Moshe Kasher

Mark Moshe Kasher (born July 6, 1979) is an American stand-up comedian, writer and actor based in the Los Angeles area. He is the author of the 2012 memoir Kasher in the Rye: The True Tale of a White Boy from Oakland Who Became a Drug Addict, Criminal, Mental Patient, and Then Turned 16. In 2009, iTunes named Kasher "Best New Comic" and his comedy album Everyone You Know Is Going to Die, and Then You Are! was ranked one of the top 20 comedy albums on iTunes that same year. He was also named "Comic to Watch in 2010" by Punchline Magazine. Early life and education Born in Queens, New York, Kasher moved to Oakland, California with his mother and brother when he was one year old. Kasher grew up in North Oakland's Temescal and Piedmont Avenue neighborhoods, and his family lived mostly on disability assistance and food stamps. A son of deaf parents, Kasher worked as a sign-language interpreter from the age of 17. His parents met at the World Games for the Deaf in 1967 and split up when Kasher was nine years old. When Kasher was four years old, his father Steven, a former painter who was born to secular, communist Jewish parents, became a Hasidic Jew in the Satmar community in Brooklyn; Steven's grandfather, originally from Hungary, was a New Square Skverer Hasid. Kasher regularly spent summers with his father in Sea Gate, Brooklyn until his death — Kasher was 20 at the time. His father lived with Gaucher's disease. Kasher's brother is a rabbi. In his autobiography Kasher in the Rye: The True Tale of a White Boy from Oakland Who Became a Drug Addict, Criminal, Mental Patient, and Then Turned 16, Kasher wrote about having been moved in and out of mental institutions from the age of 4 and using drugs from the ages of 12 to 16. He was kicked out of four different high schools. In an interview with SanDiego.com, Kasher described himself as "pretty straight edge," stating that he has been clean "since I was very young." He earned his G.E.D. at age 16 and later became a sign-language interpreter.