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Jewish-Palestinian comedy team jokes for peace in Margate
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MARGATE — OK, this Jewish guy and a Palestinian guy walk into a bar — wait, make that a Jewish Community Center.
They get to telling jokes — many of them jokes about Jewish guys and Palestinian guys, and women of both groups.
Does anybody laugh?
The crowd sure did Sunday night at the Milton & Betty Katz Jewish Community Center in Margate, which hosted an odd twist on the old idea of two-man comedy teams.
The new-ish take on that classic is called Standup For Peace, and the self-appointed mission of Scott Blakeman, a Jew who grew up in Brooklyn, and Dean Obeidallah, a Palestinian-American from northern New Jersey, is simple:
All they’re really looking for is to be the “two-comedian solution to peace in the Middle East.”
Blakeman and Obeidallah have performed their shtick from New England to California, typically either on college campuses — from Harvard to UNLV last year alone — or for community/
educational groups such as the JCC or Muslim-American organizations.
And the two were supposed to do Standup For Peace in Margate in January — until fresh fighting broke out between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza, and JCC officials decided that a time in which people were dying was not the right time to try out somewhat edgy Jewish-Palestinian humor.
But it’s not like everything these guys do is edgy or especially political.
Blakeman got the crowd laughing early, right after the two invited people in the back of the half-full, 250-or-so-seat JCC auditorium to move up to the front, on the grounds that comedy works better when it’s intimate.
He acknowledged that the people up front had paid more, adding that a $5 ticket got “you a seat at the Downbeach Deli,” a beloved Margate institution.
Then he kept it local with another quick reference: “We were recently in Cherry Hill, and now we’re in Margate,” Blakeman said. “So this is our South Jersey Jewish pilgrimage tour.”
The two did about 10 minutes of jokes and explanation together before Obeidallah took over for a solo half-hour — with an intro from Blakeman as “my partner in peace and comedy.”
Obeidallah detailed his own heritage — his father was born in Palestine and his mother’s roots are in Sicily. He grew up in Lodi and Paramus, in Bergen County, and his neighborhood leaned so heavily to his mother’s side, he says a teacher once asked him to bring his dad in for show-and-tell.
He did a little New Jersey material:
“We have a dream,” he said, meaning the peace dream, “but I have a goal: That’s to end the fighting between New Jersey and America.”
He did some Dick Cheney and George W. Bush jokes, noting that “as a comedian, Bush was our greatest friend.”
The two comics do not mind saying they’re liberals, and Obeidallah — who works often in the Middle East — also offered a few travel tips. Such as this one, on getting through American airport security with an Arab-sounding name:
“Dress white, make your flight,” he said. “Dress brown, never leave town.”
It was not until the end of his act that he got Middle-Eastern political, noting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Sunday speech endorsing a two-state solution for peace with the Palestinians. Obeidallah said if Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas can come to an agreement, they won’t just win the Nobel Peace Prize. Even better, they could have an international career as commercial pitchmen, starting as the new Lite Beer “tastes great-less filling” bickerers.
Blakeman took over with Jewish material that killed — strictly in a comic sense — with the JCC crowd. Working on one of his favorite Jewish stereotypes, he pointed out that the founder of Home Depot, Bernie Marcus, was Jewish.
“So a Jewish guy founded a store that no Jewish guy has set foot in since,” Blakeman said.
He noted a recent visit to the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame — “It was in a closet” — and did more sports jokes. Take his father, who loves Jewish athletes and was excited a few years back to hear that his New York Mets had a pitcher named David Cone.
“I said, ‘Dad, you know that’s “Cone” like ice-cream cone, not “Kohn” like the president of the men’s club at the temple, right?’”
He talked about finding a restaurant with “‘Jewish-style food.’ ... What does that mean, you order it loudly?’”
Blakeman offered more on American politics, too, but when the two went back on together and took questions from the crowd, the Middle East came up big — and it was not all peaceful, or funny.
Several members of the JCC crowd defended Israel’s role in previous wars, and the two comics argued with them.
Obeidallah insisted that peace is possible, saying that Jordan is Israel’s closest ally in the region now. And he rejected the notion that Palestinians don’t want peace.
“Are all Jews the same? Do you all have the same opinion?” he asked. “If you have two Arabs, you have three opinions.”
But after more exchanges, Blakeman got the biggest hand during the serious part of the night: “The only way to make it good for both sides is just to be pro-peace,” he said.
Obeidallah’s Middle East career has included one show in Israel, and Blakeman says his goal is to take Standup For Peace on the long road to where it’s most needed.
Which brings up another classic comedy question: If a Jewish guy and a Palestinian guy walk into Israel and Palestine and start telling jokes, does anybody laugh?
Better yet, does anybody take them seriously?
E-mail Martin DeAngelis:
Posted in TOP THREE on Sunday, June 14, 2009 11:25 pm
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