Remembering Jewish Trailblazer Tom Lehrer

I grew up in an English cultural environment where the stiff and uptight British society was being challenged by irreverence. I can think of a whole generation of British satirists, but my idol at that time was Tom Lehrer, who died recently at the age of 97. And although there have been many glowing tributes on both sides of the Atlantic, I want to add mine.

He was born in New York City, and although he and his family were ethnically Jewish, he never openly identified with the community. He once said that his ties to Judaism were “more to do with the delicatessen than the synagogue.” He was a brilliant talented undergraduate at Harvard, where he began to write comic songs to his own accompaniment.

After the army, he returned to full-time mathematics studies at Harvard. He taught mathematics at MIT. In 1972, Lehrer joined the faculty of the University of California.

Parallel to his academic work, his life as an entertainer grew, satirizing every known perversion and hypocrisy without using a single naughty phrase.

Slowly he acquired a cult following, but for years, he hardly earned anything from his select performances. But during the late fifties he grew in popularity, touring in America and abroad as his iconoclasm found a response particularly from the European intelligentsia. And although not becoming a superstar, he gained recognition and became successful financially. Princess Margaret, sister of the Queen of England was a great fan of his and helped his reputation take off in Britain.

He made fun of everything, from religion and the military, to political incompetence, pollution, needless wars, and challenging convention in ways that are unimaginable in our pathetically oversensitive intellectual world today.

He touched on antisemitism in his famous song about false ecumenism: “Oh, The Protestants hate the Catholics, the Catholics hate the Protestants, the Hindus hate the Muslims, and everybody hates the Jews.” Couldn’t say that today without being threatened with death.

But the only song of his that showed anything overtly Jewish was “Hanukkah in Santa Monica”:

“I’m spending Hanukkah, in Santa Monica,
Wearing sandals lighting candles by the sea.
I spent Shavuos, in East St. Louis,
A charming spot but clearly not the spot for me.

Those eastern winters, I can’t endure ’em,
So every year I pack my gear
And come out here to Purim.

Rosh Hashanah, I spend in Arizona,
And Yom Kippa, way down in Mississippa.
But in Decemba, there’s just one place for me.
‘Mid the California flora,
I’ll be lighting my menorah.
Every California maid’ll
Find me playing with a dreidel.
Santa Monica, spending Hanukkah by the sea”

Although Lehrer was “a hero of the anti-nuclear, civil rights left,” he disliked the aesthetics of the counter culture of the 1960s, and largely stopped performing in the United States as the movement gained momentum.

When asked why he had abandoned his musical career Lehrer replied: “If an idea came to me, I’d write, and if it didn’t I wouldn’t — and, gradually, the second option prevailed over the first. Occasionally people ask ‘If you enjoyed it’ — and I did — ’why don’t you do it again?’ I reply, ‘I enjoyed high school but I certainly wouldn’t want to do that again.’”

In October 2020, Lehrer transferred the music and lyrics for all songs he had ever written into the public domain. He said “I no longer retain any rights to any of my songs. So help yourselves, and don’t send me any money.” Lehrer never married and died on July 26, 2025, at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the age of 97.

Out of nostalgia for a lost world, I leave you a few selections that I still treasure in my rebellious dotage.

The Vatican Rag

First you get down on your knees

Fiddle with your rosaries

Bow your head with great respect

And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!

Get in line in that processional

Step into that small confessional

There the guy who’s got religion’ll

Tell you if your sin’s original.

If it is, try playin’ it safer

Drink the wine and chew the wafer

Two, four, six, eight

Time to transubstantiate.

So get down upon your knees

Fiddle with your rosaries

Bow your head with great respect

Make a cross on your abdomen

When· in Rome do like a Roman

Ave Maria, gee it’s good to see ya

Gettin’ ecstatic an’

Sorta dramatic an’

Doin’ the Vatican Rag.

Poisoning Pigeons in the Park

All the world seems in tune

On a spring afternoon

When we’re poisoning pigeons in the park.

Every Sunday you’ll see

My sweetheart and me

As we poison the pigeons in the park

When they see us coming

The birdies all try an’ hide,

But they still go for peanuts

When coated with cyan-hide.

The sun’s shining bright,

Everything seems all right

When we’re poisoning pigeons in the park.

We’ve gained notoriety

And caused much anxiety

So, if Sunday you’re free,

Why don’t you come with me,

And we’ll poison the pigeons in the park.

And maybe we’ll do

In a squirrel or two

The author is a writer and rabbi, based in New York.