Religion and politics.

Jackie Mason has made a career out of talking about the two things you’re not supposed to discuss in polite company.

“I’m surrounded by Jews wherever I go,” he says. “I’m more Jewish than most of them. I don’t flinch from it. I’ve always made an issue out of it and capitalized on it and I’ve made a comfortable living from it.”

Mason, who was Borscht Belt back when people could still order borscht at hotels in the Catskills, says today’s comedy is the same variety he practiced on Ed Sullivan decades ago.

“Nothing’s different,” he says. “It’s what’s current and what’s happening today. What happened 30 years ago happened at that time. Politics is not so different. It’s just different personalities and situations. The principles of it, the basis of it, the essence of it is all the same.

“It’s still two guys running for office calling each other names like it was 100 years ago.”

On Saturday night, Mason will talk about religion and politics – and whatever else he finds funny or hypocritical – at Peekskill’s Paramount Center for the Arts, a 1,000-seat hall that was once a movie palace.

If politics hasn’t changed, neither has Mason’s preparation.

“I’m always reading. I’m always studying. I’m always thinking of new ideas,” he says. “I always make sure my show is brand-new, that I don’t repeat anything they could have heard a year ago.

“I detest comedians who expect you to spend new money for old jokes,” he says. “I don’t sell you the same shirt twice. What right do I have to sell you the same joke twice?”

Mason says he’ll have “good jokes” on the subject of President-elect Barack Obama.

“They’re not attacks of any kind. I’m booked as a comedian. I have no right to become a lecturer,” he says.

Mason has had plenty to say about Obama – attacks of all kinds – on his “Ultimate Jew” channel on YouTube.

“I don’t attempt to really be funny on it,” Mason says. “I’m more expressing my own emotional thoughts about whatever the popular issues of the day are. Whatever I feel is scurrilous or disgusting or arrogant or obnoxious. Whatever I think is unfair or indecent that arouses my ire that I just express it. I don’t rehearse it. It’s not like a comedy show.”

When the crowd arrives for Saturday’s 8 o’clock show, Mason says he’ll put away those emotional thoughts and stick to the jokes.

“When I go on the stage, I make sure I’m nonpartisan and I focus on comedy because I think it’s unfair to the audience and indecent and it’s basically criminal for a comedian to get on stage and start talking about issues when people came to hear jokes. It’s like working for them under false pretenses. A guy like that should lose his job and should have to give his money back.

“Everybody should have a right to get his money back when Barbra Streisand starts promoting a certain political issue instead of singing a song,” Mason says.

“You paid for a song. You have no right to tell me what I should vote for or start crusading for half an hour. That half an hour is taking from the time that I was supposed to be hearing songs. So basically you’re stealing my money under false pretenses.

“There’s truth in labeling and truth in packaging, why shouldn’t there be truth in performing?”

When the spotlight hits him in Peekskill, it’ll be all jokes.

“My act is strictly aimed at comedy,” he says. “I don’t waste one minute crusading or making issues out of anything that’s not funny. If it doesn’t have a punchline, I don’t say it.”

Still, people who go to Mason’s show on Saturday will be expecting religion and politics.

“They’ll hear about politics, but by the time they’re finished with my show you would never know which side I’m on because I blast everybody with jokes,” the comedian says. “I don’t blast them with crusades. I make sure it’s relevant, has popular appeal and that it’s strictly entertainment.”

What’s his take on Sarah Palin?

“I have a lot of takes on Sarah Palin, but I’m not going to give you my best jokes for the paper,” he says. “Why should I tell them to you? People will say: ‘I read it in the paper. Why should I go to the show?’ “

True enough.

That’d be paying for a joke they already bought.

“An Evening with Jackie Mason”
Where: Paramount Center for the Arts, 1008 Brown St., Peekskill.
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Tickets: $38-$68.
Call: 914-739-2333
Web: www.paramountcenter.org

Photo courtesy AM Productions: Jackie Mason will take the stage at the Paramount Center for the Arts on Saturday night in “An Evening with Jackie Mason.”