The Last Man

Larry David is the last of his kind, in a variety of ways. First and foremost, David is the last Jew. Not literally, of course—there are about 15.7 million of us scattered around the world. But he is the last of a certain type of entertainment-industry Jew: the Brooklyn-raised, acid-tongued, and side-splittingly funny Jew who used to occupy center stage in mainstream comedy. Think Mel Brooks (né Melvin Kaminsky, raised in Williamsburg); Woody Allen (né Allan Konigsberg, raised in Midwood); Joan Rivers (née Molinsky, raised in Crown Heights), and, of course, David himself (raised in Sheepshead Bay).