The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Matan Peretz: Israeli Comedian on the Front Lines in Gaza

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

Matan Peretz is stand up comedian, social media influencer and an active IDF soldier in the army reserves.

This is Live from the Table, the official podcast of the world-famous comedy cellar, coming at you on SiriusXM 99. Raw comedy, formerly Raw Dog, and available as a podcast, also on YouTube. Dan Natterman here, with Noam Dorman, owner of the world-famous comedy cellar. Hello, hello. Periel Ashenbrand is here. She's our producer. Hi. And she also has some on-air, you know, stuff.

We're here with... That is such a garbage introduction. Nevertheless, we have with us Matan Peretz, or am I pronouncing that correctly? Oh, yeah. He's a stand-up comedian, media influencer, and active IDF soldier in the Army Reserves. And he is joining us from somewhere

in the combat zone. I don't know whether he's in Israel or in the Gaza Strip. Ask him. Well, I'm not sure he's at liberty to say. Are you in Israel? I'm in Israel right now. I guess so. If you were in the Gaza Strip, you wouldn't be just hanging out having a Zoom talk.

Welcome. He's coming at us via Zoom. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. Yeah, we got wind of you, I guess, through Rachel Feinstein. Yes, Rachel called me and

said, you must have this man on the show. So here you are. And hope that you're doing well despite everything. So you were about to have a special released, right? Right before... I released a special, actually, on September, preparing for the winter shows. And now, you know, it doesn't matter anymore.

What's the comedy scene like in Israel? Oh, the comedy scene is amazing. I think, like, not as harsh as the comedy scene in the States. But, you know, there's a lot of newcomers. There's a lot of new stuff, very exciting stuff. Israel, we get all the things from America in, like, a five to ten years delay. So we try to keep up uh but yeah it's it's a very it's a very like vibrant very friendly scene um so yeah when I was like yeah sorry when

I was over there I actually bumped into an Arab comedian who was doing uh one of the one of the I don't know if it was an open mic or whatever it was, but I was a little bit surprised to see him there. How common is that? Oh, it's very common. There's only one. Pardon? He's the only one. Oh, that was the one I met?

The only one? He's the only one. And I asked him many times, so you perform in Hebrew and then you go perform in Arabic? You guys guys have like a vibrant stand-up scene in Arabic and he was like no not at all this is true you guys are being serious is one Arab comic yeah Muhammad that's the only one all right so okay in English you know if you do well they say you kill and if you do badly they say you bombed they exactly they use the same thing in hebrew no it's the opposite for muhammad if you do well

listen uh so so this is actually what i want to ask you so you know um obviously everybody's on the lookout now for uh any israeli who says uh uh unkind things. But of course, in wartime, it's typical for countries to be very insensitive about, quote unquote, the enemy. In the United States, if you look at what was going on vis-a-vis the Japanese, whatever it is, but you also live, you have Arab citizens there, you have Arab friends, I presume. So what kind of things are said? is it reactive how do people react to it can you make jokes about arabs can arabs make jokes about jews you make jokes about the war what's it like i think muhammad is a great example like how

when you joke about this thing you can really diffuse the whole situation because obviously everything is very tense in israel everything always is very tense that's why we joke about everything because it's so tense you can't just leave and like you know what i mean be tense all the time so we try to joke about everything um usually if someone don't get the jokes they don't get them even at peace times so we we joke all the time anytime and and that's how we pass the time here in Israel because every time we get a new war, we get a new operation going on, if we won't joke about it, we just won't joke about anything. So usually the humor here is very, very dark because of everything we've been going through.

