Did you hear the one about the Jewish steakhouse on the Lower East Side that hired a
 non-Jewish tummler?

No, what's the punch line?

Schmuck, that IS the punch line! Sammy's Roumanian Steak House -- an 80-year-old
 restaurant where the chicken fat flows like Manischewitz, the waiters belt out "If
 I Were a Rich Man" with virtually no prodding and every night is like your best
 friend's bar mitzvah -- has a non-Jewish singer named Rob Taube.

And no one knows!

"I can't believe he's not Jewish," said customer Irwin Krasnow, sounding like a
 margarine commercial from the 1980s as he listened to Taube sing "Bei Mir Bist Du
 Shayn." "He's so good!"

Taube may be a goy -- a goy! -- but he's mastered every nuance, mannerism and
 spit-inducing consonant cluster of being a classic "tummler," that old vaudeville
 ringmaster that had its heyday on the Yiddish Lower East Side when Sammy's was
 "that new restaurant on Chrystie Street."

Every Friday and Saturday night, Taube leads the Sammy's crowd -- suburban Jews in
 search of the fatty foods that Bubbie used to make and the old songs they remember
 from their Passover sedars -- through all the Yiddish classics. By the time he gets
 to his second "Hava Nagila" of the night, everyone is on his feet.

And when he abandons the songs of Moses for those of another Jew named Manilow, the
 fun really begins.

"At the Copa, Copacabana!" the audience screamed in unison, turning the tiny
 basement restaurant into a raucous, chopped-liver-fueled Jewish wedding. Even
 Sammy's famous flop-over-the-edge-of-the-plate steaks were abandoned in
 mid-gluttony in favor of the cathartic group dance.

The crowd ate it all up, but the knowledge of Taube's Irish-Catholic upbringing
 gnawed at me, like I'd walked into the kitchen at Sylvia's and finding Alain
 Ducasse stirring the collard greens or discovered that Jackie Mason is giving the
 sermon next Sunday at St. Pat's.

"Sure, he's not Jewish, but look at this crowd," said Sammy's manager Merrill Brown.
 "He gives the people what they want."

And not even Freddie Roman, the great Borscht Belt comedian whom I contacted solely
 in hopes of generating controversy, had a problem with Sammy's non-Jewish MC.

"The age of the Jewish tummler is over," Roman said with surprisingly little alarm.
 "New York is still the consummate melting pot, so I think it's great to have a
 non-Jew singing Jewish songs!"

Taube, 45, might never have gotten a chance were it not for fate, that fickle
 taskmaster.

A decade ago, Rob Taube was just another one of the poor, huddled masses yearning to
 make a name for himself as a musician in New York. He struggled at first, earning a
 few bucks as a sideman at an Israeli café, where he learned how to play Israeli and
 Jewish songs.

He had played Sammy's a few times as a pianist, but on Rosh Hashana, 1994, history
 had greater things in store. None of Sammy's regular Jewish performers would
 perform on what is one of Judaism's most-important holidays, so the restaurant was
 so desperate that they begged Taube to take the microphone.

"They asked me if I knew any Jewish songs, so I said, 'I can sing "Sunrise, Sunset,"
 so they said, "You're hired!" ' " Taube recalled. "I got through the night somehow.
 After, they said if I learned the Yiddish songs, the job was mine."

If he had merely learned all the words to "Diyenu," that would've been enough. But
 Taube got serious about his Jewish education, taking a Yiddish course at the
 Workmen's Circle (he was the only non-Jew in the class) and studying old songs with
 his landlady, a Holocaust survivor who was just happy to have a chance to share her
 favorite melodies with an eager student.

The result is a steady gig at Sammy's, a CD cheekily titled, "Songs my Grandmother
 Never Taught Me" and a messianic approach to Jewish music. Taube, after all, was
 the guy who taught his guitarist -- a Jew, no less! -- all the old Yiddish songs.

Perhaps it makes sense. Perhaps in a world where imitation is the highest form of
 flattery and you can get a fresh bagel in Bozeman, a non-Jew should be serving up
 cholesterol-laden portions of old Jewish memory.

"Well, you know," said Mitch Fialkow of Queens, getting philosophical after being
 told about Taube's non-Jewish background, "Sammy Davis Jr. didn't look Jewish
 either."

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gersh.kuntzman@verizon.net