Posts tagged comedy

One Comedian Holds “Shiva for Anne Frank”; Another Roasts Her: The Challenges of Holocaust Comedy

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Anne Frank’s birthday is June 12. In honor of her life and work, I wanted to share two recent pieces I wrote about Anne, and take a look at some of the current media conversation about her.

Comedy and the Holocaust

The Holocaust is not funny. We all know that. And yet, there is comedy being performed about things associated with the Holocaust that some people do find funny. This line is a difficult one to walk and is explored very well and, I think, respectfully, in the documentary “The Last Laugh.” That film, containing jokes and serious interviews with comedians, makes points about Jews’ survival and ridiculing Nazis as taking away their power. (Trailer at end of this post.)

And then there’s Anne Frank.

Roasting Anne Frank

This month, Netflix released a new series by Jeffrey Ross called “Historical Roasts,” including a “roast” of Anne Frank. The internet rebelled, with many calling on people everywhere to insist that Netflix cancel and remove the whole series. Most of these people had not seen the show and proudly proclaimed they wouldn’t even watch a few seconds of it in protest; they were rebelling in knee-jerk reaction to the sheer idea of a comedy roast of the beloved diarist. They didn’t understand Ross’s motivations, or they didn’t care. They thought the show was laughing at Anne Frank. (And the word “roast” in a Holocaust context is really in poor taste, but that’s what the genre is called.) But Ross said in a Jewish Journal interview that he was acting out of educational goals, but through a genre – comedy roasts in which the guest of honor is insulted by “friends” and then has an opportunity to fight back with their own insults – that he has become known for:

“As a comedian, you do things that no one’s ever done, and roasting Anne Frank sounds outlandish, it sounds risky, but to me, the riskier move would be to ignore the most provocative and the most emotional stories,” Ross said. “People always talk about the Holocaust and they say ‘never forget,’ but young people, I’m sorry, they are forgetting. They need to hear these stories, and I use Anne Frank not just as a hero from World War II but as a cautionary tale of today and anti-Semitism.” 

Anne and Rachel at the Fringe

In this year’s Hollywood Fringe Festival, writer and comedian Rachel McKay Steele has a one-woman show about Anne Frank, or more accurately, about how her life is inspired by Anne Frank’s work. The show, “Shiva for Anne Frank,” got a little sexually explicit at parts, and is often more about the author than the diarist. It will undoubtedly elicit some knee-jerk reactions to the concept. But Steele points out that Anne herself, even within her dire circumstances, had a wry sense of humor. It’s possible she would have enjoyed a good roast, or Jewish comedians identifying with parts of her story or with the observations she made in her diary. As with the roasts, the ability to sit and absorb the culture of this show is about understanding the genre and suspending your inner critic to see the truths within, even if you find some of the trappings offensive.

Let’s Talk

So what role should contemporary tools – like social media and various types of comedy or commentary – play in retelling the sacred stories of our tragic past? Is it always going to be “too soon” to joke about tragedy? Are remembrances only permitted to be somber, or can we infuse serious memorials with humor?

Read “Chutzpah, Babka and ‘Shiva for Anne Frank,'” my interview with writer and comedian Rachel McKay Steele, in the Jewish Journal.

Read my piece, “Anne Frank Friended Me: Social Media and Remembering the Holocaust,” in eJewishPhilanthropy.

Trailer for “The Last Laugh” (2016)

 

 

 

Client Profile: Comedy for a Change Conference

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From the comedyforachange.com website

From the comedyforachange.com website

Comedy as social change? Only in Jerusalem. 🙂 December 21-22 saw the arrival of a group of comedy change-makers from around the world for the premiere Comedy for a Change conference. Originally signed up as an attendee, I was honored that they subsequently hired me as social media manager for the conference – I created and managed the @JJJComedy Twitter for the three weeks before the conference, during the event itself, and for several weeks after.

The brainchild of comedy writer and exporter of Israeli TV formats Omri Marcus, the conference brought to Israel people who had never been there before, to experience different styles of comedy, examine how comedy informs the social and political perspectives, and to participate in an international writers room.

As the social media manager for the conference, I watched the tweets fly fast and furious throughout the day, documenting the unique proceedings as they transpired. The mayor of Jerusalem was interviewed by a foul mouthed puppet (think Avenue Q, but ruder). Participants were treated to an inside scoop of from the writers of the German, American, and Israeli versions of the hit show, “The Office.” Two Canadian comedians talked about their Yiddish-language comedy series, YidLife Crisis. The head of television programs for the BBC spoke about his network, Israel in the news, and the changing face of anti-Semitism in Europe. Session panelists talked about pushing the envelope, the process of producing video, and how social change messages can be embedded in comedic contexts.

The United States, of course, was well-represented. Other comedy professionals hailed from countries as far away as Sweden, Denmark, Hungary, South Africa and Canada; there were also two Muslim comics (from Denmark and Brooklyn), who were a vital component to the “Non-Diplomatic Peace Talks” session (covered by CNN), an experience pairing them with two Israeli political comedians and moderated by a German. (If you pause at 2:00 in the clip, you can spy me in the audience, smiling demurely and looking down at my notebook.)

Check out a sampling of the Tweets and photos from the conference, as rendered through Storify:

Pre-conference & Day 1

Day 2 & post-conference

A selection of photos

 

 

It’s Been A While, But I’m Back…

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Screen Shot 2014-09-12 at 4.17.14 PMThanks for your patience while we worked out some technical challenges with EstherK.com – I’m looking forward to bringing you more writing, advice and food for thought in this space over the next few months, and hope you’ll be here to think, learn and laugh with me. Until the fresh content is fully baked, I wanted to share these two videos with you.

I’ve started working as freelance community manager for ELI Talks, a program designed to bring TED-style talks and weekly on-air conversations to people who want to explore Jewish engagement, literacy and identity. Most of the time, I’m behind the camera, live-tweeting the weekly conversations (you can see past editions at the ELI Talks website under the section for ELI Talks on Air). But my first run was as an intervieweee – I spoke about my writing on everything from Jewish singles to life after loss; and my next one was as an interviewer, as I spoke to the guys behind the Jewish video site Shmideo. (The links in the previous sentence will take you to MyUrbanKvetch, for the minute-by-minute breakdown, in case you’d like to see a part of the video without sitting down to watch the entire thing. :))

More content to come – looking forward to sharing with you in this space soon! (And a happy Jewish new year to those of you who are celebrating…)

My Past at PresenTense: The Articles

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I recently left my position as senior editor at PresenTense to concentrate on other projects. But in the first moments of the new year, I thought it might be interesting to see where I’ve been article-wise during my tenure:

Two Jews, Three Blogs: Inside Jokes, Inner Dissent and Inner Life from Bloggers of the Tribe (PDF, page 13)
Zionism and Me: Wrestling With Israel
The Hebrew Slanguage: Unpacking the Junk from Israel’s Trunk (with Jacob Shwirtz)
Man With a Plan: Avi Liberman (profile)
Jews’ Line Is It Anyway? Why the Chosen People Choose Improv

Every article I wrote there was about something important to me, and it was a real treat to be able to explore those issues in print, for an audience of my peers. Interested in reprints? Contact me and we’ll talk about the possibilities…

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