lizrael update

Tonight we went to Off the Wall comedy club (apparently the only comedy club in Jerusalem) for their open mic, where my new favorite Arab-American comedians were performing. Unlike a Mideast peace conference, this was not disappointing! (budump-bump?)

Ray Hanania (Palestinian-American) and Sherif Hedayat (Egyptian-American) have been running around Israel - along with a few other comedians, including Jewish and Israeli - performing their Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour for different audiences. They do it to help open minds and break negative stereotype (by reinforcing the funny stereotypes?).

Actually, I find it a huge relief to sit in a room and laugh at Arabs and Israelis making fun of ourselves. I think humor is extremely important in high-tension situations, and why the hell not take a break from the pain once in a while?

I’ve uploaded a bunch of clips of their stuff; sit back, relax and take a joke for peace’ sake:

What am I?

Jewish Arab Wedding

Jewish son

Occupied

Magic carpet

Flying Sherif

My name is Sherif

Terrorist with ADD

Dating after 9/11

At the airport

Iraqis and MySpace

Arabic pick up lines

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNyjxUF5ACU]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iXRU1XTlOI]

Tags: Arab, comedy, israel, jerusalem, jewish, Ray Hanania, Sherif Hedayat, stereotypes

This entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 11:34 pm and is filed under conflict management/negotiation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.