Michael Rapaport definitely wins the frequent flyer award for celebrity visits to Israel over the last year.
His first two extensive stays here were solidarity trips that included appearances at the weekly Saturday night Hostage Square rallies in Tel Aviv, meeting with soldiers and with families from the South, and even two sterling appearances on the hit satirical TV series Eretz Nehederet.
But when the New York-based Jewish actor and comedian, and profanely, in-your-face social media advocate for Israel returns next month, it will be with his professional hat in the forefront as the 54-year-old Rapaport sets out to perform his first standup shows in the Holy Land.
“I have to say I’m a little nervous,” said the usually super-confident Rapaport, as he headed to a Washington DC airport last week for a return flight to his New York City home after speaking at the Israeli-American Council National Summit.
“Not because of doing my shows, I do them all the time. But there’s more at stake performing in Israel though. So many people have gone through so much sorrow and grief over the last year. The country is aching.
Making people laugh through tough times
“The least I can do is help make people laugh. But I always thought that comedy should be more than about laughter. The best comedians make people feel something. So I feel like I have a big task awaiting me that I don’t feel with every show I do… something more noble than just doing standup. That’s why I’m a little nervous.”
Chances are the seasoned entertainer, who has appeared in a slew of Hollywood films, starred in American sitcoms, and is still legendary as Phoebe’s pigeon-shooting cop boyfriend in Friends, will work through the butterflies when he takes the stage at the Jerusalem Theater on October 13 and the following evening at Beit Hahayal in Tel Aviv.
Rapaport has been ubiquitous on social media since October 7, posting multiple times a day, and on his weekly podcast, with aggressive, expletive-filled diatribes against Hamas, Hezbollah, anti-Israel demonstrators in the US, and anyone he perceives as having slighted the Jewish homeland.
Despite the gravity of the last year in Israel, it’s a topic that Rapaport can’t avoid addressing in his performances.
“I can’t talk about October 7, or Hamas or Hezbollah – that’s the reality, and it’s what Israelis are living through. And I think audiences will be able to handle it. The show can’t be detached from what’s going on around them,” he said, adding that much of his show will be adapted from the non-Israel-centric topics he generally riffs on in his shows.
“There are plenty of topics I do that are general. I’m not sure how much I’ll have to adapt it for an Israeli audience. There’s nothing so provincial that I don’t think they’ll understand, and I assume everyone who comes to the show will have a good level of English, so I’m just going to play it by ear and see what gets laughs,” he said.
One thing that won’t change
One thing Rapaport won’t be changing in his Israel shows is his New York street language, which he hopes won’t offend the generally more religiously observant English-speaking audience that generally populates standup performances in Jerusalem, at least.
“I don’t plan on changing my delivery at all. There’s nothing X-rated, and I don’t talk about sex. If audiences don’t mind hearing ‘s***’ and ‘f***’ then I don’t think that anybody will be offended,” he said.
Based on the enthusiastic reception he received when he appeared on Eretz Nehederet, they won’t. The country went wild for his appearances on the satirical news show, in which he was featured in skits – one skewering the apathy and anti-Israel sentiments of the American film industry at the Academy Awards toward Israel; and the other – called “Hogwarts Code of Ethics,” – taking on the tone-deaf testimony about antisemitism on campus by the presidents of Harvard, UPenn, and MIT.
He doesn’t rule out an encore appearance.
“I would love to appear again if it works out. I’m arriving between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and leaving a few days after the shows. But, yes, I had a great time working with that team. And I’d jump at the chance to do it again,” he said.
REGARDING THE ongoing minority but vocal anti-Israel sentiment in the US, Rapaport, who lives near Columbia University in New York, said he hoped the coming semester would see a lessening of protests. But he was expecting the worst.
“No student should be uncomfortable for being Jewish or a Zionist, but the protesters have been pardoned with impunity. If they’re supporting Hamas and Hezbollah, they’re idiots,” he said.
Rapaport also had choice words for former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump for his speech at the IAC conference, where he reiterated the prediction that Israel wouldn’t last for two years under a Kamala Harris presidency and that Jews would be among those responsible if he lost the November election.
“I had to hold myself back from standing up and heckling him, but I didn’t want to cause a scene. I have to say, I couldn’t believe what Trump said. Trump should have expressed himself differently. He didn’t know how to express his idea well, and he didn’t know his audience.
What he said was unacceptable,” said Rapaport.Arriving at the airport, he pardoned himself for a minute and then got back on the line.
“I went to the wrong f***** airport!” he said, in shades of the Ross-Rachel plotline in the last season of Friends.
No doubt that he’ll have plenty to talk about when he takes to the stage in Israel.
The Jerusalem show is sold out, but tickets remain for Tel Aviv at https://www.ticketmaster.co.il/event/OBH05/ALL/iw
This article was originally published at www.jpost.com
