Palestinian comedian conquers Tel Aviv By Ray Hanania

Current mood: excited
 
Well, that is a funny line, but it really should read "Israeli and Palestinian comedians conquer and overcome public fear and loathing in the Middle East."
 
More than 160 people came out for the Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour show at the Tzavta theater in downtown Tel Aviv. The show was phenomenal. We had apprehensions about how many people might turn out, as we only had 40 reservations total. But at 9 PM when the show began, the auditorium of the comedy club was packed with people. Our largest crowd so far out of four shows, with on more on Wednesday in Jerusalem and a possible 6th show on Thursday night at the Bakah cafe.
 
The audience laughed from start to finish. They enjoyed the jokes when they made fun of Palestinians and Arab culture and even harder when they made fun of Israelis and Israeli culture. People lined up to offer their gratitude to the stars of the night, Aaron Freeman, Charley Warady, Yisrael Campbell and myself. Our emcee Dueces was great, a young up and coming standup comedian in an industry that is only getting off the ground.
 
The first real standup comedy network was put together by a great person who I met finally face-to-face in Jerusalem, David Kilimnick of Off-the-Wall comedy. What a tremendous person he is.
 
The shows were organized by Dan Sieradski of Corner Prophets and filmed by Israely Channel 2 TV reporter Matthew Kalman.
 
This show was non-stop laughter and the emails from Israelis AND Palestinians congratulating us on performing has been non-stop. The Israelis even laughed at my new joke, "Some people asked why I was not doing shows in occupied Palestine and only doing shows in Israel. I said, Tel Aviv is occupied Palestine." The audience roared :)
 
The Hebrew language press gave us tremendous coverage in Tel Aviv. And that's great because since it's all written in Hebrew, I can basically just make up the quotes any way I want :) ... actually, not. Just joking. We don't have to make up anything.
 
Anyone who says having a Palestinian perform on stage with Israeli and Jewish comedians is "not" newsworthy is, well ... a journalist? I don't think so.
 
Ray Hanania