Uncategorized
In ‘Jew,’ comic Ari Shaffir delivers a raunchy love letter to the religion he says he left behind
(New York Jewish Week) — “You never know how people are going to respond,” says Jewish comedian Ari Shaffir, referring to his new standup special, “Jew,” which has more than 3 million views (and counting) on YouTube.
The self-released, 90-minute showcase of stories and jokes goes deep into his life story, including his studies at a Jerusalem yeshiva. Shaffir, who eventually left Orthodoxy behind, balances Talmud lessons with the neuroticism of Jewish culture.
The show gives the entire backstory of Judaism, starting with Adam and Eve, interweaving tales about Hanukkah and Passover, going through customs and traditions. It’s an oral history of Judaism, told through a brutally honest comedic lens.
After it was released two weeks ago, the special has been praised by numerous comics in the podcast world, including Tim Dillon, Shane Gillis, Chris Destafano and Joe Rogan, whom Shaffir calls a longtime friend.
There are also over 25,000 comments on the special, most of them positive. One goes as far to say that it is “the best special of the century so far.”
Shaffir, who lives in the East Village, said he has not received much negative feedback for the special, which is rare for a comedian who once received death threats and had to cancel shows for joking about NBA player Kobe Bryant’s death in 2020.
“Jew,” which was shot and performed in Brooklyn, was released Nov. 2. The date, Shaffir told the New York Jewish Week, was set far in advance — but it arrived at a moment when antisemitism became a national conversation topic, thanks to recent tweets from rapper Kanye West and Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving.
“I was worried for a minute — I thought for a second it was going to derail it,” he said of the timing, adding that he “wasn’t looking for this kind of press” in regards to his special.
The conversation only grew more intense last week, after Dave Chapelle delivered a monologue on “Saturday Night Live” abut the West and Irving controversies that critics, including the Anti-Defamation League and Simon Wiesenthal Center, called antisemitic.
“They’re ready to say that, regardless,” Shaffir said. “The complaints were already written. Most people think it’s funny.” Jewish organizations, he said, are “not known as great comedy critiquers.”
“People don’t understand that we enjoy that,” Shaffir added, referring to the criticism. “I can speak for Chapelle on this. We’re only here to make people laugh, but we also enjoy when dorks get mad.”
Shaffir, 48, has made a career off of making dorks mad, weaving tales about drugs, sex and Judaism into world tours, a podcast, spots at the Comedy Cellar in New York and the Comedy Store in Los Angeles.
While he’s known for his edgy humor, Shaffir appears more introspective and personal in “Jew” when compared to his previous work. On his Comedy Central show “This Is Not Happening,” which ran for four seasons between 2015 and 2019, he talks about planting weed for strangers and fans at sports arenas and shopping malls (the police weren’t amused). He also appeared in a sketch called “The Amazing Racist,” where he spoofs “The Amazing Race” by playing a character who constantly brings up offensive stereotypes.
With “Jew,” by contrast, Shaffir has channeled his persona into a hyper-focused, cohesive take on all aspects of Judaism, including mikvahs, Yom Kippur chicken rituals and the minutiae of when certain foods can be considered kosher. At the same time, he keeps the material palatable for a non-Jewish audience.
“You can make anything accessible,” Shaffir said. “It’s the same thing as saying, ‘My dad does this weird thing, or my country does this weird thing.’ You just explain it and you’re fine.”
Ari Shaffir holds the crown as my favorite j-w. He’s Moshiach in my eyes. pic.twitter.com/8kLFSaqgqp
— Adam Green – Know More News (@Know_More_News) November 14, 2022
While Shaffir may have turned away from religion as a young man, he said he has since found “a love for how interesting and cool it was.”
“I now see that Judaism leaves your kids with intelligence, where they value education and family,” Shaffir said. “It’s great stuff and I wanted to show that.”
When the special was released, Shaffir left a note on his web site saying that it is his “love letter to the culture and religion that raised me.”
