Noam Shuster-Eliassi | |
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Hebrew: נועם שוסטר אליאסי Arabic: نعمة شوستر-إلياسي | |
Born | 1986 or 1987 (age 36–37) [1] |
Education |
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Noam Shuster-Eliassi ( Hebrew: נועם שוסטר אליאסי, Arabic: نعمة شوستر-إلياسي; born 1986 or 1987), is an Israeli comedian and activist. [1] [2] [3] [4] She performs in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. [2]
Shuster-Eliassi was born to an Iranian-born Jewish mother and a Jerusalem-born father whose parents were Holocaust survivors from Romania. [3] Since she was seven years old, she grew up in Neve Shalom/Wāħat as-Salām ("Oasis of Peace"), a community north of Jerusalem where Jews and Palestinians live together by choice. [2] [3] In this community, she learned Arabic quickly and was often mistaken for an Arab. [3]
Shuster-Eliassi participated in national service instead of serving in the army, then went to study acting at the New York Film Academy for a year. [3] She played a part in Talya Lavie's 2006 short film "The Substitute" before attending Brandeis University on a scholarship. [3] Through an internship with Women's Equity in Access to Care & Treatment (WE ACT), she went to Rwanda to help women get medical treatment. [3]
Shuster-Eliassi became a co-director of Interpeace, an organization founded and later discontinued by the United Nations, when she was in her early 20s. [3]
In 2019, she went to the Harvard Divinity School for a fellowship under the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative, where she was to develop her one-woman show to be performed at various nightclubs in major US cities. [2] [4] [5] However, with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, she returned to Israel, where she contracted the virus and stayed at a coronavirus hostel in Jerusalem. [5]
She was the subject of the mini documentary Reckoning with Laughter, directed by Amber Fares and produced by Al Jazeera. [5]
Shuster-Eliassi had a viral moment in Arab media January 2022 in response to her performance of a satirical song called "Dubai, Dubai" in perfect Arabic on the program "Shu Esmo" (שו־אסמו, الشوسمو) on the Arabic Israeli station Makan 33. [6] [7] [8] [9] Performing as "Haifa Wannabe" (playing on the name of the Arab pop star Haifa Wehbe), [10] she delivered searing punchlines satirizing the Abraham Accords and the Emirates' normalization of relations with Israel and mocking the hypocrisy of Israel's relations with Arab countries. [6] The song was written by the program's editor, Razi Najjar. [7]
In 2018, Shuster-Eliassi was named "Best New Jewish Comedian of the Year" in a competition sponsored by JW3, also known as Jewish Community Centre in London. [2] [3]