JORDAN HERSKOWITZ with his mascot costume.

DEBORAH MOON

Jordan Herskowitz delivers message about gift of life

By PHOTO: DEBORAH MOON

article created on: 2011-06-01T00:00:00

When Jordy Pordy comes to town, he strips away layers both literal and figurative—layers of his mascot costume; layers of his search for his Jewish identity in Texas, Tulsa and theater; and perhaps most importantly layers people hide behind to avoid thinking about death and organ donation.

Jordan Herskowitz, 24, the creator and star of the one-man show “Growing Up Jordy Pordy,” was in Portland for the second May in a row to perform the show he’s performed more than 200 times on three continents.

He performs in theaters, for Jewish youth groups and for organizations supporting organ donation. This year in Portland, he performed at a United Network for Organ Sharing regional conference and at a May 20 fund-raiser and awareness-raiser for Donate Life Northwest.

“I want people to leave feeling inspired and touched and called to action,” he said during an interview between his Portland performances. “For young audiences—be yourself, look at who you are and own that. How wonderful if you can be yourself and have the opportunity to give the gift of life to someone who can then have the opportunity to live a better life as himself. If one person decides to become an organ donor and save or extend one life, then it has all been worth it.”

Herskowitz said he thinks it’s tough to get people to talk about organ donation because no one likes to talk about death. But he hopes by sharing his family’s journey through organ donation and giving a face to recipients, he will inspire people to sign up as donors and talk to family and friends about doing the same.

Both Herskowitz’s older brother Neil, now 26, and younger brother Richie were born with cystic fibrosis. Richie’s illness was far more severe and at age 5 his doctor said he needed a double lung transplant or he wouldn’t live past age 11. The next year, when Jordan was 9, Richie became the youngest CF patient to ever receive a double lung transplant.

“For the next eight years, he was healthy as could be,” said Herskowitz.

Unfortunately, organ rejection issues caused kidney failure and Richie died in 2007 while Herskowitz was developing his one-man show with a grant at the University of Tulsa.

“When I first started writing, the show had little to do with Richie,” he said, noting it focused on his own search for identity and how the mascot costumes he wore in high school and college
mimicked the masks we all wear. “Now Richie is one of the leads (Herskowitz takes on some 30 roles during the play). I wrote the final chapter … and for the first time I felt it was complete. It was really powerful and it was how I would keep Richie’s memory alive.”

“I hope people will get to know Richie and sign up as an organ donor and talk to family and friends about organ donation,” he said.

He said he also hopes the show dispels misconceptions about organ donation and Jewish beliefs about organ donation. While some people mistakenly believe Jewish tradition opposes organ donation, Herskowitz said he reminds people that “the ability to save a life trumps any other Jewish law and rabbis over all ends of the religious spectrum support and are in favor of organ donation.”

That view is common among many religions, said Donate Life Northwest Executive Director Mary Jane Hunt.

“For many of the mainstream religions, they often bring out the fact of helping others—that it is a gift,” she said.

Hunt said her organization, whose mission is to educate the public about organ donation, thought Herskowitz’s performance would be creative, innovative way to get people, especially young adults, talking about the issue. When Herskowitz was in Portland last May as the guest performer at the city’s annual Singlehandedly Fest, a Donate Life staff member and board member saw his show and recommended bringing Jordy Pordy back to town.

Jordy Pordy was the nickname Herskowitz’s grandmother bestowed on him when he was growing up in Texas. He said she had nicknames for all her grandchildren and he loathed being called Jordy Pordy in public. But now he said he considers it a term of endearment from the grandparents who helped shape his sense of Jewish identity in a community with few Jews.

Then in the even smaller community in Tulsa, being surrounded by Southern Baptists and other Christians who had never met a Jew before, he began to search deeper for his own Jewish identity.

When he first became interested in theater, he said his family questioned if he could maintain a Jewish identity in that world. But it is through the theater that he now shares his discovery of and life as a Jew.

As a fast food restaurant’s mascot for four years in high school, the college mascot at the University of Tulsa and finally dressed as a bull as the mascot of Tulsa’s minor league baseball team, he found the joy of being goofy when no one knew who was inside.

He starts his performance inside the bull costume and gradually peels away the layers as he exposes the layers of identity he finds within himself.

“In a sense, I think we all have outer exteriors we put on, but the interior is who we are,” he said.

For more information on the show, visit jordypordy.com. For more information on organ donation, visit donatelifenw.org. Teen and young adults might want to visit Donate Life’s gamer web site gorecycleyourself.com.