Queens, New York, and weaves in autobiography and Edelman’s ruminations about Jewish identity, assimilation and whiteness in the United States.
A 35-year-old Boston native, Edelman first performed the show in 2018, and it has found ever-larger platforms as antisemitism has continued to rise in the U.S. and beyond, coupled with a broader Jewish communal reckoning after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7.
For his win on Sunday, Edelman beat out nominees including Mike Birbiglia, the standup comedian who produced “Just For Us”; Jacqueline Novak, another Jewish comedian; and the writing team behind The Oscars. The Emmy comes following a Special Tony Edelman received for the show in June.
In his acceptance speech, a breathless Edelman paid tribute to his close friend and collaborator on the show, Adam Brace, who died at 43 from a complications of a stroke shortly before “Just For Us” opened on Broadway. (Last month, Edelman wrote in an essay in The New York Times that performing the show after Brace’s death “felt painful but appropriate, like reciting Kaddish, the Jewish daily mourning prayer.”)
“Look, this is really, really beautiful, and I really miss Adam,” he said in his acceptance speech. “This is the end of a seven-year journey with the show, but I got to make something really funny with my friend.”
The ceremony was hosted by the Jewish father-son comedy duo Eugene and Dan Levy. Among the other winners was Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” which he returned to host after a nine-year hiatus and took home the Emmy for best talk show.
“You have made an old man very happy,” said Stewart, 61, who had previously won more than a dozen Emmys with the show.
Ben Sales writes for the JTA global Jewish news source. Jmore staff contributed to this report.
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