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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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Musée d’Orsay Opens Permanent Exhibition Space Dedicated to Nazi-Looted Artwork
Inside the Musée d’Orsay. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
The Musée d’Orsay in France opened a new permanent exhibition room on Tuesday dedicated to works of art that were owned by Jews and looted by the Nazis across Europe during World War II before being returned to France after the war.
The new gallery room is titled “To whom do these works belong?” and will feature rotating installations of works of art recovered after World War II also known as Musées Nationaux Récupération (National Museums Recovery) pieces. Provenance investigators and researchers are still working to identify the original owners of these MNR artworks.
“Over time, the room is intended to evolve to present to the public the discoveries resulting from this research, some of which could allow new restitutions,” said the museum. “It thus constitutes a space of memory, transparency and active research, at the heart of contemporary issues related to the history of the collections.”
Now on display in the exhibition is 13 works, including the 1879 painting “Dinner at the Ball” by Edgar Degas, according to The Times. The painting was previously owned by Fernand Ochsé, a Jewish merchant and art collector living in France who was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust along with his wife. The painting was among thousands of artworks stolen by the Nazis or forcibly sold to Nazi occupiers in France. Also on display in the exhibit is Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s portrait “Madame Alphonse Daudet” from 1876.
The new gallery room and research done by provenance investigators is being funded with support from the nonprofit organization American Friends of Musées d’Orsay et de l’Orangerie (AFMO). According to the organization, 60,000 artworks looted by the Nazis during World War II around Europe were returned to France by 1950 and 224 of those recovered artworks are housed at the museum and in need of further provenance research to find their original owners. Fifteen MNRs kept at the Musée d’Orsay have already been returned to its rightful owners.
Over the next few years, AFMO will fund a team of art historians and researchers, led by provenance expert Dr. Ines Rotermund-Reynard, and they will focus on finding the owners of the 224 recovered artworks in the Musée d’Orsay’s collections, but also approximately 200 additional pieces acquired by the museum after 1933.
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California Man Pleads Guilty to Killing Jewish Pro-Israel Protester; Judge Weighs Light Sentence
Chalk drawer Elena Colombo of the Hamakom Synagogue draws a blue star around blood at the exact location on the sidewalk where Paul Kessler was attacked in Thousand Oaks, California, US, Nov. 7, 2023. Photo: Mike Blake via Reuters Connect
Prosecutors in Ventura County, California have obtained a felony conviction against a community college professor who caused the death of an elderly Jewish man he struck in the face with a megaphone during a heated argument which started at the interstice of dueling demonstrations over the Israel-Hamas war.
Loay Alnaji, 54, on Tuesday pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and battery causing serious injury, along with a special allegation and aggravating factor that he personally used a weapon to strike pro-Israel protester, 69, according to the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office.
The killing occurred in November 2023, when pro- and anti-Israel protesters confronted each other in the city of Thousand Oaks, in the early days of the Gaza war. Prosecutors said Alnaji hit Kessler in the head with a megaphone. Kessler fell to the ground, hit his head on the pavement, and died the next day.
However, even though the charges carry a maximum of four years in prison, Alnaji faces a much lighter sentence when he appears in court on June 25 for his sentencing. Ventura County Superior Court Judge Derek Malan, who is presiding over the case, has promised to honor an agreement to limit his sentence to three years of “formal probation” and “up to” one year in jail for a guilty plea.
Following the proceedings, the Ventura County District Attorney’s office said that so light a punishment, reportedly negotiated directly between Alnaji and Malan ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, is contrary to the preferences of the prosecutorial team which fought to hold him fully accountable for the weight of the crime.
“Alnaji should be sentenced to prison for his violent behavior, and our office strongly objects to any lesser sentence,” district attorney Erik Nasarenko said. “While no amount of punishment will ever fully account for the Kessler family loss, a prison commitment underscores the severity of this crime and will deter others from committing similar acts of violence.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Kessler sustained two impacts — the blow to his head and a second from the concrete to which he fell after being knocked down. Given the charged political climate in which the killing occurred, law enforcement officials hesitated for days to pronounce that the matter would lead to criminal charges, citing conflicting witness accounts of the altercation. At one point, Alnaji’s only interaction with the Ventura County Police Department was a traffic stop initiated while officers conducted a search of his home.
Ultimately, 10 days passed before police officers arrested him on the charges to which he pled guilty on Tuesday — and he almost evaded those when Judge Ryan Wright, the first judge presiding over the case, ruled that there was insufficient evidence to hold a trial.
Since being assigned to the Kessler case in March following the death of its former presiding judge, Malan has avoided relating Alnaji’s actions to rising antisemitic hatred in the US, downgrading the deadly encounter to a disagreement between “two old guys.”
Doing so miscarries justice, the leader of a Jewish civil rights organization told The Algemeiner on Wednesday, stressing the importance of the justice system’s responding to antisemitic violence and hate crimes with a meaningful deterrent.
