Who’s the Funniest Rabbi? : Humor: At second annual contest, all agree that laughter is an essential tool for religious leaders of all faiths.

The airplane was trapped in a bad storm. The pilot asked the passengers if a priest was aboard who could say a prayer. No priest. “Is a minister aboard?” Silence. “Is a rabbi aboard?” No.

“Is anyone with a religious affiliation on board?” the pilot asked. A synagogue president spoke up. “Please, do something religious,” the pilot pleaded.

So, he took up a collection.

The crowd attending the second “Funniest Rabbi in L.A.” contest roared with laughter at the joke by Rabbi Joseph Hurwitz, whose sly delivery won him this year’s title--despite the fact that he’s from Palm Springs.

In what may be a unique contest of pulpit punsters, six rabbis did their shticks at this week’s benefit contest before 300 people in Gindi Auditorium at the University of Judaism in Bel-Air. The first benefit contest two years ago was held in Beverly Hills.

Defending champion Jacob (Jack) Pressman, 75, returned this year to sing ditties about his health woes, such as “I Got Arrhythmia,” complete with top hat and cane.

Pressman, who retired from Temple Beth Am on Los Angeles’ Westside 10 years ago, declared this time he wasn’t competing. “It wouldn’t be fair to the others,” he deadpanned.

The judges ranked him second anyway.

Hurwitz was surprised to win because he didn’t realize he was in the contest. He thought he was simply the emcee.

He groused good-naturedly about being ineligible to compete because his synagogue for 36 years, Temple Isaiah, is outside of Los Angeles, in Palm Springs (although he did graduate from UCLA, class of 1952).

Asked afterward it helped not knowing that he was being judged, Hurwitz quipped, “I don’t get nervous speaking in public. When my wife lectures in private, I get scared.”

Humor is an accepted and necessary tool of rabbis, priests and ministers, Hurwitz said. “First of all, most clergy are showmen,” he said. “Second, humor relaxes the congregation. And if you can laugh at yourself, then people can relate to you.”

And like good jokes, sermons shouldn’t be long, Hurwitz advised. “If you haven’t struck oil in 15 minutes, you should stop boring.”

Rabbi Stewart Vogel of Temple Aliyah in Woodland Hills and Perry Netter, associate rabbi at Temple Beth Am, tied for third place. Both said they were drained by anxiety before the show.

“We all said backstage that we would rather give a Yom Kippur sermon than do this,” Vogel said. But both turned in stellar performances, regaling the largely Jewish audience with inside jokes.

“You know you’re not Jewish,” said Rabbi Netter, “when you call your mother and say, ‘Mom, I’m not coming to dinner Friday night,’ and she says, ‘OK.’

“You know you’re not Jewish when you call your best friend and say, ‘How’s business?’ and he says, ‘Great!’ ”

Rabbi Vogel told a story about the rabbi, cantor and temple president taken hostage by a terrorist. The ransom demand was rejected by the synagogue’s board on a narrow vote, so the terrorist offered each of his doomed hostages a final wish.

“I’d like to do the sermon I did last Rosh Hashanah,” said the rabbi. “It was the best one I ever did--I had them crying and laughing.”

The cantor said that just once, he’d like do a full Musaf (a one- to two-hour service) for Yom Kippur “and not worry about what time we finish--I want to give it the full works.”

With tears running down his face, the temple president said, “Please, shoot me first.”

Also competing, but getting fewer laughs with their real-life anecdotes, were Rabbis David Vorspan, executive director of Shomrei Torah Synagogue in West Hills, and Rabbi Marvin Labinger, the Pacific Southwest regional director for synagogues of the religiously centrist Conservative branch of Judaism.

All of the competitors were Conservative rabbis, including Hurwitz, who is also ordained as a Reform rabbi. The contest sponsor, Camp Ramah near Ojai, and the contest site, the University of Judaism, are also Conservative bodies.

However, the first competition in 1993 included some Reform rabbis and future contests will be open to any rabbi, said Diane Cohen, Camp Ramah’s director of development.

Whether a “guest rabbi”--a professional comedian from Las Vegas showrooms--will be invited again may be questionable, some rabbis said. Comic Bruce Baum, introduced in this week’s contest as the funniest rabbi in Miami, started off well, noting that he was in a store the other day and saw Paul Newman’s picture on some popcorn, a jar of salad dressing and on a lemonade carton.

“Is Paul Newman missing?”

But Baum’s routine contained sexually explicit jokes that some felt were out of place.

Not that the real rabbis avoided all body-parts humor.

To the tune of “Old Man River,” septuagenarian Rabbi Pressman, pretending he was on a treadmill, sang:

Can’t stand my belly,

It shakes like jelly.

My ‘ glutes’ are flabby.

My pecs are saggy.

But that old treadmill,

It just keeps rollin’ along.