I've seen a lot of comics come to Israel, like Bill Bear, I think, and most of them are very surprised of how they can do very dark jokes and the crowd just loves it because everything we're going through. So the threshold for dark humor here is either, you know, very high or very low. Depends how you look at it. I was I the shows I did in Israel were for the for the Englishspeaking, you know, Aleem, as they call them, immigrants. And they tend to be more religious because who the hell else is going to go to Israel from, right? Like, if you're going to Israel from the United States,

you've got to be motivated. And that motivation probably comes from religious conviction because otherwise, why are you going to leave the good life, the comfy life in the United States to go to Israel? So all the people that I performed for were religious. So you had to be very clean. And it's the opposite of what you're saying. You had to be clean.

You had to be politically correct, more or less. And you couldn't be dark. But I never performed for the Hebrew speaking audience. Exactly. But I think you can see, usually of course usually you're right but uh when they spend enough time in israel they get darker and darker in skin and in humor so uh yeah absolutely i i used to perform to uh olim as you said all the time because i need to practice my english because ultimately i want to perform all over the world so i perform to olim and you can

tell that i'm very sensitive but but by the level of sensitivity, you can say, like, you can feel, oh, you're new here, okay. I can tell, oh, you've been here for two months, okay, you're very new. But for the ones that are here, like, for a few years, they joke about everything. That's how you know you're true Israeli.

I want to ask you about the different groups in Israel. To what extent are the settlers resented because of the perception that in some way they exacerbate the everyday lives of people like you who are fighting in the military? I heard on one show that there was something like 14 battalions were on the West Bank trying to keep things calm there, and only two were left in Gaza. And the person on the show speculated that that was because of all the provocations on the West Bank. I don't know much about it. What's your take on all that? Explain it to us. For someone who was born and raised in the West Bank, if you call it a settler, if you want to call that, we were born and raised to protect and love our country. And for many, many years, people, as you said, resented settlers for like, oh, you're doing all this. And now we have to deal with the, you know, Palestinian mob or whatever.

But after October 7th, we all realized that for them, all of Israel is the settlement. There's no legitimate cities and settlers. No, every single place in Israel is a settlement. So now when we all realize it, or at least 90% of Israelis realize it, I think the sympathy for settlers are way high now because all of us are basically settlers. Yeah, actually I saw one of the

screenings of the films in the Israeli government and they actually did refer to the kibbutzes and the moshavs as settlements, meaning that all Israelis are settlers. And actually we had Rashid Khalidi, a Columbia professor on and he referred to Israelis

as settlers. We found a video of him saying it. So it's a... The issue used to be 1967. Now the issue is more and more 47 and 48, it seems to be, in the way the world is looking at the conflict, which is amazing if you think about it, that it's actually moving backwards. Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing. We're going to move backwards and backwards. Each're gonna go i'm gonna move backwards and backwards

each war we're gonna move backwards and backwards and then someone will dispute you know king david that's what's gonna happen every war we go backwards and backwards i'm waiting for you know people to be like oh abraham didn't exist i'm waiting for that you know and nowadays uh i don't know if you know that but ab Abraham was Palestinian, turns out. I've seen a couple of videos of them saying like, oh, Abraham was a Palestinian. Moses was a Palestinian. So that's good to know that I'm Palestinian also. So I'm not...

If you don't know history, just don't. Don't get your information from TikTok and stop arguing with people that actually live here and know the history. There were no Palestinians, obviously, then, but Abraham is the patriarch of the Arabic people as well, right? That part is true?

I mean, if any of it's true, who knows if there even was an Abraham, right? Exactly. I did read somewhere that King David, at first there was some doubt as to whether he existed, then they found something in Egypt, some, some, Stel do they call it? Some tablet that mentioned King David.

And so now they're pretty sure actually there was a King David. As far as Moses is concerned, I don't know. But the arrogance of somebody sitting in America talking about stolen land is just unbelievable. Oh, I hate that. What are you talking about? What do you mean? What am I talking about? We didn't steal land from the Native Americans.

You can still complain about someone else. You didn't do it. No, I didn't do it. They complain about it here, too. I don't hear in the echo chambers of social media anybody pointing out that hypocrisy. Didn't I do a land acknowledgement statement before the podcast? I see it all the time. Yeah, all the time.

