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Meet Tehran Von Ghasri, a Persian Jewish African-American comic
For an American Jewish comedian, Tehran Von Ghasri has an interesting story to tell, as his name suggests. The son of an Iranian-Jewish immigrant father and an African-American mother, Tehran’s heritage includes a mix of Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Zoroastrian, and any part of that mix is fair game for Von Ghasri’s standup.
Yet despite Von Ghasri’s many identities, he has a strong sense of self. In our interview, he discusses how young Jews can also navigate through their own multiple identities and come out stronger.
You juggle so many identities. You’re African-American, you’re Jewish, you’re Persian. How do you think of yourself on any given day?
I don’t think about it often because it’s just a natural part of who I am. Everyone else thinks about it way more than I do. I don’t realize that I’m black or Persian or Jewish or not. I just think of myself as a human being. My family’s mixed ethnicities and race and religion becomes a Venn diagram and I’m stuck in the middle. People often ask me things like, “What religion are you?” Very rarely do they ever ask me if I’m just a good person. There are times when it’s almost as if some people don’t see you as black enough. Some people don’t see you as Persian enough. Some people don’t see you as Jewish enough. And the only thing I simply remind myself is that I’m always enough because I’m just always me.
One other thing that you are is a comedian. But some comedians have found themselves in trouble recently because they perpetuate tropes or stereotypes. Does comedy really need to deal in stereotypes of Jews or African Americans?
When the comedians that you’re mentioning get in trouble, it’s honestly not because they perpetuate stereotypes but because they reach for the low-hanging fruit. They use the stereotype in a very negative way. There’s a way to do comedy where you have fun with people. You don’t make fun of people. And there’s a big difference there. Maybe because I have such a unique, diverse background, when I say something, it comes from such a good place that people usually tend not to get offended. They understand I’m speaking about me. And I push the absurdity, so you realize how silly they often are. But pushing these stereotypes? That’s not funny anymore. Boxes are meant for things and not people. Let’s expand, let’s grow.
Let’s talk about one of your identities, which is African-American. There was a time when African Americans and Jews worked together in the struggle for civil rights. Are those days gone? Or is it just that some of the more divisive voices are finding a platform?
What we see is this loud minority who speaks up as if they’re speaking on behalf of everyone else. And it happens all the time. It’s usually the good people who just stay silent. We need to speak up; we need to show that the black and Jewish communities still very much work together. In the ’60s, Martin Luther King was standing side by side with a rabbi. That’s how it worked. Somewhere along the line, we were privileged enough to not think that anymore; we became a little bit divisive. I think future generations are going to be much different. I think that there’s a new generation coming up that’s realizing we all have way more in common.
What about the Jewish part of you? Where is that in your life?
It’s part of me in every way simply because it is a part of who I am. It’s a part of how I grew up. And that’s why it’s so hard to define. I didn’t see it as if it was something I was, for example, programmed to do or was being written into my life. It just became a blanket of things that were. But the biggest thing that my family taught me was respect. It was one of the things of being diverse, that they respected all the parts of me. And they didn’t define one as better or worse.
The Z3 conference is focused on creating a positive Jewish identity. In light of the current rise in antisemitism, how do we achieve this?
There are 15 million Jews in the entire world. Most people, when you go past New York or the West Coast, they haven’t even seen a Jewish person. So, it’s easy to point at the unknown boogeyman. I think that goes to education. When you know better, you do better. For example, Americans who have traveled outside of the United States have a tendency to be way less racist, way less antisemitic.
You have a strong sense of identity. But there are a lot of Jews on campus now who are dealing with issues like taking blame for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or assumptions about wealth. What’s your advice to Jewish kids in college?