He tells a story in the special about meeting with his rabbi from the Jerusalem yeshiva and telling him he was a standup comedian. “All he wanted to know was, ‘do you still use the teaching?’” Shaffir says in the special.
Shaffir then talks about how the rabbi gave him a lesson about Noah’s Ark, which he then turns into a bit about anal sex — all while leaving the audience with a positive spin on Judaism.
“Not all religion is stupid,” Shaffir says in the special. “It’s a good lesson, especially in this day and age.”
Shaffir was born in New York and spent most of his childhood in North Carolina and Maryland. He was “a Modern Orthodox Jewish kid” who attended the Hebrew Academy of Greater Washington (now the Berman Hebrew Academy). After high school, Shaffir went to Bris Medrash L’Torah, an Orthodox yeshiva in Jerusalem, which he said was the “standard track” for a Jewish kid at his age, but eventually he had “a crisis of faith.”
“I just came home and really thought about it and I was like, ‘I’m out,’” Shaffir said. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Since then, Shaffir said he does not believe in God, but believes in the “shared history” of Judaism.
And while he’s had moments of Jewish jokes and stories in his previous specials, this is his full show on the topic, going deep within himself to find the humor within the religion, even in the darkest of places.
Shaffir’s father is a Holocaust survivor from Romania, who moved to Israel following the war. Shaffir said his story of survival was “a major part of our upbringing.”
“Their village got taken later in the war,” Shaffir said of his father’s family. “Most of the family was wiped out. I don’t know all the details exactly.”
He now has a good relationship with his parents and said they saw him perform the special live. “They liked it,” Shaffir said. “They probably liked it more than my other specials, where I was talking about [having sex with] chicks with herpes.”
While working on the special, Shaffir workshopped his material at the Fat Black Pussycat, the “sister showroom” of the Comedy Cellar in New York’s Greenwich Village. There, an audience member once asked him a question about “the pillow” that Jews carry.
“I was like, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’” Shaffir said. “But then it hit me: It’s tallis and tefillin,” the velvet bags containing prayer shawls and phylacteries that Jews carry to synagogue. “It looks like a pillowcase. You can look at it from an outside perspective, their point of view: It looks like a pillow. Their questions would get me to riff.”
He later took his special abroad, including Israel, where “it did not work,” he said. “They knew too much about it. All the exposition, they were like, ‘We know.’”
In contrast, he performed the material in places where there were few or possibly no Jews, such as Perth, Australia and Reykjavik, Iceland, where it went well. “Places where they are like, ‘I’ve never heard of [Jews],” Shaffir said. “I had to make sure it went well there because it’s gotta be accessible.”
He also performed a version of the show as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, which he said greatly inspired the special.
Another aspect of the Shaffir’s special is countering the narrative of Orthodox Jews as outsiders. “They work regular jobs,” Shaffir said. “There are ambulance drivers with yarmulkes. There’s just some weird stuff that they do. We would play basketball and we would have tzitzit [ritual fringes] and a yarmulke on, but we were on the courts with everybody.”
Shaffir has a joke in the special about using a yarmulke as a move to distract a defender during a basketball game.
This year, Ryan Turell became the first Orthodox player drafted into the NBA’s developmental G League
“I love it,” Shaffir said. “Hopefully it goes well for him and he loses his religion. That would be cool.”
—
The post In ‘Jew,’ comic Ari Shaffir delivers a raunchy love letter to the religion he says he left behind appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
France 24, Mother Jones Receive UN Award for Work Built on Word of Discredited Ex-Contractor Who Lied About Israel
Anthony Aguilar, a former contractor for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) who previously served as a US Army Green Beret. Photo: Screenshot
The UN press corps on Friday gave an award to news outlets France 24 and Mother Jones for their reporting based on the testimony of Anthony Aguilar, a US Army veteran and former contractor for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) who has made discredited claims against Israel.
