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Jewish Comic Leah Forster Is a Force On Stage
Leah Forster. Photo: provided.
It is the rarest of shows when a performer will make the Hebrew blessing over Gatorade, and then ask a woman in the front row if her coat is made of real fur.
But one should expect nothing less from Leah Forster, and her hilarious and inspirational show, That’s Yentatainment! at the Theater for the New City in Manhattan through December 15.
Forster sings a Yiddish version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” and original comedic songs including “Shabbos Goy,” about how when she was growing up Hasidic in Borough Park, her father would ask if someone walking by was a gentile, and would then ask them to turn on a light.
Forster explains how she was a top comic in the Hasidic community performing for women only, and how a number of traumatic events that took place beginning about a decade ago changed her path.
She was outed as a lesbian online, fired from a teaching job at a yeshiva in Brooklyn, and made headlines in the New York City tabloids in 2018 when a restaurant cancelled a scheduled New Year’s show due to her being a lesbian.
While most performers would use their outrage at these events to make a scene in their shows, Forster doesn’t do that. Instead, she recounts some nice moments, as well as some tough ones, and breaks into some of her hilarious characters that she’s made famous on Instagram (including one with several businesses in her apartment), where she has 133,000 followers.
“I’m not p***ed off,” Forster told me in an interview before the show. “I took my anger, and I turned it into art.”
She said she feels a freedom to pursue any artistic vision she wants, unlike some influencers who fear backlash from fans.
“I don’t [care] about (losing) followers,” Forster said. “I was fired from my job, my parents stopped speaking to me, my community threw me away and threatened to take away my child. I’m not afraid. I love and appreciate my followers. The whole world focuses on engagement and algorithms. I got cancelled by my own mother. I keep getting cancelled because I’m a queer and I refuse to stick to one spectrum. I feel that way about my sexuality. I feel that way about my religion. I feel that way about entertainment … why can’t I be like what Hasidim do, which is we make a cholent with all kinds of beans and that’s what makes it so savory and there isn’t a need to fit into one category.”
While there is not a lot of glitz and glamor in the show, That’s Yentatainment has a palpable power of a Jewish soul wanting to speak out. Of the many shows I’ve reviewed, this one is likely the easiest to perform on a technical level, but the most difficult to perform on an emotional one.
While some performers make themselves vulnerable by jumping in the air or wearing strange clothing, Forster does so in a way that makes you feel like she is a member of your family.
It is clear that Forster has taken the “gam zu letova” approach — which essentially means that whatever happens is for the good. Forster, who will be releasing a book in January, has an authenticity that is hard to rival and a sharp wit that could cut through a turtle’s shell.
I would like to see her do more crowd-work, as she is a great kibitzer, but that may vary from night to night.
“Who goes to a theater?” Forster asks in her show, mimicking her mother’s voice, saying that’s not a heimish — or a properly Jewish thing to do.
Forster also jokes that in her community, for young women, there is the “getting married season” and “when are you getting married season.”
“What size is the girl?” she recalls in the show, as one of the questions that would be asked when setting up matches. She details several funny scenes, including how a woman who charged people to use a treadmill in her basement turned it into a bakery, selling wonderful rugelach on Thursdays.
Forster has done standup comedy for Jewish and secular audiences, but this is her first one-woman show. It will make you laugh, tap your foot, and think about the great power of being kind and sweet in a world where some are unsavory.
“They say that you can’t go home again,” Forster says near the end of her show. “But maybe home isn’t a place. Maybe home is just the courage to be yourself…”
The author is a writer based in New York.
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Israel Says Missile Launched by Yemen’s Houthis ‘Most Likely’ Intercepted
Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi addresses followers via a video link at the al-Shaab Mosque, formerly al-Saleh Mosque, in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
The Israeli army said on Saturday that a missile fired from Yemen towards Israeli territory had been “most likely successfully intercepted,” while Yemen’s Houthi forces claimed responsibility for the launch.