“The outrageously lenient plea deal offered to Loay Alnaji is a devastating failure of justice that minimizes the death of 69-year-old Jewish man Paul Kessler and sends a chilling message about how seriously antisemitic violence,” said Liora Rez, executive director and founder of StopAntisemitism. “By intervening against the district attorney’s recommendation and dismissing this killing as merely ‘two old guys’ having a dispute, Judge Derek Malan ignored both the deadly consequences of Alnaji’s actions and the disturbing reality that someone promoting pro-Hamas propaganda helped fuel the environment that led to Kessler’s death.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Israel Prepares for Possible Return to War in Gaza as Ceasefire Talks Stall, Hamas Rejects Disarmament
Israeli soldier on guard in Gaza, February 2026. Photo: Jonathan Sacerdoti / The Algemeiner
As the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas continues to reject disarmament and further stalls progress on the US-backed Gaza ceasefire deal, Israeli officials are weighing contingency plans for a renewed military campaign should negotiations collapse entirely.
According to multiple media reports, the Israel Defense Forces believes the current negotiations are unlikely to result in either Hamas’s disarmament or the full demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, warning that the terrorist group is exploiting the diplomatic pause to rebuild its capabilities, consolidate control, and further entrench its governance in Gaza.
“Hamas is deliberately dragging its feet. It is exploiting attention on Iran and Lebanon and, in the meantime, is entrenching itself in the Gaza Strip — reasserting control over the territory, establishing governance structures, and rebuilding its military capabilities,” a military source told the Israeli news outlet Walla.
“As things stand, there are two possibilities: a US declaration that the negotiations have reached a deadlock and a return to fighting, or Washington pushing a partial, ‘perforated’ agreement on Israel that would significantly undermine our security interests and erode the operational gains achieved so far,” he continued.
As regional tensions continue to mount, Maj. Gen. Yaniv, commander of the IDF Southern Command, on Wednesday presented Israel’s political leadership with a new operational plan pushing the military to brace for a potential return to combat and initiate a wide-ranging reassessment of its ground maneuver strategy and operational approach.
For months now, the US-led Board of Peace has been conducting parallel negotiations with Israel and Hamas, attempting to tie the large-scale reconstruction of the war-torn enclave to the complete dismantling of the terror group’s weapons arsenal.
However, after continued failed attempts to reach an agreement, the Board of Peace will not hold Israel to the terms of last year’s ceasefire any longer if Hamas again rejects the proposed disarmament framework, according to a document obtained by The Times of Israel.
The board’s High Representative for Gaza Nickolay Mladenov has previously warned that Hamas’s refusal to disarm could trigger a resumption of the war. But now, the official is reportedly signaling that Israel would not be expected to halt military operations or guarantee humanitarian access to Gaza if the ceasefire framework collapses.
Hamas has consistently refused to relinquish its weapons, insisting that Israel must first fully comply with phase one of the ceasefire — including expanded humanitarian aid deliveries, full reopening of the Rafah crossing, and withdrawal of Israeli forces to the agreed Yellow Line — before any disarmament process can proceed.
For its part, Israel has warned that the Islamist group must fully disarm for the second phase of the ceasefire to move forward, pointing to tens of thousands of rifles and an active network of underground tunnels still under the terrorist group’s control.
If Hamas does not give up its weapons, Israeli officials have vowed not to withdraw troops from Gaza any further or approve any rebuilding efforts, effectively stalling the ceasefire agreement.
Under the ceasefire, the Israeli military currently controls over 50 percent of Gaza, while Hamas remains entrenched in the nearly half of Gazan territory it still controls, where the vast majority of the population lives.
In its latest counterproposal, the terrorist group said that any transfer of its weapons would only be possible as part of a wider process leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
As the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement remains stalled, Israeli officials have warned that Hamas is quietly exploiting the pause in fighting to tighten its control over civilian life while simultaneously rebuilding its military capabilities behind the scenes.
Last month, local elections saw the Palestinian Authority (PA) record notable gains, with results appearing strong on the surface. However, experts warn the outcome actually reinforced Hamas’s political theater, projecting an image of shifting authority while the group effectively maintains its control on the ground.
According to a report by Israel’s Channel 14, although newly elected municipal figures are formally affiliated with Fatah, the party of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, the presence of Hamas-linked representatives still signals the group’s continued political penetration at the local level.
Beyond official political appointments, Hamas-linked personnel are widely believed to remain embedded within municipal administrative structures, enabling the group to maintain effective control over day-to-day governance away from public view.
At the same time, through checkpoints, strict regulation of goods, and control over key public institutions, including hospitals, the Palestinian terrorist group has been quietly reestablishing its civilian governance structures across the war-torn enclave, with its authority still visibly enforced on the ground.
Hamas has also been reactivating internal security mechanisms to enforce day-to-day order, while conducting extensive intelligence operations aimed at identifying alleged collaborators with Israel and suppressing any opposition.
In an effort to reassert control and shore up its weakened position, the group has launched a violent internal campaign against armed militias and local gangs, targeting those it labels “lawbreakers and collaborators,” with the crackdown escalating into widespread clashes and violence as Hamas members move to seize weapons and eliminate remaining pockets of resistance.
Even after more than two years of war, the group is also rebuilding its military capabilities, including recruiting new operatives, conducting field and command-level training, restoring intelligence and surveillance networks, and reconstructing underground tunnel systems and weapons stockpiles.