Leah Forster performs New Year's Eve show at Brooklyn kosher eatery that originally canceled.
By AMY SPIROLeah Forster(photo credit: Courtesy)
The Garden of Eat-In, a kosher restaurant in Brooklyn, hosted the comedian Leah Forster for a New Year’s Eve comedy show on Monday night, a month after it originally canceled the show.Forster, a stand-up comic who is a former member of the hassidic community, originally booked a show at the restaurant in late November. But the owners of that restaurant, and then a second Brooklyn eatery – Orchidea – canceled the shows after saying that their kosher certifying agencies were pushing them to not host a lesbian comic.“This really hurts,” she said at the time. “It hurts me. I’m a resilient, strong person and I’m a good Jew... how is it OK to hurt someone’s business? I promoted it, I paid for advertising, I booked talent already.”Last month, Forster told The Jerusalem Post she received “tons of support” after the story got national coverage. And the agencies involved apparently received enough backlash to relent and allow the event to go on as originally scheduled. According to The New York Daily News, the Va’ad Harabanim of Flatbush denied ever trying to have the performance canceled.According to social media images and video of the event, Forster started the evening in traditional hassidic garb, as she often does in her shows, and by the end had switched to a black T-shirt and black pants. The comedian cracked jokes about her life – and the controversy – at the packed restaurant for a mostly-female crowd of around 120.Taking to Instagram on Tuesday, Forster said the evening was “an awesome and positive nite [sic]!! Nothing like making da people laugh.”