France 24 and Mother Jones were awarded the Bronze medal in the Ricardo Ortega Memorial Prize category at the UN Correspondents Gala Awards, an event hosted by the UN Correspondents Association at the global body’s headquarters in New York City. The award is for broadcast coverage of the UN, its agencies, and field operations.
According to France 24, its journalists were the first to interview Aguilar on camera on the morning of July 23, 2025. Aguilar claimed he witnessed human rights abuses perpetrated by the Israeli military and others at sites run by the GHF, which until the Gaza ceasefire went into place was an Israel- and US-backed program that delivered aid directly to Palestinians, with the goal of blocking Hamas from diverting supplies for terrorist activities and selling the remainder at inflated prices.
France 24 and Mother Jones both published a story based on Aguilar’s testimony.
However, it was revealed last year that Aguilar’s most explosive claim, about the death of a Gazan boy, was false and that he was fired by the GHF for his conduct and pushing misinformation.
Aguilar claimed he witnessed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shoot a child — Abdul Rahim Muhammad Hamdene, known as Abboud — as the GHF was distributing humanitarian aid on May 28.
After Aguilar made his claim, he rapidly rose to prominence, presenting himself as a whistleblower exposing supposed Israeli war crimes. His story gained traction internationally, going viral on social media. He subsequently embarked on an extensive media tour, in which he accused Israel of indiscriminately killing Palestinian civilians as part of an attempt to “annihilate” and “disappear” the civilian population in Gaza.
However, Aguilar, who erroneously labeled the boy in question as “Amir,” gave inconsistent accounts of the alleged incident in separate interviews to different media outlets, calling into question the veracity of his narrative.
The GHF launched its own investigation at the end of July, ultimately locating Abboud alive with his mother at an aid distribution site on Aug. 23. The organization confirmed his identity using facial recognition software and biometric testing.
Abboud was escorted in disguise to an undisclosed safe location by the GHF team for his safety, according to The Daily Wire, which noted that the spreading of Aguilar’s false tale put the boy’s life in danger, as his alleged death was a powerful piece of propaganda for Hamas.
Fox News Digital reported that Abboud and his mother were safely extracted from the Gaza Strip in September.
In footage obtained by both news outlets, the boy can be seen playfully interacting with a GHF representative and appearing excited ahead of their planned extraction.
During the summer, as Aguilar’s claims were receiving widespread media attention, the GHF released a chain of text messages showing that Aguilar was terminated for his conduct. It also held a press conference to present evidence showing that Aguilar “falsified documents” and “presented misleading videos to push his false narrative.”
There was no apparent mention of the revelations about Aguilar’s narrative when the award was given out on Friday.
Uncategorized
University of Sydney Fires Staff Member Over Antisemitic Abuse of Students
Illustrative: An anti-Israel protest at the University of Sydney in Australia, April 26, 2024. Photo: Dean Lewins via Reuters Connect
The University of Sydney in Australia has dismissed an employee who was filmed shrieking at Jewish students over their support for Israel, a tirade in which she described them as “depraved” and inhuman.
“They’re shredding children!” staff member Rose Nakad screamed at the students in October, repeating pro-Hamas propaganda Hamas falsely accusing Israel of targeting Palestinian children in Gaza. “You are a f—king filthy Zionist. Nothing to do with being a Jew, you disgusting, depraved person.”
On Monday — just one day removed from the Bondi Beach massacre in which gunmen opened fire on Jews celebrating the start of Hanukkah in Sydney, hospitalizing dozens of people in addition to the 15 individuals who were murdered — the university denounced Nakad’s conduct as “distressing and utterly unacceptable.” It had previously suspended Nakad, signaling its appreciation of the gravity of her misconduct amid a global surge in antisemitism.
“The behavior that took place on our campus in October this year was deeply distressing and utterly unacceptable. We immediately suspended the staff member pending a formal process and have now terminated their employment on the grounds of serious misconduct,” the university said in a statement.
“This decision followed careful consideration in line with our clear expectations of behavior and our obligation to make sure our campuses are safe and welcoming for all,” the university continued. “Hate speech, antisemitism, and harassment have no place at our university and when our codes of conduct are breached, we do not hesitate to take disciplinary action.”
