Comedy ‘Two Jews’ is ultimately a story of survival

Yet an engaging production of Seth Rozin’s “Two Jews Walk Into a War. . .,’’ now at Merrimack Repertory Theatre, mostly pulls it off, unlikely setting and all.

This is due in no small part to the stellar performances by Jeremiah Kissel and Will LeBow, who provide further proof that they are two of the Boston area’s most versatile actors, and also to director Melia Bensussen’s skill at maintaining the play’s tricky balance between Borscht belt humor and bone-deep melancholy.

Rozin has said he was inspired by a 2002 New York Times article about the last two Jewish residents of Kabul, finding the makings of an “existential comedy’’ in the fact that the two men were engaged in a long-running feud.

The playwright also owes a clear debt to Neil Simon, both for the odd-couple underpinnings of “Two Jews’’ and for the play’s quippy, staccato rhythms. As with Simon, Rozin is sometimes more glib than clever: You can see some of his punch lines coming down the Khyber Pass.

“Two Jews’’ revolves around two men who are temperamental opposites but who find, to their mutual consternation, that they need each other. As the play begins, Zeblyan (Kissel) and Ishaq (LeBow) are standing, grim-faced and silent, in the partly destroyed chapel of the only remaining synagogue in Kabul (rendered with an appropriately mournful atmosphere by set designer Richard Chambers). They are despondent because an elderly man named Yakob has just died, meaning that the entire Jewish community in Kabul now consists of Zeblyan and Ishaq.

No sooner do they begin to speak than they begin to quarrel. Zeblyan is a cantankerous, irreverent, and stubborn fellow who has remained in Kabul even though his wife and children have moved to America. “All I want is to not get pushed out of another country,’’ he says. Ishaq is an exceedingly devout traditionalist, with a Tevye-like tendency to address the Almighty.

These two argue over everything, playing a never-ending game of one-upmanship that extends to debating which of them suffered more brutal treatment at the hands of the Taliban.

About the only thing this pair agrees on is the urgent need to repopulate the Jewish community in Kabul. But of course they differ on the means. Ishaq wants to start small, by finding “a woman of child-bearing age’’ and persuading her to convert to Judaism and have his child. This prompts ridicule from Zeblyan: “You’re a flabby old man!’’

His own plan is to launch an advertising campaign that would “invite Jews in other places to come live here.’’ That draws a withering response from Ishaq, who envisions the ensuing TV commercial: “Tired of the routine of middle-class life in an affluent country? Come live in historic Kabul, where the combination of rugged terrain, political dysfunction, and a complete lack of religious freedom guarantees a lifetime of challenges.’’

Ultimately, they agree that the best way to rebuild the city’s Jewish community is to construct a new synagogue, and thereby attract a rabbi. Since they don’t have the money for a Torah, they decide to create their own. Ishaq has the entire Torah committed to memory, so he dictates while Zeblyan writes it down on a large scroll of parchment he retrieved from a dumpster behind a butcher shop.

They are quickly embroiled in theological disputes. Zeblyan keeps raising questions about what he sees as contradictions and loopholes within the holy text, infuriating Ishaq. They argue over how much should be taken literally and how much should be seen as allegorical, about the nature of free will, about how flat-out irritating each of them finds the other.

The bond that eventually grows between this contentious pair is made not just believable but touching by Kissel and LeBow. The hotheaded Zeblyan is light years away from the neurotic, lovelorn character Kissel played in Annie Baker’s “Circle Mirror Transformation’’ last fall, but his performance is equally virtuosic. As for LeBow, he never reduces Ishaq to a pompous caricature, harvesting laughs without sacrificing the character’s essential dignity.

These two fine actors, ably guided by Bensussen, drive home the essential poignancy of “Two Jews Walk Into a War. . .’: namely, the fact that, all the one-liners notwithstanding, this is a story about survival.

Don Aucoin can be reached at aucoin@globe.com.