My advice to all the kids in college is to be proud of who you are. Being proud and having pride are two different things. Pride is part of the fall. Having pride means I think I’m good, but you’re bad. But being proud means, “I think I’m good and you can be good as well.” Be proud of who you are, never hide that identity. The fact that this is happening in college institutions is even more sad because that’s where we’re supposed to be enlightened and learn. So, get out there and be part of the outreach. Get to know people, and that’s how we will grow and know the rest of the world. We will make it better. But don’t let the antisemitic bullies bully you. And there should be nothing anti-Palestinian about being pro-Israeli, and there should be nothing anti-Israeli about being pro-Palestinian. If anyone has a conversation with me where they hate the other in favor of one, then already we’ve started off on the wrong foot.
What do you plan on talking about at the Z3 conference?
I’m going to be speaking on my personal experiences of intersectionality and how that plays into the history of Jews, especially Jewish people of color, and we have to remember how important a role we continue to play in the identity of Judaism and what it means for the diversity of Judaism. Because Jewish isn’t just a religion, it’s also an ethnicity and race. And that race, by the way, encompasses people of so many different shades and different looks and different ethnicities. Ultimately, we’re also going to be exploring how comedy plays a huge part in that. Who has taught us more about politics in the last twenty years other than comedians — whether it’s Jon Stewart or Trevor Noah? Who has made us think about race in different ways more than Dave Chappelle, for example, or Wanda Sykes? Who has been the face of Jewish identity more than Larry David? I just want people to realize that, honestly, we’re all in this together. That’s the biggest thing that we can push out no matter what your background is, what your religion is, whoever you are—we are all in this together.
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The post Meet Tehran Von Ghasri, a Persian Jewish African-American comic appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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The secret Jewish history of the ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’
“Rocky Horror,” which opened in London cinemas on this day in 1975 is the cultural phenomenon that simply refuses to die. Rather, since its first incarnation as a 1973 London stage musical, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” has been continuously reborn on the silver screen, in subsequent Broadway stage productions, and, in 2016, as a direct-to-TV film, starring Laverne Cox of “Orange Is the New Black” fame as the transgender Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the mad-scientist role originated by Tim Curry.
In all its incarnations, however, “Rocky Horror” has always been more than just a performance. Its appeal has been widely driven as a participatory event. Film critic Roger Ebert summarized it best writing about the original 1975 film: “‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ is not so much a movie as more of a long-running social phenomenon,” because “the fans put on a better show than anything on the screen.” What Ebert refers to is the interactive tradition that has grown up around “Rocky Horror,” whereby fans attend midnight showings primed for a party as much as a screening: reciting the lines out loud along with the characters and interspersing them with “callouts” — responses that have been accepted into the Rocky Horror canon much as the Talmud is commentary on the Mishnah that has in and of itself become part of the sacred text. In the case of “Rocky Horror,” this also includes activities, such as throwing rice or confetti in the air when the married couple in the film leaves the church; squirting water pistols during a rainstorm; and tossing rolls of toilet paper when one character says “Great Scott!”
In one of the most overtly Jewish moments in and outside of the film, a speech by Dr. Frank-N-Furter hailing the creation of the Golem-like creature of the title, Rocky Horror, is met by chaotic noisemaking on the part of the partygoers onscreen and off. In the original film, some of the crowd generates noise with ratchets – a percussion instrument that looks suspiciously like a gragger, as if Dr. Frank had said “Haman.” There are other Purim-like touches in the film, such that temple congregations have made “Rocky Horror” into part of their annual ritual, such as a “Rockin’ Hora Purimshpiel” in which several of the musical numbers are rewritten as Purim songs.
Other Judaized versions of “Rocky Horror” that have appeared over the years include “Hebrew Horror,” which was staged in Los Angeles in 2007, and the “Rocky Hora Chanukah Song” by the Jewish punk-rock parody group, the Shlomones (sort of a redundancy, since several members of the Ramones were in fact Jewish, as was their outlook in numerous ways, including their song, “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg.”
