Funny, Not Funny

If you’ve ever wondered how far the anti-Israel mob will go to ensure no Jew escapes its online wrath, the answer came just one day after the new Jewish year of 5787 began. That’s when Menachem Silverstein, a writer and comic with whom I share Los Angeles-area prayer circles, powered his smartphone back on and found his world turned upside down.

Silverstein, a rarity in the stand-up world — an Orthodox Jew and ordained rabbi who performs with kippah and tzitzit — told me on a recent Zoom chat that “like any good Jew, I prayed deeply to G-d on Rosh Hashanah for a happy and successful new year. Of course, that included more people finding my comedy. But when I turned on my phone after the Chag and realized I was having the biggest viral moment of my career — being cancelled by millions on social media — I thought, yeah, no. That’s not exactly the prayer outcome I envisioned.”

Fame, or infamy, in the viral war that has engulfed Israel and Diaspora Jews, toes a razor-thin line depending on who’s making the post. As Silverstein adds: “Everyone was texting me: ‘What the hell is going on? Is this you all over social media? Are you okay?’ Jewish, non-Jewish, it didn’t matter. I even heard from a Yemenite Muslim who I hadn’t spoken to since October 7th because we had a falling out. I was like: ‘If he’s messaging me, something is very wrong!’”

And it was. A repost on X from an account named Truthseeker had splashed a video announcing that “comedian Menachem Silverstein says, ‘I stand with Israel,’ and the crowd walks.” “I can see the video was shot at the Chicago Laugh Factory,” he continues. “But I hadn’t performed there since February. And when the camera goes to the comic onstage, it’s clearly not me!” Silverstein says the post was originally shared on Al Jazeera ‘s English and Arabic channels and then reshared across every platform, “and I had nothing to do with the video.”

Thanks to AI, it got worse. When users headed to Grok asking “Who is Menachem Silverstein?” the response was: “A Jewish comedian who typically opens his show with: ‘I stand with Israel.’” While the comic says his connection to HaEretz is deep and profound, his main Israel gag dates back to 2023. “For a few months after 10/7, I would open with: ‘My name is Menachem and I stand with Israel,’” he recounts. “It’s not political; they’re just the only people who can pronounce my name.”

That’s funny. But what followed was a binary fury that only social media can bring. Silverstein’s DMs were flooded with hate, while his comedy videos got thousands of new views. So, what really happened? The makers of a Laugh Factory prank comedy show, “What Could Go Wrong?” had blindfolded a comedian (Kieron Harrell) and put headphones on him. After a few jokes (none of which included Israel!) they told him to take off the blindfold and — surprise — the room was empty.

“Someone took that video and slapped on, ‘comedian stands with Israel — crowd walks,’” Silverstein laments. “And then someone else decides the stand-up can’t be nameless. At last count, the post had close to 100  million shares and views.” The video even ended up as a segment on far-right commentator Alex Jones’ show about what happens to pro-Israel comics. “It’s still up on his X feed even though it would take 30 seconds to find out it’s 100 percent fake,” Silverstein notes.

The irony of Silverstein being singled out is as heavy as the online hate. Raised in an Orthodox Jewish family in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, he’s one of seven siblings; and  used comedy to be heard among his pack. He never imagined it could be a career, because, hello, he’d never seen a comic who looked like him. “I moved to L.A. to be a writer,” he shares. “There were nine other Menachems in my class in Brooklyn, and none in L.A., so I thought maybe I would stand out.”

The turning point came when he pitched Amazon a mockumentary about a female comic who, after her 10 minutes of material goes viral, is asked to do an entire comedy special. “She needs to find other comics — who aren’t as funny as her — to fill up the time,” Silverstein recounts. “And Amazon assumed I would be one of them because they’d never seen an Orthodox Jew doing stand-up.” Even though the show fell through, Silverstein spent enough time practicing to “believe that audiences could embrace a stand-up with a kippah and tzitzit — as long as he’s funny.”