Israel has threatened Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement – which has been attacking Israel in what it says is solidarity with Gaza – with a naval and air blockade if its attacks on Israel persist.
The Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the group was responsible for Saturday’s attack, adding that it fired a missile towards the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.
Since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023, the Houthis, who control most of Yemen, have been firing at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea, disrupting global trade.
Most of the dozens of missiles and drones they have launched have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.
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Iran Holds Funeral for Commanders and Scientists Killed in War with Israel
People attend the funeral procession of Iranian military commanders, nuclear scientists and others killed in Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 28, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Large crowds of mourners dressed in black lined streets in Iran’s capital Tehran as the country held a funeral on Saturday for top military commanders, nuclear scientists and some of the civilians killed during this month’s aerial war with Israel.
At least 16 scientists and 10 senior commanders were among those mourned at the funeral, according to state media, including armed forces chief Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Revolutionary Guards commander General Hossein Salami, and Guards Aerospace Force chief General Amir Ali Hajizadeh.
Their coffins were driven into Tehran’s Azadi Square adorned with their photos and national flags, as crowds waved flags and some reached out to touch the caskets and throw rose petals onto them. State-run Press TV showed an image of ballistic missiles on display.
Mass prayers were later held in the square.
State TV said the funeral, dubbed the “procession of the Martyrs of Power,” was held for a total of 60 people killed in the war, including four women and four children.
In attendance were President Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior figures including Ali Shamkhani, who was seriously wounded during the conflict and is an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as Khamenei’s son Mojtaba.
“Today, Iranians, through heroic resistance against two regimes armed with nuclear weapons, protected their honor and dignity, and look to the future prouder, more dignified, and more resolute than ever,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, who also attended the funeral, said in a Telegram post.
There was no immediate statement from Khamenei, who has not appeared publicly since the conflict began. In past funerals, he led prayers over the coffins of senior commanders ahead of public ceremonies broadcast on state television.
Israel launched the air war on June 13, attacking Iranian nuclear facilities and killing top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
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Israel, the only Middle Eastern country widely believed to have nuclear weapons, said it aimed to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons.
Iran denies having a nuclear weapons program. The U.N. nuclear watchdog has said it has “no credible indication” of an active, coordinated weapons program in Iran.
Bagheri, Salami and Hajizadeh were killed on June 13, the first day of the war. Bagheri was being buried at the Behesht Zahra cemetery outside Tehran mid-afternoon on Saturday. Salami and Hajizadeh were due to be buried on Sunday.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would consider bombing Iran again, while Khamenei, who has appeared in two pre-recorded video messages since the start of the war, has said Iran would respond to any future US attack by striking US military bases in the Middle East.
A senior Israeli military official said on Friday that Israel had delivered a “major blow” to Iran’s nuclear project. On Saturday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that Israel and the US “failed to achieve their stated objectives” in the war.
According to Iranian health ministry figures, 610 people were killed on the Iranian side in the war before a ceasefire went into effect on Tuesday. More than 4,700 were injured.
Activist news agency HRANA put the number of killed at 974, including 387 civilians.
Israel’s health ministry said 28 were killed in Israel and 3,238 injured.
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Pro-Palestinian Rapper Leads ‘Death to the IDF’ Chant at English Music festival
Revellers dance as Avril Lavigne performs on the Other Stage during the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm, in Pilton, Somerset, Britain, June 30, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Dylan Martinez
i24 News – Chants of “death to the IDF” were heard during the English Glastonbury music festival on Saturday ahead of the appearance of the pro-Palestinian Irish rappers Kneecap.
One half of punk duo based Bob Vylan (who both use aliases to protect their privacy) shouted out during a section of their show “Death to the IDF” – the Israeli military. Videos posted on X (formerly Twitter) show the crowd responding to and repeating the cheer.
This comes after officials had petitioned the music festival to drop the band. The rap duo also expressed support for the following act, Kneecap, who the BCC refused to show live after one of its members, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh – better known by stage name Mo Chara – was charged with a terror offense.
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