Day 449 - Yochay Sponder on telling post-Oct. 7 truth, with laughs

The Times of Israel Daily Briefing

The Times of Israel

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4.4 • 864 Ratings

🗓️ 28 December 2024

⏱️ 37 minutes

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Summary

Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

Stand-up comedian Yochay Sponder joins host Amanda Borschel-Dan on today's show, a bonus episode from our weekly What Matters Now podcast.

After the 2012 Gaza war, comedian Sponder began using his talent to make people laugh as a tool for pro-Israel advocacy in his heavily Hebrew-flavored English. This work has only ramped up since the October 7, 2023, murderous Hamas onslaught, where thousands of terrorists infiltrated southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage to Gaza.

Initially after the attack, Sponder, whose soldier cousin fell in battle on October 7, thought it may be inappropriate to take to the stage and make people laugh. Today, he considers it his reserve duty and Sponder uses his brand of truth-telling to remind the world who started this ongoing war and that Israelis still hope for peace.

With a personal genetic background that would put a Benetton poster to shame, Sponder uses a brusque uber-Israeli persona to counter politically correct norms and spotlight hypocrisy.

Sponder has toured his English-language show, "Self-Loving Jew," extensively this year. In our conversation, he discusses a performance in the United States in which a group of pro-Palestine activists showed up. The result was not what he expected.

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IMAGE: Stand-up comedian/Israel advocate Yochay Sponder. (Limor Azran Garfinkle)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Times of Israel's What Matters now. I'm your host, Deputy Editor Amanda Borschal
0:09.7	Dan, here today in our Jerusalem offices with Yochai Sponder. Yochai, I think you would be characterized
0:15.7	as a stand-up comedian, but recently you're kind of also an Israel advocate, wouldn't you say?
0:22.2	Thank you, I guess.
0:30.1	Yeah, I mean, I think each and every one of us, Jews, trying to, you know, the situation is so awful and what's going on. And then you think, what can I do to assist in somehow?
0:44.2	So, I mean, in my case, luckily, I have my talent to work with.
0:49.6	But, you know, there is not even one day or one minute that I didn't think, like, I'm going to Gaza.
0:52.0	I'm going to Gaza to search for these people. I think every Jewish person that is connected to his identity or to his family or to what's going on has that feeling in the background.
1:03.0	So, yeah, I mean...
1:05.0	You obviously started your career in Hebrew.
1:09.1	And when did you make the transition into English?
1:12.5	So it started 2012 in the summer.
1:17.9	I remember that clearly because the first thing that you do when you are,
1:24.5	it's like you're born to that change, to that, uh, it's a change pursuing,
1:30.0	right, of, uh, conceptions of who we are as people. People think about us bad things
1:36.9	all over the world. But when you have that tool, immediately, that's the first thing that
1:42.7	you see in front of your eyes.
1:45.0	So what you're saying sounds to me is that in 2012, which was, of course, a very major operation in Gaza, a war, essentially, you woke up to the fact that, hey, I'm a comedian, I have talent, and I also have English. So let me use this
2:02.4	English to forward Israel's image, but in the way that I can do with my talent, which is comedy.
2:10.5	And recently, of course, you've been touring basically every English-speaking nation I know of.
2:16.7	I don't know exactly where you've been,
2:18.4	but I've seen so many shorts from different live performances you've been doing
	...

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