But I don't think it's valid. I think, you know, if you have a cause you think is just, feel free to discuss it, whether or not. People ask me what I'm thinking about, like the war between Russia and Ukraine. And I said, listen, I don't know enough about the topic to weigh in. And I wish 90% of the people on TikTok would say that about Israel and Palestine. Listen, come on. You don't know enough. You don't know nearly enough.

So please stop giving us your opinion. We're Israelis. We don't give a fuck about what you think. People don't understand the Israeli state of mind. People think that Israelis are the same as Jews living in Europe or the United States. But if you ever met, I guess some of you did, if you ever met an Israeli Jew, you know that most of the time, we don't give a shit about your opinion. So you can go ahead and keep doing videos. We don't care.

Well, let me ask you about that, because is that really true? I would imagine. Listen, it's getting to me the stuff I see on Twitter and elsewhere. I don't really I don't really I'm not on TikTok, but I'm kind of aware that Israel is not a favorite on social media. And if and if you spend time on it, you're only human. It's got a way on you after a while In some way You can't just be impervious to it So how do Israelis deal with that? It's a psychological pressure, no?

It is And it's very harsh But you can't let it cloud your judgment Because we know that every war we have Every operation is us fighting to exist We don't fight to expand our land We don't fight to that every war we have, every operation is us fighting to exist. We don't fight to expand our land. We don't fight to occupy anyone.

We just fight to exist because everyone surrounding us just want us to go away. Why don't you go home? Go back to where you came from. Exactly. Somebody told me, go back to Europe. I've never been. You know what I mean? Are your ancestors from Europe or from the Arab world?

My dad's family came from Morocco, but my mom's family actually are like eight or nine generations from Jerusalem. So that pissed them off a lot. They don't believe me. So you know what I mean? So you'll get to stay. You'll get to stay even if everyone else has to go They don't believe me. So you know what I mean? So you'll get to stay. You'll get to stay even if everyone else has to go home.

Half of me. Half of me gets to stay and the other half gets to go back to Morocco, I guess. I don't know how that works, but like, somebody asked me,

why won't you go back to Europe? Or like, if you're going to visit Europe, you should study the language. And I was like, yeah, if I go to France,

obviously, I'm going to study Arabic. You know what I mean mean because I need to know that if I go there. Any other people from the United States? Because I love Americans. Where are you from? Italy. Italy! I love how Italian food is so good that we forgot that I supported Nazis.

You know what I mean? It's so amazing. And we're best friends with Hitler. We're like, yeah, whatever. Pasta, I don't give a shit. That's amazing. How good your food should be that people would be like, we don't care about history. It'd be more of a pizza. You know what I mean? It's amazing. Any of you Italian? No. You still live in Italy. So I'm sorry for that. You guys disappeared during COVID, right? There was a lot of reports for really.

We have 300 million people dying every day. How do you still have a country? What is going on? So you still live in Italy. So you're here for a visit? No, no, no. I came here to do a PhD and then I found my husband. Oh, that's very nice. That's very exciting. And your husband is Israeli? No.

What does this mean? Eh, sometimes I'm Israeli. Most of your life you're Israeli and you cook? I was talking to her. You're an Israeli guy, I don't even have to ask that. Like in Old Ewolt. You cook? Like lasagna and shit? I don't know.

Listen to that accent. Oh my God. Oh my God. That sounds amazing. The dude said everything. Yeah, boom, boom, whatever. I don't care. That sounds delicious.

Amazing. You find your husband and you live here now. Are you okay? I love it when Italians start talking with their hands and then the voice comes. You know what I mean? It's like thunder and lightning. Easy! What? Just... You should talk first and then the hands. I don't know. So you guys live in Italy or here?

Here. So you could meet them, yeah? You cannot say risada a pi. Even risada a pi sounds good with an Italian accent. You know what I mean? That's the most depressing thing in Israel. Risada a pi. I want to go there. I bet they have good lasagna. You guys are awesome. Thank you for that.

