{"id":97797,"date":"2022-09-20T17:00:44","date_gmt":"2022-09-20T15:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=97797"},"modified":"2022-09-10T14:09:56","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T12:09:56","slug":"31-00-38","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=97797","title":{"rendered":"Over 4,000 Attend First Annual \u2018Chosen Comedy Festival\u2019 in New York Starring Jewish Performers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Over 4,000 Attend First Annual \u2018Chosen Comedy Festival\u2019 in New York Starring Jewish Performers<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

Shiryn Ghermezian<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

(From left) David Attell, Jeff Ross, Modi and Elon Gold on stage at the first annual Chosen Comedy Festival in Brooklyn, NY, on Aug. 16. Source: Shiryn Ghermezian<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

More than 4,000 people gathered at the Coney Island Amphitheater in Brooklyn on Tuesday for a night of laughter and musical performances by Jewish comedians and artists as part of the first annual Chosen Comedy Festival, hosted by the comedy club Stand Up NY.<\/span><\/p>\n

The event, the first comedy festival of its kind to feature all Jewish acts, benefited the Ukrainian Emergency Performing Arts Fund, which supports performing artists staying in Ukraine during the country\u2019s ongoing war with Russia. The festival was hosted by Jewish comedians Elon Gold and Modi.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe focus of tonight is about celebrating and doing Jewish comedy,\u201d Gold told The Algemeiner<\/em> before the event began. \u201cThese are some of the top Jewish comedians [and they] do stuff that speaks to our people, to our shared experience, to our collective experience.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The evening opened with performances by singers Moshe Reuven and Laivy \u2014who is the son of reggae and hip-hop singer Matisyahu \u2014 and rappers Kosha Dillz, and Nissim Black, the latter of whom was joined on stage for a surprise performance by Gad Elbaz. Together the duo sang their collaboration \u201cHashem Melech.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kosher food trucks provided food to the audience for purchase and throughout the evening, Modi and Gold introduced 11 Jewish comedians on stage, including Alex Edelman (twin brother of Olympic athlete AJ Edelman<\/a>), Eric Tabach, Leah Forster, Jared Freid, Gary Guz, T.J. Miller, Jessica Kirson, Zarna Garg, and from Israel, Ofer Shechter and Yohay Sponder. The show closed out with legendary comic Jeff Ross and his surprise guest Dave Attell, who formerly hosted Comedy Central<\/em>\u2018s \u201cInsomniac.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While majority of the puns made by the comics throughout the night were Jewish-centered and poked fun at Jewish traditions and communities \u2014 Sephardis, Ashkenazis, Chassidim and Chabadniks \u2014 other topics were also covered and some of the acts paid tribute to late, great Jewish comedians, including Rodney Dangerfield, Bob Saget and Gilbert Gottfried.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gold joked about the importance of food to the Jewish community and the stereotype that Jews are money-hungry. He said, \u201cThere\u2019s the stereotype that \u2018Jews love money\u2019 \u2014 We don\u2019t love money. We need money to buy food! We\u2019re food insecure.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He earlier told the almost exclusively Jewish crowd at the Coney Island Amphitheater, \u201cJewish audiences are our favorite audiences,\u201d while Moi quipped, \u201cthis is the biggest minyan I\u2019ve seen in my life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Dani Zoldan, owner of Stand Up NY and founder of the Chosen Comedy Festival, told The Algemeiner<\/em> on Wednesday that he was happily surprised by the event\u2019s turnout and praised the comedians for their outstanding performances on stage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to see Jews from all religious backgrounds come together to laugh,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s rare where there\u2019s an event like that, that\u2019s purely about comedy. It wasn\u2019t a political event, there was no agenda, it was just making people laugh. That was the goal and we accomplished that. The comics crushed it \u2026 For a first year festival, I\u2019m very happy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Zoldan added that he looks forward to hosting the comedy festival again next year in Brooklyn and taking it to Los Angeles, Miami and Israel, while bringing in new talent to perform each time. He said, \u201cI believe we planted a seed this year and hope to do this event for many, many years to come.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Zoldan came up with the idea for the Chosen Comedy Festival four months ago while talking on the phone with Gold. The comedian and Modi immediately got on board and when Zoldan called other Jewish comics asking if they would join the lineup, they all agreed right away to participate, he told The Algemeiner.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

When asked how he would describe \u201cJewish comedy,\u201d Gold told The Algemeiner <\/em>that it\u2019s not much different than other types of comedy, which is all \u201cabout complaining.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou complain about your wife, girlfriend, husband, government, politicians, other people \u2014 that\u2019s all of comedy. Jewish comedy probably takes it a step further where you\u2019re also complaining about the littlest things\u2026 the minutia of everyday life. That\u2019s going deep into complaining and then you complain about Jewish things. I don\u2019t make fun as an outsider. I poke fun as an insider. I live such a connected Jewish life that I can\u2019t help but think of observations about Judaism.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

Zawarto\u015b\u0107 publikowanych artyku\u0142\u00f3w i materia\u0142\u00f3w nie reprezentuje pogl\u0105d\u00f3w ani opinii Reunion’68,<\/em>
\nani te\u017c webmastera Blogu Reunion’68, chyba ze jest to wyra\u017anie zaznaczone.
\nTwoje uwagi, linki, w\u0142asne artyku\u0142y lub wiadomo\u015bci prze\u015blij na adres:
\n<\/em>webmaster@reunion68.com<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over 4,000 Attend First Annual \u2018Chosen Comedy Festival\u2019 in New York Starring Jewish Performers Shiryn Ghermezian (From left) David Attell, Jeff Ross, Modi and Elon Gold on stage at the first annual Chosen Comedy Festival in Brooklyn, NY, on Aug. 16. Source: Shiryn Ghermezian More than 4,000 people gathered at the Coney Island Amphitheater in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97797"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=97797"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98068,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97797\/revisions\/98068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=97797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=97797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}