It added, “We continue to work on making our campus safe for all and if our codes are breached, we do not hesitate to take disciplinary action.”
In footage obtained by Sky News, Nakad approached several students celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. She asked if they were “Zionists” and continued to harass them as they asked her to leave.
“A Zionist is the lowest form of rubbish,” Nakad said to the students, according to the video. “Zionists are the most disgusting thing that has ever walked this earth.” The staff member described herself as an “indigenous Palestinian,”
Australia had seen its share of antisemitic outrages before the Bondi Beach shooting, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
In December 2024, for example, the home of Lesli Berger, former president of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, was vandalized, having been graffitied with a swastika. Next to the infamous Nazi symbol the vandal spray-painted the words “Jordan Gayter,” believed to be a misspelling of the German phrase for “Juden Gatter,” or “Jewish Gate.”
In November 2023, mere weeks after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, a Jewish man was assaulted by an anti-Israel mob because he took down an advertisement of a pro-Palestinian rally. Someone then thumped him on the back of his head, knocking him to the ground. Then three men joined in and proceeded to punch and kick him while calling him a “pro-Jew dog” among other names.
The onslaught concussed the man and, causing other injuries, fractured his spine. He reportedly spent four days in the hospital and later told a local media outlet that he is “very lucky” to be alive.
In one notorious episode in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack, hundreds of pro-Hamas protesters gathered outside the Sydney Opera House chanting “gas the Jews,” “f—k the Jews,” and other epithets.
The explosion of post-Oct. 7 hate also included vandalism and threats of gun violence. For example, a male assailant repeatedly punched a Jewish man while screaming “dirty rotten Jew c—t”; a group of young men jumped a Jewish boy, whom they called a “dirty Jew”; and pro-Hamas protesters “spat on, threatened, and kicked” an elderly Jewish woman during a demonstration held to raise awareness of antisemitism.
Anti-Israel sentiment has also led to vandalism. In June 2024, the US consulate in Sydney was vandalized and defaced by a man carrying a sledgehammer who smashed the windows and graffitied inverted red triangles on the building. The inverted red triangle has become a common symbol at pro-Hamas rallies. The Palestinian terrorist group, which has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, has used inverted red triangles in its propaganda videos to indicate Israeli targets about to be attacked. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “the red triangle is now used to represent Hamas itself and glorify its use of violence.”
Now, in the closing weeks of 2025, antisemitism in Australia has led to the deadliest terrorist attack in the country’s history.
Australian officials said they identified the mass shooters at Bondi Beach as Sajid Akram, 50, who was killed at the scene, and his son Naveed Akram, 24, who was in critical condition in a hospital. The younger suspect reportedly came to the attention of Australia’s domestic intelligence agency in 2019 for his ties to a Sydney-based cell of the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
Uncategorized
Tributes Pour in for Jewish Director Rob Reiner, Wife After Couple Found Dead, Son Arrested on Murder Charges
(From left) Rob Reiner, Michele Singer, Romy Reiner, Nick Reiner, Maria Gilfillan and Jake Reiner attend the Los Angeles Premiere of ”Spinal Tap II: The End Continues” at The Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles, California, US, Sept. 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Aude Guerrucci
Dozens of people in Hollywood have expressed profound sadness following the news that visionary Jewish filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were found dead in their Los Angeles home on Sunday night and that their middle son is being charged with murder.
Reiner, 78, was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1947. In the 1970s he co-starred in the sitcom “All in the Family” before becoming the famous director behind movies such as “This Is Spinal Tap,” “Stand by Me,” “The Princess Bride,” “When Harry Met Sally…” and “A Few Good Men.” Earlier this year, Reiner released the sequel, “Spinal Tap: The End Continues.” He also directed the 2015 film called “Being Charlie,” inspired by his son Nick’s longtime battle with heroin addiction and the impact that his substance abuse had on the family.
