Healing with humour, Palestinian comedians strike a chord in occupied cities
31/08/2022 11:32
By Henriette Chacar
JERUSALEM, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Palestinian American Amer Zahr
is on a mission to heal through humour.
In 2015 he started bringing fellow Arab American comedians
from the United States to perform stand-up across occupied
Palestinian cities including Nablus, Bethlehem and Ramallah.
Seven years later, Zahr's now annual Palestine Comedy
Festival is still going strong.
"Laughter is therapy," he told Reuters after last week's
festival gig in Jerusalem. "We need to show the world that
Palestinians love to laugh, we love life, we love art."
Zahr and his line-up of seven other comedians performed at
the city's Dar al-Tifel al-Arabi school, established by a
Palestinian educator in 1948 and where organiser Hani Kashou
said the 350-ticket event was a sell-out.
Their jokes ranged from comic riffs on being questioned by
Israeli border guards to puns stemming from mispronunciations of
Arabic by people growing up straddling their twin Palestinian
and American identities.
Bilal Sharmoug, who closed the show, joked that the reason
he was big was because, growing up, he conflated the word for
"bon appetit" in Arabic – sahtein – with sahnein, meaning "two
plates".
Poking fun at stereotypes of Arab traditions also struck a
chord.
When comedian Reema Jallaq talked about being a "shibsheb
survivor" - referring to the cliched image of Arab mothers
throwing slippers at their children to discipline them - Mei
al-Bakri, 14, said she laughed especially hard.
"That was my favourite joke," she said as she stood beside
her mother.
"It was a great show," said Nihaya Ghoul Awdallah, 70, from
Jerusalem. "We thank them so much for bringing a beautiful smile
to our faces and for allowing us to release our worries, our
sadness and the difficult circumstances that we are in."
The line-up in the festival's first year included Egyptian
American Emmy-nominated actor Ramy Youssef and Palestinian
American comedian Mo Amer, whose semi-autobiographical Netflix
series was released on the streaming service last week.
This year, all seven comedians were Palestinian.
"We bring Palestinian and Arab Americans here to show that
our people in America have not forgotten where we're from," said
Zahr, who divides his time between Nazareth and Dearborn,
Michigan.
Zahr performed all five of this year's shows wearing a black
T-shirt bearing the word "press" as a tribute to Palestinian
American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, killed during an Israeli
raid in the occupied West Bank in May.
"If she was here, she'd be laughing too," he said. "Comedy
comes from tragedy. The pain and the suffering are exactly why
we do this festival."
(Reporting by Henriette Chacar; editing by John Stonestreet)
((henriette.chacar@thomsonreuters.com; +44 20 7536 7465;
Reuters Messaging: @HenrietteChacar))