Congratulations on your days. That's pretty exciting. I bet they had good lasagna. You guys are awesome. Thank you for that. Congratulations on your marriage. That's pretty exciting. So, I mean, I just can't imagine what the constant criticism. I mean, I'm married. I know a little bit what constant criticism feels like, but I can't imagine what it's like for an Israeli.

But what about, you know, what about U.S. support in terms of, you know, military support and financial support? Is that do you think about those things? And, you know, in terms of. Obviously, obviously, like you, I don't think you guys understand that Israelis, at least educated ones, are the biggest fan of the U.S., like the biggest fan, cultural-wise, whatever, like music, comedy, whatever. Everything we consume, everything we watch is from the United States.

Like, we love it so much. Some of us love SNL more than we love Ernst & Ernst, for that matter. So, you know, it's just everything that america does we're fascinated by so obviously the the support and the financial support and the military support we're very grateful and and we understand that we cannot do this you know by ourselves but again we're the tip of the spear we're a western country residing in the middle of the Middle East. So somebody has to do it. You know what I mean? We're not visitors here. We're not going to Afghanistan for a few years

and then go back. We're not going to Iraq for a few years and then going back. We live here. That's the only place we have on earth. And we're the tip of the spear. So, you know, we try our best to civilize this area. I can hear people who have a different point of view from you objecting to that analogy tip of the spear because it sounds aggressive. Like you want to pierce another people's part of the world. Yeah. But when you're living under a constant attack for 75 years, you're going to be a little bit aggressive.

I'm sorry. Yeah. Another real question. A lot of civilians are dying, right? And I believe that most Israelis, you can correct me if I'm wrong, I think most people take that very seriously. Absolutely. But you feel like you be accomplished in this war that you can be at peace with yourself, that all the people who were killed

were not killed in a callous way? What accomplishment? What does Israel have to walk away from? Say, listen, yes, we did these horrible things, but at least we accomplished this, and this was worth it. I think what you're saying is a little bit wrong, like respectfully, of course.

Okay, disconnect him. That's it. No, of course, of course, by all means, tell me where I'm wrong. I don't know what I'm talking about. Go ahead. Of course, you're awesome and I love you because you own the cellar.

No, no, please speak frankly. Speak frankly. I'm being very frank. Listen, obviously the civilians casualties that we have, nobody likes that. Nobody encouraged that. We don't like to see any civilians getting hurt. Muslim, Christians, Palestinians, whatever they are. Nobody with the right mind and with a full heart like to see civilian casualties. That's just insane.

Nobody likes that. None of us do. But the thing is, we understand that if Hamas want this war to end tomorrow, they will surrender, give us back the rest of our hostages, and just everything will end. But as long as it's not happening, we will have to take back the Gaza Strip and dismantle Hamas completely because we cannot stay neighbors of those people. Our war, people don't understand, our war is not with the Palestinian people, not at all. Our war is with a terrorist organization called hamas and in northern israel hezbollah we don't hate lebanese people or jordanians or palestinians for that matter we

we have nothing against them the people that want to live in peace like i mean i'm currently in jordanian samaria the people i meet when i just my uh patrols or, I have nothing against them. Usually we have nice conversations and we all want to live in peace and go back to our boring life. And people don't understand that. People think that the Israeli army or the Israeli government just hates everyone and wants everyone to die. Not at all. We don't. We just want to live in peace and have our boring life. But terrorist organizations and those groups that are threatening Israel's existence, we're fighting those people. And if those people are using the

innocent civilians as human shields, we get nothing to do against it. Unfortunately, nobody likes to see the sites that we've seen from Gaza. This is terrible. We hate that, and we condemn every single civilian casualty, but that's the cost of war that we didn't start. We never started a war. Israel never started a war. We only retaliate. I just want to point out that Judea and Samaria, which you mentioned, is what most people in the United States would refer to the West Bank, but Judea and Samaria, that's the Hebrew and biblical name for that region, and that's, you said, where you grew up? Yeah, I grew up here. I'm doing actually my reserve service actually where I grew up. Now, the people in the settlements, there's certain settlements which everybody presumes would be part of Israel, even in a two-state solution.