The original London stage version was produced by British-Jewish theatrical impresario Michael White, who was born to Eastern European Jewish-immigrant parents in Glasgow, Scotland. White’s credits had already included the boundary-shattering “Oh! Calcutta!” — the first all-nude revue in commercial theater — and he went on to co-produce the “Rocky Horror” film as well as “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
The original musical and film were decades before their time in celebrating the sexual fluidity of the LGBT world – indeed, there wasn’t such a term as LGBT, much less a socio-political acceptance of it, for years to come. The new TV film version is in no small part an effort to seize this cultural moment when LGBT, and particularly transgender issues, are now part of mainstream political and cultural discussion, especially what with the casting of openly trans actress Laverne Cox.
The original did, however, have a political consciousness beyond its seemingly outrageous effort to provoke. Dr. Frank-n-Furter’s lab coat in the movie was inspired by a Nazi concentration camp inmate uniform and was adorned by the pink triangle that the Nazis used to label what we now call LGBT inmates. And in the film at least, there were implications that Frank’s rival, Dr. Scott was a Nazi.
The 2016 version was again produced by music industry legend Lou Adler, who was responsible for turning the stage musical into the original film starring Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick and Meat Loaf. In that version, Eddie was played by American Idol star Adam Lambert, the role played by Meat Loaf in the original Broadway cast and film. Lambert, who starred as Joshua in “The Ten Commandments: The Musical,” has achieved fame as a solo artist and as the replacement for the late frontman Freddie Mercury in the rock band Queen. Lambert’s Jewish mother, Leila, was a dental hygienist.
Seth Rogovoy is a contributing editor to the Forward.
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Sister of pro-Israel stalwart Lindsey Graham secures GOP Senate nomination
(JTA) — South Carolina Sen. Darline Graham defeated U.S. House Rep. Ralph Norman in a special primary runoff on Tuesday, putting her in a dominant position to win the Senate seat left vacant with the death in July of her older brother, the pro-Israel stalwart Lindsey Graham.
The Associated Press called the race two hours after polls closed at 9:01pm. By the time 99% of votes were tallied, Darline Graham had secured 52.3% of the votes to Norman’s 47.7%.
“Tonight is a great victory, but it’s not the finish line,” Graham told her supporters on Tuesday night. “In fact, it is the starting line for an even bigger fight, which lies ahead.”
If Darline Graham goes on to win November’s general election against Democrat Annie Andrews, she will have big shoes to fill. Her brother served 23 years in the Senate and eight in the U.S. House. He traveled to Israel about a dozen times between Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on the Jewish state and his death at age 71.
Heading into the primaries, analysts expressed no doubt that Darline Graham would be pro-Israel. But matching Lindsey Graham’s level of foreign policy activity, they warned, would be a formidable task. Meanwhile, her campaign to date has largely avoided discussion of international affairs. Instead, she has focused on domestic concerns like reducing spending, securing borders and promoting Trump-backed policies.
During a debate aired on C-SPAN last week, Graham struggled to respond to a foreign policy question about Taiwan and the South China Sea, ultimately admitting that she’s “not that informed on national security.”
“I’m not a polished politician up here,” she said. “National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise.”
Later addressing issues of affordability, Graham linked the domestic economic situation to the war in Iran and said she trusts President Donald Trump “to get the Strait of Hormuz open.” She also voiced her preference for financial sanctions over putting troops on the ground.
Asked about the country’s relationship with Israel, Graham described the Jewish state as “one of our strongest allies.” Recognizing her brother’s close relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she added that during a recent meeting with the Israeli premier, she vowed to “continue supporting Israel in any way” she can.
“We have to stand with Israel,” Graham said.
At their previous face-off, Graham had secured 33% of the vote, while Norman came in second place, at 25%, against eight fellow Republicans. But South Carolina requires primary winners to earn a majority of votes in order to avoid a two-candidate runoff. In the November general election, Graham will contend with Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who is unlikely to prevail in the solidly Republican state.
Tuesday’s runoff marked the third time in two months that South Carolina Republicans came to the polls to select a Senate candidate. Lindsey Graham, won the first primary in June but died suddenly the next month from an aortic dissection.
A few days later, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, appointed Darline Graham to finish her brother’s term. Though she only had minimal policy experience, including a leadership role at the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, she earned President Donald Trump’s endorsement and declared her candidacy in the full race.
