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Deeply Jewish comedy is having a moment, even as antisemitism rocks pop culture
(JTA) — Two weeks after a Trump-supporting heckler threw a beer can at Ariel Elias at a club in New Jersey over her politics, the Jewish comedian’s fortunes took a turn for the better. A video of the incident went viral and she made her network television debut on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show.
She spent most of her five-minute set talking about her Jewish identity and how it clashed with parts of her upbringing in Kentucky.
“I’m Jewish from Kentucky, which is insane, it’s an insane origin story,” she said last month before getting to jokes about how Southerners mispronounce her name and how badly her parents want her to date Jews.
Even though the crowd found it funny, Elias’ tight five wasn’t particularly groundbreaking. In the world of standup comedy, discussing one’s Jewish identity in a deep way has become increasingly common on the mainstream stage over the past several years. Jewish comedians are going beyond the bagel and anxiety jokes, discussing everything from religiosity and traditions (and breaking with those traditions) to how their Jewishness has left them prone to awkward situations and even antisemitism.
Ari Shaffir calls his most recent special, which was released earlier this month and titled “Jew” — and racked up close to four million views on YouTube in two weeks — “a love letter to the culture and religion that raised [him].” In his recent one man show “Just For Us” — which drew widespread acclaim and a slew of celebrity audience members, from Jerry Seinfeld to Stephen Colbert to Drew Barrymore — Alex Edelman discussed the details of growing up Modern Orthodox (and infiltrating a group of white nationalists). In 2019, Tiffany Haddish released a Netflix special called “Black Mitzvah,” in which she talks about learning about her Jewish heritage.
At the same time, the current uptick in public displays of antisemitism — punctuated by a series of celebrity antisemitism scandals and comedian Dave Chappelle’s controversial response to them — is complicating the moment for comedians who get into Jewish topics. Jewish comics are even debating what kinds of jokes about Jews are acceptable and which cross a line.
“I find it ironic that at a time where more Jewish comedians feel comfortable expressing their Judaism (i.e. wearing a yarmulke, making Jewish-oriented content) and not hiding it (by changing their name for example), we also see an up-swelling of outright antisemitism,” said Jacob Scheer, a New York-based comedian. “I don’t think — and hope — those two things are not related, but I find it really interesting and sad.”
The two phenomena could be related. Antisemitic incidents nationwide reached an all-time high in 2021, with a total of 2,717 incidents, according to an April 2022 audit from the Anti-Defamation League. Those incidents range from vandalism of buildings to harassment and assault against individuals.
“Now that [antisemitism is] a headline, it actually helps me to do what I need to do, which is just be extra out and loud and proud,” said Dinah Leffert, a comic based in Los Angeles. “I was hiding who I am just so I can survive in this environment. But this environment is not worth it if I have to hide.”
Scheer said that “people who are Jewish with an emphasis on the ‘Jew’ are having a moment.”
“[The] ‘Jew-ish’ world I wouldn’t say is dead, but I don’t think the ‘Jew-ish’ world is producing that much,” he said.
By “Jew-ish,” Scheer clarified that he means comics like Seinfeld and Larry David, who often infuse secular, culturally Jewish material into their comedy. Their apex of fame came during a time when Jewish comedy was not nearly as mainstreamed — the “Seinfeld” sitcom team was famously told that their idea was “too New York, too Jewish.”
Some of Seinfeld and David’s Jewish comedic successors, such as Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen, sprinkled in more explicitly Jewish jokes before 2010. But today, “you see more Alex Edelmans coming out,” Scheer said, referencing the increase in visibility for comedians with more observant upbringings.
Things have progressed to the level of “Jews doing comedy for other Jews about Jewish things,” Scheer added. In August, the first-ever Chosen Comedy Festival at the Coney Island Amphitheater in Brooklyn featured a lineup of mostly Jewish comics whose repertoires ranged from impressions of old Jewish women (who sound like bees) to breakdowns of the differences between how Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews say “Shabbat shalom.” Leah Forster, who also performed at the festival, uses her Hasidic upbringing as source material for her standup routines, creating characters and using accents and impressions. (In her early days as a comedian, Forster performed for women-only audiences while she was a teacher at a Bais Yaakov Orthodox school in Brooklyn.)
The festival, which was hosted by Stand Up NY (an Upper West Side club that Scheer says is known for being “the Jewish one”) welcomed a packed audience of about 4,000 guests, many of whom were Orthodox. A second Chosen Comedy Festival will take place in downtown Miami in December.
(The New York Jewish Week, a 70 Faces Media brand, was the media partner for the Chosen Comedy Festival but had no say in its lineup.)
The festival’s co-hosts, Modi Rosenfeld and Elon Gold, who frequently collaborate, both grew their audiences in the early days of the pandemic: Rosenfeld with his camera-facing comedic characters, like the esoteric Yoely who delivers news updates with a Hasidic Yiddish twist; and Gold with his Instagram Live show “My Funny Quarantine,” which featured guest appearances from other comedians. Both Gold and Rosenfeld work antisemitism into their material.
Some are finding the moment difficult to navigate. In late October, at the standup show she runs in Los Angeles, the comic two slots ahead of Dinah Leffert asked the room, “Is anyone still even supporting Kanye at this point?” The crowd responded with resounding whoops, claps and cheers, leading Leffert to feel like they did support Kanye West, the rapper who spent much of last month in the news for his multiple antisemitic rants.
Just a few jokes into her own 10-minute set, Leffert walked offstage.
“My body wouldn’t let me keep being inauthentic about what I was really feeling,” she said. “I don’t want to give laughter to people who are anti-Jewish.”
Leffert, who is openly Zionist, said she also observes a level of anti-Zionism in comedy clubs these days that feels to her like antisemitism.
“They’re not criticizing Israel,” she said. “It slips into antisemitism very quickly. And it’s just a really hostile environment.”
During the last large-scale military flare-up of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in May 2021, she felt inundated with Palestinian flag comments on posts about Jewish holidays, not Israel.
“You just get Palestinian flags underneath your Hanukkah posts,” she said.
In October, at a club in Omaha, comedian Sam Morril told a joke about how he hopes Jeffrey Epstein won’t be honored during Jewish Awareness Month.
“Can I ask why you chose to yell out ‘free Palestine’ after a Jeffrey Epstein joke?” he responded. When the heckler said she was making a “public statement” and was looking for “justice,” Morril answered: “A public statement? At the Omaha Funny Bone?”
Eitan Levine, a New York-based comedian known for his TikTok show “Jewish or Antisemitic” — on which he asks people to vote on whether objects like ketchup and mayonnaise, for example, are Jewish or antisemitic (in a loose comic version of the word) — said he receives similar comments online.
“This is a TikTok video about bagels,” Levine said. “What do you mean, you want me to take a stance?”
Though the response to his show has been largely positive and he has gone viral several times, Levine still receives all kinds of white supremacist comments on his videos — with backwards swastika, money bag or mustachioed man emojis evocative of Hitler, along with comments that say “jas the gews” as a spoonerism for “gas the Jews,” as a way to avoid TikTok censorship. Levine said he manually deletes these kinds of comments, but sometimes that’s not enough; one of the guests on his show had to cancel an in-person show due to online threats made against her.
“This stuff is clearly happening and it is dangerous and it is scary,” Levine told JTA.
Writer and comedian Jon Savitt, whose writing has been featured on College Humor and Funny or Die, and says he has often been “the first Jew that people have ever met,” recently launched an experimental web page called Meet A Jew, where users can connect with a Jewish person, much like a pen pal. His 2016-2018 standup show “Carrot Cake & Other Things That Don’t Make Sense” largely dealt with antisemitism — and its audience, he was surprised to see, was largely non-Jewish.
“Not only did I have people come up to me after the show, but I had non-Jews come up to me months later when they saw me and say ‘tikkun olam‘ [Hebrew for the Jewish principle of repairing the world] to me, or recite Hebrew,” Savitt said. “And to me that was the coolest use case because not only were they there, but they kind of retained something.”
Savitt says he isn’t trying to change any extremists’ minds with Meet A Jew, but he sees it as one step that could engage people who may be ignorant or unaware and give them a place to ask questions.
“Although it shouldn’t be on us to educate everyone or to have to constantly be standing up for ourselves, I think there are ways that we can bring other people into the conversation as well,” he said.
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Years after a boycott fight, Ben & Jerry’s Israel debuts a flavor celebrating Israeli resilience
(JTA) — Ben & Jerry’s Israel operation has come up with a flavor that does not leave much to interpretation. Called “Milk and Honey,” a nod to the biblical description of the Land of Israel, its namesake ingredients are supplied by Israeli cows and bees and its chocolate fudge pieces come shaped like Stars of David.
The company, which split from its American counterpart after a contentious 2021 boycott fight, is billing the new pint as its “most Israeli flavor ever” and, on its website, as a “symbol of hope, rehabilitation, and positive action” after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack.
Its ingredients and production come from southern Israeli communities most affected by the massacre and the war that followed. The company, based in the southern city of Kiryat Malachi, said it “felt a responsibility to take an active part in the region’s recovery process.”
The milk and cream come from the dairy in Kibbutz Alumim, one of the Gaza-border communities infiltrated by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023. The honey comes from the beehives of Kibbutz Yad Mordechai. The chocolate Stars of David are made by hand at the Korint factory in Beersheba, part of the Shkulo Tov social enterprise, which helps integrate people with disabilities into the workforce.
Even the wrapper is local: the pint is adorned with “Fields of Light,” a painting by Rivi Doron-Gerloy, a southern Israeli artist who was killed in a Miami car accident last year.
The flavor was developed in partnership with the Ayalim Association, a nonprofit that works to strengthen Israel’s periphery. The company said royalties from sales of the new flavor will go to Ayalim’s rehabilitation and educational initiatives in the south.
The Israeli and American Ben & Jerry’s operations are now completely separate, a split that followed one of the more improbable diplomatic dramas ever to involve ice cream. In 2021, Ben & Jerry’s said it would stop selling in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, saying sales there were “inconsistent” with its values.
The move set off an uproar in Israel. President Isaac Herzog called the boycott a “new kind of terrorism,” while Benjamin Netanyahu, then opposition leader, retweeted the company’s announcement that it would stop selling in the “Occupied Palestinian Territories,” writing, “Now we Israelis know which ice cream NOT to buy,” alongside Israeli flag and flexed-bicep emojis.
The original founders, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, who no longer control the company but remain its best-known faces, also came under fire after the decision. In an interview, they were asked why the boycott logic did not extend to places such as Georgia and Texas, despite their opposition to those states’ voting rights and abortion laws.
“Why do you still sell ice cream in Georgia? Texas?” Axios reporter Alexi McCammond asked in a video that went viral on pro-Israel platforms.
Clearly stumped, Cohen shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said, laughing. “You ask a really good question and I think I’d have to sit down and think about it for a bit.”
Unilever’s then-chief executive, Alan Jope, also appeared to suggest that Israel had become an inconveniently sticky scoop of activism. “There is plenty for Ben & Jerry’s to get their teeth into in their social justice mission without straying into geopolitics,” he reportedly said in a quarterly earnings review at the time.
The standoff ended, at least commercially, when Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s parent company, sold the Israeli business in 2022 to Avi Zinger, the longtime Israeli licensee and owner of American Quality Products. The sale was accompanied by a legal fight that was inflamed when Zinger told an Israeli news outlet that, once he took control of the company in Israel, he could rename the signature flavor “Chunky Monkey” to “Judea and Samaria,” the Hebrew term for the West Bank.
Under the ultimate deal, Ben & Jerry’s could continue to be sold throughout Israel and in Israeli settlements, under Hebrew and Arabic branding, while the Vermont-based company said it disagreed with the move and would no longer profit from Israeli sales.
The split left the Israeli operation in an unusual position: carrying one of the most recognizable American ice cream names, while openly defying the political stance associated with that name abroad.
But the corporate restructuring has not been enough to cleanse the palate for everyone. On social media, the new flavor drew curiosity and praise, but also lingering resentment from those who said the brand name still carried too much baggage, even under Israeli ownership.
“I really don’t care if it’s owned by someone other than Ben and Jerry in Israel. Those two clowns’ names are still associated with the brand. I wouldn’t spend a penny for this ice cream regardless. That brand is done,” one person wrote on Instagram.
“We’ve been eating Häagen-Dazs since October 7th,” another said.
Last year, Cohen announced that he planned to produce a “flavor for Palestine” independently after Unilever blocked Ben & Jerry’s from creating one, soliciting suggestions about what should accompany watermelon, a symbol of Palestinian solidarity, in his concoction.
“Milk and Honey” has come to market faster. So does the new flavor deliver a taste of the Holy Land?
One food influencer, who called the new flavor a “statement,” offered a less scriptural verdict on the taste, shrugging that it “tastes like vanilla with chocolate chips” — a conclusion echoed by others in Israeli food aficionado groups, who lamented that the honey was barely noticeable.
One commented, referring to dairy-free desserts made to comply with kosher laws prohibiting the mixing of milk and meat: “Not the tastiest thing I’ve ever eaten, but not as bad as a pareve dessert either.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Years after a boycott fight, Ben & Jerry’s Israel debuts a flavor celebrating Israeli resilience appeared first on The Forward.
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Mamdani calls AIPAC ‘monsters’ in rally ahead of NY primaries
(JTA) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Thursday night accused the American Israel Public Affairs Committee of spending “millions in dark money” to ensure pro-Israel candidates win seats in tthe November midterms.
Mamdani made his remarks at a rally headlined by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) at Kings Theater in Brooklyn ahead of Tuesday’s Democratic primaries for progressive congressional candidates. He called on the crowd to help elect Jewish former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, State Assembly member Claire Valdez and former Columbia encampment organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier.
In a fiery 30-minute speech, Mamdani took aim not just at AIPAC but also Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his handling of the war in Gaza. He claimed that “The monsters that we are up against, they take many different forms,” and then singled out AIPAC.
He described the major pro-Israel lobby as an organization “for whom the only thing more frightening than democracy being allowed to run its course is an end to genocide and Netanyahu’s wars.”
Mamdani continued by alleging that AIPAC moves “millions in dark money to accomplish a single goal, to preserve their power so that they can turn us against one another instead of our leaders turning towards the moral change we all know to be necessary.”
AIPAC did not respond to a request for comment about Mamdani’s remarks.
The lobby, whose endorsement was once heavily sought by politicians on both sides of the aisle, has increasingly come under fire for its campaign tactics. Pro-Israel Democrats are particularly struggling to hold onto seats as voters on the left increasingly turn against the Jewish state.
Sanders, for his part, doubled down on criticism of AIPAC when he took the stage. “The American people understand that a large part of our horrific foreign policy is impacted by AIPAC funding,” he said.
Turning to the local races, Mamdani voiced support for Valdez for her opposition to Israel. “When other Democrats chose to look the other way as Netanyahu committed war crimes, Claire didn’t just name the genocide,” he said. “She organized for a ceasefire.”
In a change of tone, Mamdani emphasized unity, including an appeal to Jewish voters.
“Whether you worship at shul, at a mosque, in a church, a gurdwara, a temple, or you don’t worship at all, we share a belief that our city deserves leaders who lead with hope and not fear,” the mayor said.
He added, “No matter where we live, how old we are, what train we take in the morning, or what bagel we order, we are New Yorkers and we want the same things,” including “a city that belongs to all of us.”
Reaction on social media was swift. One self-described mom from New York City posted on X of the rally and the Democratic Socialists of America there: “It’s pretty transparent and vile how Zohran Mamdani and the DSA are using ‘AIPAC’ as a euphemism for Jews, and how Brad Lander is going right along with it.”
Jewish writer Dovi Safier also criticized the comments, writing, “The mayor of the city with the world’s largest Jewish population is pushing conspiracy theories about ‘money men’ who ‘move millions in dark money’ to ‘turn us against one another’ — and calling them ‘monsters.’ Subtle.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Mamdani calls AIPAC ‘monsters’ in rally ahead of NY primaries appeared first on The Forward.
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Jewish groups push back against Trump’s Iran deal — but more quietly so far than in 2015
(JTA) — A growing number of Jewish groups are pushing back against the new memorandum of understanding brokered between President Donald Trump and Iran.
At least for now, however, their responses are more muted than when the same groups publicly opposed former President Barack Obama’s own Iran deal in 2015. And at least one major Jewish group that opposed Obama’s deal is backing Trump’s framework.
“Trust President Trump,” the Republican Jewish Coalition told its followers Thursday, becoming the most notable Jewish group to support Trump’s memorandum of understanding.
“President Trump has earned the trust of the Jewish community as he and his team work towards a final agreement,” RJC CEO Matt Brooks and chair Norm Coleman said in a statement. They praised the MOU, saying it “envisions a horizon of economic stability for the United States, the region, and the world,” and that it “provides an opportunity for potential new pathways to greater peace.”
The RJC cautioned that “a final deal must avoid the flaws that doomed Obama’s,” specifying that there should be “no sunset clauses” on Iran’s nuclear program and other proposals. In the days before its own statement, the group had been reposting praise of the MOU from other Trump allies, including Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Meanwhile, the American Jewish Committee and the pro-Israel lobbying giant AIPAC took a different tack. They became the largest Jewish organizations to voice concern with the new Iran deal on Thursday, issuing public objections following requests for comment from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The MOU “raises significant questions,” AIPAC said in a lengthy statement that urged Congress to intervene ahead of “a final nuclear agreement,” claiming that the terms of the MOU don’t match “President Trump’s stated objectives for the war.”
The AJC outlined what it said were seven “concerns” it had with the MOU. Like most of the other Jewish groups that responded to JTA for this story, the AJC also expressed hope that the terms of the deal could be changed to be stricter on Iran and more favorable to Israel before it is finalized. (In 2015, in response to Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the AJC said it “overwhelmingly” would “oppose this deal.”)
Trump’s MOU is not a final agreement, unlike Obama’s JCPOA. Rather, it marks the start of a 60-day negotiating period that aims to end the Iran war about to enter its fourth month. It does not yet outline any clear commitments regarding Iran’s nuclear program, which had been at the heart of the JCPOA and which is of particular concern to Jewish groups, who are roundly opposed to Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon in large part because of the risk to Israel. Many had objected to Obama’s deal in part because of its “sunset clauses” that would have phased out nuclear restrictions starting at the 10-year mark.
Regardless, many analysts across the political spectrum are concluding that Trump’s framework is a worse deal than Obama’s, in part because it provides a pathway for Iran to stage an economic recovery.
The Israeli government, which sent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to personally lobby Congress in 2015 to oppose Obama’s deal, is also strongly opposed to Trump’s — in part because it would require Israel to withdraw from fighting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. A new poll by Israel’s Channel 12 found that 71% of Israelis don’t trust Trump to look out for their country’s interests in negotiations with Iran.
Hawkish pro-Israel think tanks, including the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, issued papers knocking Trump’s deal.
“In some ways, the MOU is even weaker than President Barack Obama’s,” JINSA said. “This new deal authorizes the transfer of far more money and lifts many more sanctions on Iran than the JCPOA ever did.”
Trump and his top surrogates, including Vice President JD Vance, are increasingly signaling a lack of patience with Israel and a willingness to prioritize ending the war over stopping Iran’s nuclear program.
Some groups are waiting before weighing in. Nathan Diament, head of the Orthodox Union, declared Obama’s deal “not kosher” in 2015. On Thursday, he told JTA that the question of how to respond to Trump’s deal “will be a central topic of discussion” at the group’s leadership advocacy mission in Washington, D.C., taking place early next week. O.U. representatives are scheduled to meet with members of the Trump administration, as well as members of Congress.
JTA reached out Thursday to a wide range of Jewish groups that publicly opposed Obama’s Iran deal in 2015 to ask them their views on Trump’s. Many others, including the Anti-Defamation League and the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, did not respond by press time.
Of those who did, only Morton Klein, head of the right-wing Zionist Organization of America, castigated the MOU outright. Klein told JTA he was “extremely upset with this deal” — and with Trump.
“I find this deal just astonishing,” Klein said. “Helping out a country that Trump himself said, if they’d gotten nukes, they’d have used them on Israel and killed millions of Jews? So that mentality, now you’re helping them rebuild?”
He added, “Trump has done many wonderful things for Israel, so we’ve praised Trump for that. But now he’s doing something very bad for Israel and America.”
Such level of forceful public opposition to the deal, though, is rare in Jewish circles at present — especially in contrast with the extent of Jewish mobilization against Obama’s deal in 2015.
Back then, in addition to the usual Jewish advocacy groups, dozens of local Jewish federations across the country pushed their communities and representatives to fight it, in a sweeping and sustained show of opposition.
“This Iran deal threatens the mission of our Federation as we exist to assure the continuity of the Jewish people, support a secure State of Israel, care for Jews in need here and abroad and mobilize on issues of concern,” one typical statement, from the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, read at the time.
Three years later, during Trump’s first term, he tore up the JCPOA, calling it “a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.”
The lack of similar opposition today for Trump’s deal, Klein said, was glaring: “Nobody is taking issue with this agreement in the Jewish world.”
Among local Jewish groups, the initial reaction to Trump’s MOU has struck a measured tone. The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, one of dozens of local Jewish communal groups that publicly opposed the 2015 JCPOA, told JTA it was “concerned” that Trump’s deal “has granted Iran a new leverage point to use in the future to inflict pain on the world’s economy.”
Ron Halber, the JCRC’s head, blasted the MOU for being crafted without Israel’s input, and for requiring Israel to withdraw from its offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Similar to AIPAC, Halber said his organization would continue to push for “a final U.S.-Iran agreement” that is more favorable to Israel and takes harsher measures against Iran.
In its statement, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, which also opposed the JCPOA, did not directly weigh in on the new MOU. Instead, the federation said, “Any agreement involving the Iranian regime should be judged by its ability to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran,” among other factors.
JTA reached out to six other major Jewish federations that opposed the 2015 JCPOA, including Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, which was the first federation to oppose that deal and whose leader wrote, in 2021, “We were right.”
CJP of Boston did not respond to a request for comment. The Jewish United Fund of Chicago declined to comment, while several other federations that opposed the JCPOA — including Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix and Detroit — did not respond by press time.
In its own statement opposing the MOU, AIPAC did not outline an advocacy plan to combat it, in contrast to its full-court press against the JCPOA. An AIPAC spokesperson did not return a JTA request for comment on whether, or how, it planned to advocate against Trump’s MOU.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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