And they have. Silverstein has made L.A.’s Laugh Factory, founded by Iranian-Jewish immigrant Jamie Masada, his home, appearing regularly as well as producing a show there with his writing partner Tehran Von Ghasri, who counts Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism in his ancestry. “Laugh Through the Heartbreak,” a comedy series and tour co-created with producer/musician Erez Safar, whose family are Yemenite Jews, in the weeks following October 7^th, has become another successful platform. A tour this past January visited some 16 cities with a mission that Silverstein describes as “bringing laughter to a community that desperately needs it.”

In Chabad fashion, Silverstein married early — at 21 — even as his dreams of Hollywood success percolated in Brooklyn. “We actually dated for seven months, which in the Chabad world is so long I could have been a grandfather by the time I was under the chuppah,” he laughs. “I got a job offer in L.A. that started five days after our wedding. If I didn’t make it out, it went to someone else. Since the custom is not to speak with the bride for the seven days leading up to the wedding, I had to get my soon-to-be mother-in-law on the phone and have her ask her daughter if she was willing to move to L.A. the day after we got married. Luckily, she said yes.”

Silverstein says his first stand-up show after the October 7th attacks was pivotal for where he wanted to take his comedy. “Of course, I had to address it, and I knew there’d be expectations of how political I might be,” he recalls. “So, I went onstage and said the joke about my name and Israel, and everyone laughed. Then I went on to talk about what I was going through personally. Like getting pictures of Hitler in my DMs — many, many pictures of Hitler. I mean, when did this guy have time to take so many photos? Killing Jews and killing it on GQ?’ And people laughed. I talked about getting an offer to have someone hide me inside their attic. But I was like, ‘Hold on — this is L.A. There are no attics. Did they mean their  podcast studio in the kid’s bedroom?’ And again, people laughed. So, I said this is what I need to do. Unite people through humor, not divide them.”

Although harmony is the goal, Silverstein likens his innate love for Israel to being on a plane during an emergency. “The masks come down and you put them on yourself and your kids first, because they are your family. Then if you can help anyone else, that’s great,” he explains. “When people tell me Jews should go back home, I say, ‘Hey, we’re trying!’”

Unlike other Diaspora comics who, since October 7th, have played to heavily Jewish audiences, Silverstein says his rooms are mixed. “Aside from doing fundraisers, I’m outside the Jewish echo chamber and that’s a good thing,” he reflects. “I’ll ask, ‘Any antisemites in the house tonight?’ and when no one raises their hand, I say, ‘You know, statistically speaking, some of you are lying. It’s how we caught Kanye at one of my shows…he lifted his hand just a bit too straight [does a Nazi salute],’ and they’ll laugh. So, it becomes a conversation about how ridiculous antisemitism is.”

All of which makes this fake viral video attack that much more biting — and scary. Silverstein says the experience is a clear indicator that people who want to silence Jewish entertainers “don’t need to use truth anymore. It used to be that they’d take something you may have said — out of context — and post it to make you look bad. Now they’ll take something that has nothing to do with you – post it — and there will be enough people who believe it because there are so many people looking for reasons to hate Israel, and by association, Diaspora Jews. We’re way past, ‘Convince me why I need to hate the Jews.’ I hate them, and I just need something to justify it — like this video.”

Despite being targeted, and the very real possibility that bookers might shy away from a pro-Israel comic who “walked the room,” Silverstein says the answer is not more “anti-antisemitism,” but rather starting a conversation about how “amazing” Israel and the Jewish people are. “Comedy breaks barriers because when people are laughing, they let their guard down – and that’s the best time to talk.” True to his Chabad background, Silverstein says he’ll take this unwanted situation and make something good out of it. “When people come yelling in your face with antizionism/antisemitism, the best thing you can do is bring the temperature down and try to educate them. Because if you get right back in their face, then it’s a fight — and nothing gets better when everyone is screaming.”