Kol Ami News

Growing up in Utah is a slightly different experience for each of us, and we each have our own story. Jeremy Rishe grew up in Utah in the ’80s and ’90s, raised in Mormon-centric culture, as a practicing Jew. Though he moved to New York decades ago, he learned that while you can take the Jew out of the desert, you can’t take the desert out of the Jew. Jewtah, Rishe’s whimsical and satirical comedy loosely inspired by his life experiences, is finally returning to Zion in the Mountain West for a special screening on August 4.

“A lot of people in New York are not from New York,” Rishe says, explaining that fellow actors and writers would frequently inquire about where he grew up. “I’d say ‘Utah,’ and they’d go ‘ Oh, are you Mormon?’ That was always the question. I’d say no, I’m Jewish, they’d be like oh, really? That’s so interesting. What was it like being Jewish in Utah?” Rishe, a graduate of the Actor Training Program at the University of Utah and who had his Bar Mitzvah and confirmation with the Congregation Kol Ami, found that the question always hung over him. 

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