On Sunday, Reiner and his wife, 68, were found dead by what police described as an apparent homicide at their home in Brentwood, California. Their middle son, Nick, is being held at Los Angeles’ Twin Towers Jail, having been arrested on murder charges in connection with their deaths. The 32-year-old reportedly has his bail set at $4 million. “As a result of the initial investigation, it was determined that the Reiners were the victims of homicide. The investigation further revealed that Nick Reiner, the 32-year-old son of Robert and Michele Reiner, was responsible for their deaths,” the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said in a statement on Monday.
“I saw them night before last looking healthy and happy,” Jane Fonda wrote in an Instagram post. “I am reeling with grief. Stunned.” She shared a photo of the late couple on Instagram and wrote that they were “wonderful, caring, smart, funny, generous people, always coming up with ideas for how to make the world better, kinder.”
Fonda also said the couple had recently been helping her to relaunch the Committee for the First Amendment, a group that champions freedom of expression from government censorship.
“My heart is broken,” Zooey Deschanel said in a tribute to Reiner, who played her father on the show “New Girl.” She called Reiner “the absolute warmest, funniest, most generous of spirits. A truly good human being. An incredible artist and such a playful and fun collaborator.”
“I cherish the time we spent working together and the many films he made that have shaped who I am,” she added. “Rob and his lovely wife Michele were always so kind and it brought me so much joy any time I was lucky enough to see them. I’m absolutely devastated. Sending so much love to their family and friends.”
The estate of Norman Lear, the legendary producer who created “All in the Family,” released a statement remembering the close relationship between the two men. “Norman often referred to Rob as a son,” the statement said. “The world is unmistakably darker tonight.”
Jerry Seinfeld said Reiner had one of the biggest influences on his career aside from Larry David, who co-created “Seinfeld,” and the late George Shapiro, who was Seinfeld’s manager and a producer on the renowned sitcom. Reiner also helped save “Seinfeld” from almost being canceled, Seinfeld said. He shared a photo of himself alongside Reiner and his father, the late actor Carl Reiner.
“Our show would have never happened without him. He saw something no one else could,” Seinfeld explained in an Instagram post. “When nobody at the network liked the early episodes, he saved us from cancellation. That I was working with Carl Reiner’s son, who happened to be one of the kindest people in show business, seemed unreal.”
“I was naive at the time to how much his passion for us meant,” Seinfeld added. “Rob and Michele married right as our show was starting and they became an imprint for me of how it’s supposed to work, each one broadening the other. Their death, together, is impossibly sad.”
Kathy Bates, who won an Oscar for her leading role in Reiner’s 1990 horror “Misery,” said in a statement to Entertainment Weekly that Reiner was a “brilliant and kind, a man who made films of every genre to challenge himself as an artist.”
“I’m horrified hearing this terrible news. Absolutely devastated. I loved Rob,” she added. “He changed the course of my life … My heart breaks for them both. My thoughts are with their family.” She also said the late director was someone who “fought courageously for his political beliefs” and praised his wife as a “gifted photographer.”
Novelist Stephen King, who wrote the books that inspired Reiner’s films “Stand by Me” and “Misery,” praised the late director in a post on X as a “wonderful friend, political ally, and brilliant filmmaker.”
“You always stood by me,” King added.
Paul Feig, the director of “Bridesmaids,” posted a photo of himself and Reiner at Comic-Con and wrote that the latter “was my true hero.”
“One never knows if it’s proper to post during something as tragic as this,” Feig said. “But I just want the world to know what so many of us know in the industry. Robert was the best.”
Reiner and his wife are survived by two sons Jake and Nick, and their youngest daughter Romy, who reportedly called 911 on Sunday after discovering the bodies of her parents.
Rob and Nick allegedly got into a “very loud argument” on Saturday night while attending a Christmas party hosted by former talk show host Conan O’Brien, People magazine reported, citing multiple sources. Rob and his wife were found dead at their home the next day.