But there's quite a few people who live in areas where that have already been offered, right, in past negotiations. Do you think these people will uproot voluntarily or will there be a mini civil war? I think after what happens in the Gaza St strip in 2005 nobody in their right mind uh will just leave their house again because it didn't achieve anything the the reason that we had we we had this war the reason that 7th of october happened is because we pulled out of the gaza strip we will not do it again that as simple as that you make a mistake once you see the consequences you don't do it again that's you

know that's how you learn from your history if you don't learn from your history it's bound to come back we won't do it again ever like if any government will try to do it they'll be thrown away that's it because yeah but what what if there were a palest a Palestinian leader who was quite different than everything that's been before, more like a Sadat, who was sincere, who wanted the end of this conflict? Do you think the Israeli public at this point is capable of believing him? I don't think so. Like, I'm sorry to say that. It's very hard to say. But after everything we've been through, ever since 2005 until now, I don't think the Israeli public will believe any of the Arab leaders at this point.

Because we give and give and give. And Israel, just every year, Israel is getting smaller and smaller. And the population gets bigger and bigger. And we give parts of us and it doesn't work. What do you mean you get smaller and smaller and the population gets bigger and bigger and we give you know parts of us and it's just it doesn't work what do you mean you get smaller and smaller we used to be we used to we used to have the uh parts of egypt and parts of of jordan and parts of lebanon and every time to achieve peace we give peace of israel away and we have a temporary peace with Lebanon and Jordan and Egypt. But every time we give piece of the land to the Palestinians, a few years later, there's an all out war. So we're not

going to do it again. As simple as that. Like me as an Israeli, again, I'm not a politician. I'm a comedian. I'm not a politician. I'm not the prime minister. I don't know. I just I simply learned history. And I grew up here doing the... Just to clarify, you know, whatever you say is fine. When you say give a piece of Israel away, like when you gave the Sinai back to Egypt, you saw that as giving a piece of Israel away? Or, I mean, it was never part of Israel, the Sinai. It was occupied.

Yeah, yeah. But when you win a war, this place is a part of your country. That's what people fail to understand. When they attack you and you defend yourself and conquer this area, that area is yours now. That's how war works. But to achieve peace, you give it to the people or whatever you do, whatever you can to achieve peace. Because Israel's main goal is to have a sustainable peace. Right.

But sometimes it doesn't work. People have to understand our main goal living here is to live in peace. We don't want a war. We don't want to go on operation. I'm 35 years old, and I'm spending my whole days and nights in uniforms patrolling the fence. Nobody wants that. I want to go to the comedy club and perform. I want to have a career, for God's sake. I don't want to walking around with a gun nobody does but people

think that we somehow like to instigate and have like all these conflicts all the time we don't we just simply try to defend ourselves and if sometimes it means giving land back we do that sometimes it doesn't work so we won't do it again. I was going to ask you if you've been surprised at the anti-Semitism that has exploded through the world since October 7th. As my dad used to say all the time, disappointed but not surprised. So no, not at all. I knew that was the case. I knew there's all of like sleeping cells

of antisemitism all over the world. People are just, you know, they want to be polite. But the moment stuff like this happened, the past operation that we had, I saw it on social media. Again, I was a little bit surprised, but not really because we know nobody likes us. We know there's double standards, whatever it's considered in Israel,

and Jewish people. There's some standards for the rest of the world and some standards for us. So in Israel, we're not really surprised because we experience that on a daily basis. But to see Jews all over the world suffer and being so surprised by that, that broke my heart. You mentioned you don't like being 35 years old, which is, by the way, pretty young. But in any case, I guess when you're 35, you don't think of it that way.

