Epstein was born in New York City and raised there and in Sag Harbor, New York. His father was a merchant and Veterans’ Counselor. His mother was a photographer and housewife. He got a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. from the University at Albany. From 1974 until 2008 he was a professor of English at Suffolk County Community College, where he also held jobs as Assistant Head of the Department of English and Chairperson of the Humanities Division.
In an interview, Epstein described his intentions for The Haunted Smile: “I wanted to tell the story of Jewish comedians in America starting at the turn of the 20th century…Then I traced the history of the comedians through vaudeville, radio, movies, and tv…I was interested, for example, in how one generation of comedians influenced another. I got to go to a Friars Roast and go backstage at a comedy club. I also interviewed more than 70 people…I wanted to include the struggles Jewish comedians had, and the weight of their past.”
View of Jesus by Lawrence J. Epstein:
To Jews, whatever wonderful teacher and storyteller Jesus may have been, he was just a human, not the son of God (except in the metaphorical sense in which all humans are children of God). In the Jewish view, Jesus cannot save souls; only God can. Jesus did not, in the Jewish view, rise from the dead….
Jesus is not seen as the messiah. In the Jewish view, the messiah is a human being who will usher in an era of peace. We can tell the messiah by looking at the world and seeing if it is at peace. From the Jewish view, this clearly did not happen when Jesus was on Earth or anytime after his death…
No one who is Jewish, no born Jew and no one who converts to Judaism, can believe in Jesus as the literal son of God or as the Messiah. For the Jewish people, there is no God but God.
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