Trump celebrated Graham’s nomination in a Tuesday night Truth Social post, writing that “Darline Graham rides Trump endorsement to win GOP nomination for brother’s South Carolina seat.”
Graham thanked Trump profusely during her Tuesday night acceptance speech, recognizing the president as one of her brother’s “closest friends” and crediting him for helping her secure a victory.
Norman, meanwhile, thanked his supporters on Tuesday night for their “prayer crusade of a campaign,” stressing that he “did not prepare a concession speech.” He accused “outside PACs” of spending $8 million opposing him and blamed the Democrats for this situation, adding that “they got what they wanted.”
He recognized Trump’s role in the race as a supporter of Graham, noting that he “never understood why he got involved” but that it is the president’s prerogative to do so. Nonetheless, Norman pledged that there “won’t be any tears” and that he planned to back Graham.
“I’m not supporting a Democrat, so I will support her, Darline, as best I can,” he added. “We’ll live to fight another day.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Sister of pro-Israel stalwart Lindsey Graham secures GOP Senate nomination appeared first on The Forward.
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Progressive politics notches another deep-red win in Oklahoma race, bolstered by anti-AIPAC messaging
(JTA) — Oklahoma nurse and activist N’kiyla Jasmine Thomas, who ran a campaign with anti-AIPAC messaging, defeated centrist Jim Priest in a Democratic Senate primary runoff on Tuesday that marked the latest victory for a progressive politician in a solidly conservative state.
The Associated Press called Tuesday’s race, a sequel to the state’s June primary, less than an hour after polls closed. By the time 80% of votes were tallied, Thomas had accrued 59.9% of the votes to Priest’s 40.1%.
Like many progressives in the current election cycle, she repeatedly vowed during her campaign to reject funds from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the influential pro-Israel lobby.
Although AIPAC has not participated in this race, Thomas posted a social media reel in November that showed her pulling a giant red trash bin, labeled “AIPAC Funds” and “Corporate PAC Funds.” Adjacent to the reel is a caption that reads, “Just taking out the trash.”
“I am a sole grassroots candidate,” she said in the reel. “And we are not accepting AIPAC or corporate PAC funds. It’s garbage.”
Asked about her rhetoric on AIPAC, Thomas told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a written statement that her “concerns [with AIPAC] have NEVER been about Jewish people, Judaism, or Israel’s existence,” adding that she instead prioritizes human rights, civilian lives and the accountability of all governments.
“When I discuss political influence or organizations, my focus is on the broader role of money, lobbying, and special interests in our political system, not on any one religion or community,” she added.
In their previous matchup, a five-candidate race, neither candidate had earned the majority required to secure a win. Thomas earned 45% of votes in June, while Priest, a lawyer and ordained minister, accrued 24%.
Heading into Tuesday’s runoff, it was already clear that both Thomas and Priest would be longshots this November in a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate in more than three decades. The Republican opponent, Rep. Kevin Hern, swept his primary and has the endorsement of President Donald Trump.
But Thomas’s win served as yet another litmus test on the potency of progressivism in a deep-red state, just a week after democratic socialist Angie Nixon knocked trounced a moderate candidate in Florida’s Democratic Senate primary.
Thomas, unlike Nixon, is not a member of Democratic Socialists of America, but she has openly identified with socialist policies. The 31-year-old is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation who says she represents “the next generation of leaders.” Among her priorities are women’s health and safety, civil rights and LGBTQIA+ protections.
During a debate this past Saturday, both Thomas and Priest described a “genocide” in Gaza. Priest linked the word to Israel, while Thomas connected it to the actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
She emphasized that “we can be for our Jewish brothers and sisters, and we can be against Netanyahu and what he is doing.”
“He is committing genocide. He is absolutely murdering children,” Thomas said at the debate. “We have to stop providing funding for these wars.”
In her statement to JTA, Thomas expressed her commitment to a two-state solution, adding that “both Israelis and Palestinians deserve the opportunity to live in peace, security and self-determination.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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