But in any case, you said you want to have a career. You want to be home with your family and all those things. And you see American Jews doing just what you're describing, do you have resentment and or jealousy, and or would you rather be in our shoes, or would you prefer to be in Israel with all that that comes with? Let me tell you something. My mom told me recently that we were supposed to live in the U.S. when I was a kid. Like, my dad was in the Army for 25 years, and he got offered a job in a military base in the U.S., and he declined because of my mom.

So I was supposed to be an American at some point. And for many years, I resented her for that. But, like, to be completely honest, there's no other place I'd rather be. Like, during this time i feel it's it's a higher just a higher calling like my career is first for me the only thing that trumps that is to protect my country and my people like i know i'll have a career later on and hopefully i'll get to perform all over the world especially the u.s which i love every woman thinks that she's

living like a different life like whatever happens to her only happens to her and you just need to which I disagree. It's fine. My dream is for somebody to die in my show, but not now. Wait for my full show. I don't want you comedians taking credit like, we're warming it up for you. No, it's me, you fucking... Just breathe. Take it easy. Take it easy or die. I had enough with my grandma. Please just... I hate myself so much,

but I think it's not because of you. You know what I mean? My dad is in my head always, you're not that funny. She's just had a problem. I'm sorry. It's self-hate. That's what I'm talking about.

Please, give her some water or nachos. Suffocate her completely. I mean, I'm just... But for right now, there's no place I'd rather be. And I'm very, very proud to serve my country. I was in Mexico when this war broke out. Like, I was on a vacation. I could stay there. Like, I could.

My commander told me, like, stay in Mexico. Like, you have the perfect excuse. Stay there. And I did everything in my power. And through Dallas and Miami. And you don't want to know the story. I got here as fast as I can because there's no higher calling than protecting your country and your people. If you had stayed in Mexico, wouldn't you be under arrest as soon as you stepped foot on Israeli soil?

If you didn't go back? No. Aren't you? Not at all. Well, by law, don't you have to go back and serve when you're called up? No. By law, if you're already outside of Israel, you don't have to come back. You can come back whenever you want.

The reserves are different. People think that we are obligated. Yeah, we're not. Like, my commander told me, like, you know what? If you're in Mexico, enjoy Mexico. We'll call you when it's over. But I couldn't do it. Nobody could.

That's why 300,000 Israelis came back as soon as this war started. Not because we were obligated and we were afraid to go to jail. No, because this is what we do. We're Israelis. The moment our country needs us, we come here. So you're looking at a Jew like me, a neurotic, Woody Allen-esque Jew with disgust. Didn't Jabotinsky call them yids? We got cut off. We got cut off. Matan. A Yid. Woody Allen-esque Jew with disgust. A Yid. Didn't Jabotinsky call them Yids?

We got cut off. We got cut off. Matan. I'm sorry, yeah. Go ahead. So you're revolted by the American Jew is what you're trying to say. Oh, not at all. Not at all.

I'm fascinated by American Jews. I try my best to understand the state of mind, how you guys, How is it like to be a Jew outside of Israel? I'm fascinated by that. Well, you know, there's many Jews in America that are very, very anti-Zionist. More than a few. I don't know what the percentage is. I've read that it's not that many, but I keep bumping into them everywhere I go. Something about knowing you. I don't know what it is.

But, I mean, there's more than a few Jews that are very, very vocal, vocally anti-Israel. Some that just criticize the Israeli government, but some that step over the line and say Israel shouldn't exist as a Jewish state. It should be a one-state solution. I don't know if you're aware how many Jews think like that here in the United States. To be completely

honest, I think first of all, I don't care what those people think. First of all, to be completely honest. Second of all, that just shows you how comfortable their life is in America. They think we don't have the right

to exist. Oh, you don't think we have the right to exist? Okay. Okay. So why won't you go to Starbucks across the street and think about it again while I'm fighting for my life over here? I don't care what you think. I think that also...

