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?). I don’t know what these guys have an educational background in but let’s rejoice they didn’t get stuck at some online universities studying to earn online engineering degrees or college diplomas.
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:
Whadya got: