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Did you hear the one about the Jewish comedians who set out to explain Israel?
(New York Jewish Week) — There’s an old joke about Israel (we’ll spare you the too-long set up) that ends, “Before you were a tourist — now you’ve made aliyah.” In other words, whatever preconceptions you had about Israel, they will be shattered once you make the decision to live there.
Joel Chasnoff and Benji Lovitt are two Americans who live in Israel, and they understand the gap between perception and reality. They’ve rewritten what they consider an insider’s guide to the Jewish state, “Israel 201,” which sets out to explain the Israeli psyche when it comes to everything from vocabulary and cuisine to religion and military service. They don’t ignore the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but write that “as impactful, significant and tragic as the conflict is, Israel is so much more that.”
They also understand jokes. Chasnoff, originally from Chicago, and Lovitt, who grew up in Dallas, both make their livings as professional comedians, mostly for Jewish audiences. But while often lighthearted, the book is a serious attempt to get past the cliches, good and bad, about a country that is both demonized and idealized, but too seldom seen as the real country it is.
Over email, the pair answered our questions on Yom Haatzmaut, during which Israel’s 75th year of independence was being celebrated amid national anxiety over the country’s far-right government. On Thursday evening, April 27, the two will appear at an “Israel 75” Comedy Night at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan (30 West 68th Street, 7:00 p.m. Get tickets here).
New York Jewish Week: I hate to say “too soon” after 75 years, but do you think readers are ready to laugh with Israel? What do two Jewish comics bring to readers’ understanding of the country?
Chasnoff and Lovitt: Absolutely! Comedy is all about finding the overlooked contradiction and this book, and Israel, are full of them. Throughout our comedy/book tour, we have found crowds who are eager to laugh at and with Israel, even during the current news cycle. Per the book itself, readers especially have told us that they like the 10-question quiz, “How Israeli are You?”, that kicks off the book. That said, there are plenty of serious sections of the book with no laughs at all, such as the power of Yom Hazikaron [Israel’s Memorial Day, marked this past Tuesday]. Comedy is a great tool for introducing complicated topics into a conversation, and it’s definitely an important one in our arsenal.
What’s the single biggest thing people get wrong about Israel?
For one thing, many assume that daily life is consumed by the Arab-Israeli conflict, worries of a nuclear Iran and other threats. One thing we tried to make clear is that daily life continues, even in the most difficult of times. For example, a standup comedian will take the stage just hours after a terror attack a few miles away, and acknowledge in a clever way the tragedy the country has just endured.
In addition to what they get wrong, there are also the aspects of life that people simply don’t know about but are hugely impactful on how Israelis think and live. In “Israel 201,” we wanted to show how Israeliness infuses every angle of daily life, from children who create their own recess games because their school lacks a playground to the Academy of the Hebrew Language, which debates and creates new words to the Israeli lexicon based on current trends of the country.
“Israel 201” includes interviews from Israelis from all walks of life. (Geffen Publishing House)
Books of Israel advocacy bring to mind the old joke, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show?” — in the sense that no matter how Israel’s supporters attempt to “normalize” the country, the outside world will always associate the country with conflict, religious strife and the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Who is the intended audience for your book, and were you expecting to change any minds?
Anyone in Israel advocacy knows to target the supporters and undecideds, not the “haters” who you’ll never convince. Though we don’t see this book as advocacy, most of our readers are Jewish. What makes “Israel 201” special however is that it’s equally entertaining for someone who’s only visited for a 10-day trip as for someone who made aliyah 30 years ago. It’s precisely because it’s a “next-level guide” that people of varying levels of Israel experience can learn from it. That said, we’ve heard from readers who’ve never visited that this was a great entry point due to its focus on daily life and what they might see firsthand.
I think your book came out too late to deal with or anticipate the current “constitutional” crisis in Israel, and the protests over the government’s judicial reforms. But what understandings does your book bring to the current showdown? Are you optimistic about Israel’s future?
Actually, despite the book’s release in March, we feel that the book is filled with examples of these existential questions that Israel grapples with. In the final chapter, we interviewed David Passig, a futurist who foresaw past world events such as 9/11 and the 2008 financial crash. We were actually surprised by how optimistic he was about the country’s future. He noted that it’s hard to have perspective or see the bigger picture when you’re smack in the middle of it. This isn’t the first time Israel has feared for its future. On the eve of the Six-Day War, the Jewish world believed that we were literally on the brink of extinction. All countries go through tremendous growing pains, but if the Zionist pioneers had been able to see what we’ve achieved in the last 75 years, they wouldn’t have believed it. During our five years of writing the book, we repeatedly encountered incredible resilience, from advocates for women’s rights to the rise of LGBTQ activism in the IDF. It is this resilience which makes us optimistic.
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The post Did you hear the one about the Jewish comedians who set out to explain Israel? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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I’m a rabbi arrested for protesting ICE in Minneapolis. The Book of Exodus shows us how this ends
On Friday, hours before Shabbat began, I was arrested with 96 other multifaith clergy members and Faith in Minnesota leaders while protesting ICE in Minneapolis.
“Who could have imagined such times as these?” we sang, in the words of local songmaker Sarina Partridge. “We will grieve through these times, and soon enough we’ll be grieving on the other side.”
We cannot keep on with business as usual when our federal government is engaged in escalating state terror right here, right now. To grieve through these times is not enough; we must also act.
In the bitter cold, thousands of Minnesotans gathered at that airport. Tens of thousands more marched downtown, and others simply stayed home in the largest work stoppage in this country in many decades, the Day of Truth and Freedom. Nearly one thousand interfaith clergy answered the call to come to Minnesota — as they did for the Civil Rights Movement call to march in Selma in 1965 — to join us in the fight.
Standing there among them, on erev shabbes in the cold, I thought about the Torah portion we would read the next morning in shul: parashat Bo, from the Book of Exodus.
In it, the darkness of the ninth plague that befell the Egyptians is described as something that the oppressors — the mitzrim, which I’ll translate as “the ones of narrowed sight” — could actually touch. It was so thick that it kept them isolated from each other, unable to move.
In contrast, the dwellings of those seeking liberation were full of light.
I imagined that palpable darkness not as a punishment, but as a reflection of reality. The oppressors were unwilling to see the humanity of their neighbors. But if they had been, they too could have found themselves in dwellings full of light, able to clearly perceive the richness and possibility of living in a multiethnic community.
So too with the federal oppressors here in Minnesota, and those who collude with them. They are so welcome to join us in the light of that recognition. We were there at the airport to invite them in.
Instead, they arrested nearly 100 of us, while we sang and prayed for the protection of our people in the languages of our diverse traditions. Doing this work in coalition builds the power we need to break through the oppression: Our differences make us stronger.
As a minister next to me chanted the Lord’s Prayer, and a clergy member close by meditated with closed eyes, I chimed in with “Ana Bekoach,” a kabbalistic prayer that is part of Friday night services, envisioning divine protection holding close all the people of this place.
At our airport, Signature Aviation is facilitating the internment of our fellow Minnesotans every day, adults and children alike, flying them to detention centers where they suffer in conditions that deny their humanity. ICE is even disappearing workers at that airport from the jobs they work every day, keeping all of us safe and supported as we travel.
The airport is supposed to encourage connection. Come join us in our city, it is supposed to say; come see the beauty of our communities. Come, with your eyes open, to join a dwelling of light. Instead, it has turned into a hub of darkness, and separation.
As Jews, so many aspects of our history are particularly resonant in this moment.
As ICE has engaged in a campaign of terror in our city since the start of the year, I have heard Jews in my community reflecting on their families’ experiences with state terror in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and under dictatorships in Latin America. We join neighbors, refugees and immigrants from around the world, who never thought those feelings of suffocating fear would again define their lives here in the United States.
Now that they are, our obligation is to resist.
I was moved to tears during a march last week, when I saw families in hiding peeking out from behind their attic blinds as we sang of our love for our immigrant neighbors. It reminded me of Jewish families reduced to hiding in Nazi Germany, and of those brave souls who tried to protect them.
When I was arrested, I felt my heart open to the clergy standing and kneeling together with me, and all those in our state who have stood up with courage and generosity throughout these weeks and months. I hoped that all those who would see or hear of our arrest would be motivated to join this work.
The safety of all marginalized communities in this country, our Jewish community included, depends on our efforts to protect our democratic practices, and one another. You can join us, in Minnesota, or wherever you are.
Call for ICE to get out of Minnesota. Their presence is endangering us all. Just yesterday, Alex Jeffrey Pretti — an ICU nurse, mountain bike enthusiast, dog lover and beloved community member — was shot and killed by federal agents while attempting to aid a fellow protester. Our government, rather than accept responsibility for the injustice of his death, and that of Renée Nicole Good, is already lying about who these upstanding Minnesotans were and what those agents did.
Learn from us and protect each other in your home communities. You can stand with Minnesota; we’ll stand with you too. Call your senators to demand that they deny ICE funding in an upcoming vote this week. Push for prosecution of ICE agents who kill our civilians. Together we will fight the plague of narrow sight, instead creating dwellings of warm light where we hold and honor the fullness of humanity of each and every one of us.
On Saturday night, Minnesotans gathered in candlelight vigils on street corners in our neighborhoods to mourn and remember Pretti. I was with hundreds of my students on campus. We imagined, together, all the vigil-goers, holding candles to decry Pretti’s death and honor his memory, as points of light, linked across Minnesota and the country, and around the world.
The stars came out just then, as if the universe was joining us in a vast web of care and light. We sang a song from Heidi Wilson: “Hold on, hold on, my dear ones, here comes the dawn.”
The post I’m a rabbi arrested for protesting ICE in Minneapolis. The Book of Exodus shows us how this ends appeared first on The Forward.
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US-Brokered Peace Talks Break Off Without Deal After Overnight Russian Bombardment of Ukraine
Some windows glow in a residential building left without heating and facing long power cuts after critical civil infrastructure was hit by recent Russian missile and drone strikes, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, January 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Alina Smutko
Ukraine and Russia ended a second day of US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi on Saturday without a deal but with more talks expected next weekend, even as overnight Russian airstrikes knocked out power for over a million Ukrainians amid subzero winter cold.
Statements after the conclusion of the talks did not indicate that any agreements had been reached, but Moscow and Kyiv both said they were open to further dialogue.
“The central focus of the discussions was the possible parameters for ending the war,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on X after the meeting.
More discussions were expected next Sunday in Abu Dhabi, said a US official who spoke to reporters immediately after the talks.
“We saw a lot of respect in the room between the parties because they were really looking to find solutions,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“We got to real granular detail and (we feel) that next Sunday will be, God willing, another meeting where we push this deal towards its final culmination.”
A UAE government spokesperson said there was face-to-face engagement between Ukraine and Russia — rare in the almost four-year-old war triggered by a full-scale Russian invasion — and negotiators tackled “outstanding elements” of Washington’s peace framework.
Looking beyond next week’s negotiations in Abu Dhabi, the US official voiced hopes for further talks, possibly in Moscow or Kyiv.
“Those sorts of meetings have to happen, in our view, before we get a bilateral between (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and Zelensky, or a trilateral with Putin, Zelensky and President Trump. But I don’t think we’re so far away from that,” the official said.
BOMBARDMENT OF UKRAINE BEFORE SECOND DAY OF TALKS
The bombardment of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and its second-largest city Kharkiv by hundreds of Russian drones and missiles prompted Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha – who was not at the talks – to accuse Putin of acting “cynically.”
“This barbaric attack once again proves that Putin’s place is not at (US President Donald Trump’s) Board of Peace, but in the dock of the special tribunal,” Sybiha wrote on X.
“His missiles hit not only our people, but also the negotiation table.”
Saturday was scheduled to be the final day of the talks, billed by Zelensky as the first trilateral meeting under the US-mediated peace process.
The UAE statement said the talks were conducted in a “constructive and positive atmosphere” and included discussions about confidence-building measures.
Kyiv is under mounting Trump administration pressure to make concessions to reach a deal to end Europe’s deadliest and most destructive conflict since World War Two.
US peace envoy Steve Witkoff said at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos this week that a lot of progress had been made in the talks and only one sticking point remained. However, Russian officials have sounded more skeptical.
RUSSIA WANTS ALL OF DONBAS
After Saturday’s talks, Zelensky said the US delegation had raised the issue of “potential formats for formalizing the parameters for ending the war, as well as the security conditions required to achieve this”.
The US official said the proposed security protocols were widely seen as “very, very strong.”
“The Ukrainians and many of the national security advisors of all the European countries have reviewed these security protocols. And to a person, and this includes NATO, including (NATO Secretary General) Mark Rutte, they have expressed the fact that they’ve never seen security protocols this robust,” the official said.
Ahead of the discussions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday Russia had not dropped its insistence on Ukraine yielding all of its eastern area of Donbas, the industrial heartland grouping the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Putin’s demand that Ukraine surrender the 20 percent it still holds of Donetsk – about 5,000 sq km (1,900 sq miles) – has proven a major stumbling block to any deal. Most countries recognize Donetsk as part of Ukraine. Putin says Donetsk is part of Russia’s “historical lands.”
Zelensky has ruled out giving up territory that Russia has not been able to capture in four years of grinding, attritional warfare against a much smaller foe. Polls show little appetite among Ukrainians for any territorial concessions.
Russia says it wants a diplomatic solution but will keep working to achieve its goals by military means as long as a negotiated solution remains elusive.
Umerov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said late on Friday that the first day of talks had addressed parameters for ending the war and the “further logic of the negotiation process.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine came under renewed Russian bombardment.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched 375 drones and 21 missiles in the overnight salvo, which once again targeted energy infrastructure, knocking out power and heat for large parts of Kyiv, the capital. At least one person was killed and over 30 injured.
Before Saturday’s bombardment, Kyiv had already endured two mass overnight attacks since the New Year that cut electricity and heating to hundreds of residential buildings. Ukraine’s deputy prime minister said on Saturday that 800,000 people in Kyiv – where temperatures were around -10 degrees Celsius – had been left without power after the latest Russian assault.
Zelensky said on Saturday Russia’s heavy overnight strikes showed that agreements on further air defense support made with Trump in Davos this week must be “fully implemented.”
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Conscription Law Heads to Final Vote in Knesset Amid Political Showdown
A drone view of Jerusalem with the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
i24 News – Israel’s conscription law is reaching its final stretch as the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is expected to complete its discussions this week before bringing it to a first reading vote in the Knesset plenum, i24NEWS’s Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) affairs correspondent Ari Kalman reported Sunday.
The legal counsel of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is expected to support the legislation, subject to changes that will be made in the wording of the law. However, it is not certain that this will satisfy its opponents. Meanwhile, opponents of the law within the coalition insist that they have “a majority that can defeat the law.”
Against the backdrop of the crisis with the Haredi parties, the state budget is expected to be brought to a first reading vote on Monday. Recently, i24NEWS reported that the Knesset’s legal advisor, Attorney Sagit Afik, told Knesset members that at least two months are required from the moment it is placed on the Knesset table until its final approval. Therefore, the coalition is required to submit it this week in order for it to be approved on time.
The problem facing the coalition and Prime Minister Netanyahu is that this year there is not enough time to pass the budget by the end of March, as Passover Eve falls on April 1, and therefore the budget needs to be approved in its third reading by March 25, two months from today.
Amid the pressure and the attempt to bring the budget to a vote, the Hasidic Council of Torah Sages published its decision this month against the conscription law: “The Council expresses its deep pain and concern over the campaign of harassment against Torah students by various authorities, the harm to them and to their rights, their public denigration and humiliation for being students of God’s Torah; something that is becoming increasingly severe.”
They also wrote that the Council of Torah Sages demands a law “without personal and institutional sanctions and without arrests, as has been customary all these years. Any other legislation that harms Torah scholars whose Torah study is their profession, imposes sanctions on them, or sets quotas is unacceptable. And it must be opposed with all force.”