That reminds me, I could use a latte. No, but the flip side of that is that I think what they don't understand is that Jews all over the world are only as safe as Israel is secure. Right. It's very easy. Like the luxury of like being theoretic. Exactly. I think that the notion of those Jewish Americans or from other parts of the world that says Israel doesn't have the right to exist they forget that prior to the Holocaust a lot of the Jews if not if not 90% of the Jews that lived in Germany thought that there is no point for like the homeland of Israel there's no point nobody wants

to leave but then every once in a, the world reminds us that we got no other place to go. Everywhere we'll be, anywhere in the world we'll be, will be guests. And the moment we'll feel too comfortable, the moment we feel too comfortable, the world reminds us that, no, you don't belong here. Go away. Where? Israel. I'm not sure I'm quite that pessimistic that it could happen even in the United States. I suppose it could. I hope not. I hope not. But like if you look at the course of history, like my grandparents, when they live in when they lived in Morocco, Jews in Germany prior to World War Two, A lot of those places, those people call those places home. They're like, there's no other place for us. We feel home.

We were born here. Our ancestors born here, whatever. There's the faraway land that's called the land of Israel or Judea. But we don't care about that. We live here and that's our place. But wherever we are, every once in a while, they remind us that we, first of all, we're Jews and then we're citizens of whatever country that we are every once in a while they remind us that we first of all we're jews and then we're citizens or whatever country that we are and that's why the existence of the state

of israel is so important for the jewish people yeah i i you know with the course the zionist movement was well underway prior to hitler and i don't know that i mean i think israel would have happened anyway i don't think so like of course, the Zionist movement happened before Hitler, obviously. But nobody really considered, like, radical and insane to try to, you know, build a home for the Jewish people. Why would we need that on Earth? Like, we have our own country, so to speak. The Holocaust actually gave the Zionist movement so much power that they end up with the establishment of the State of Israel. People lived here way before 1948. the Zionist movement so much power that they end up with the establishment of the state of Israel.

People lived here way before 1948. Like where I, where my parents live, Ganyavner was founded in 1933. Fetach Tikva was founded in 1878. Like people lived here all through history. The establishment of the state of Israel happened when we realized that everywhere we go, we will be considered guests. And we don't want to feel that anywhere. Like I feel it like when I go to U.S., for example, and I meet a lot of American Jews and it's amazing and I love America. I really do. But everywhere, every time I go, I feel like, OK, I need to go back home now. Like this is amazing. The tall buildings and the culture is amazing, but I need to go back home now. And the fact that a lot of American Jews feel that way tells you the importance of the state of Israel. It must be hard to be around such a polite, non-pushy people for too long.

Yeah, yeah, actually. That's true, that's true. I felt it to my core when I saw the videos of those people ripping down the kidnap posters. Yeah. I was like, to film them and be like, those are babies. Those are little kids. I was like, that's such a not Israeli thing to do, just to film someone. That's not very Israeli.

Israelis will lose their minds. But it's good to be civilized once in a while. All right. I think it's about time. civilized once in a while. All right. Well, I think we're about time, right? We're going to wrap it up. Did you send Periel some of your comedy stuff? And I'm going to cut, I can cut some of your standup into the video and into the thing. So when we post the podcast, people can hear some of your comedy.

You do comedy in Israel, mostly in Hebrew, I gather, but you do also do some English comedy. I have clips in English comedy i have clips in english i have clips in english to stand of course yeah sure my dream is to perform in the comedy cellar so this is the closest i get to my dream right now well that that's that hopefully you know god willing uh that'll happen i really hope so and please be safe okay well thank you very much sir bye it's in the middle of the night there now, right? Yeah, yeah. It's actually midnight exactly, and we're doing the shift exchange, so that's perfect. Okay. Take it easy.

Bye-bye. Bye. Shalom. Thank you, guys. Thank you for having me. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.