Judy Gold is one of four successful comics headlining the biannual Comedy for Koby tour that begins tonight in Ra’anana and goes through Beit Shemesh, Modi’in, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv before concluding in Gush Etzion next Tuesday. The shows raise money for the Koby Mandell Foundation, which works on
behalf of individuals and families struck by terror and was named after a child who was murdered by terrorists.
Why hasn’t she come to Israel before? She was supposed to headline LA based Israeli comedian Avi Liberman’s tour a few years ago. But last-minute opportunities prevented her from coming. “Everyone in my family has been here except me,” Gold confessed apologetically in a phone interview between shows in New York. “My mother has wanted me to come here for so long. She’s in a nursing home in New Jersey. It meant so much for her for me to visit Israel, so I wanted to come when she is still around.”
Gold said she can’t wait to see the Western Wall, the beaches of Tel Aviv, and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum. She will be seeing some family members. But it’s the ordinary Israelis who seem to have her excited.
“I’m looking forward to being around Jews – Israelis – in my homeland,” she said.
“I’ve always wanted to do this tour. And now that I am finally coming to Israel, I want to start coming there a lot.”
Gold’s brother-in-law is Israeli, and her sister- in-law lived on a kibbutz. She emailed all the Israelis in her family to tell them that she was on the way. “Everyone I tell I’m going to Israel just lights up,” she said. “People can’t believe that I’ve never been there before. I practice the religion, have Shabbat dinners, and keep a kosher kitchen.
“It’s the way I am. It’s the way I live, cook, eat, talk and how I look. I’m very Jewish.”
Stopped on that last one, Gold is asked what it means to “look Jewish” if there are African, Asian and even Aryan-looking Jews.
“I think I look Jewish,” she said.
“In America, I’ve been told so many times that I look too Jewish that I stopped counting.”
Her new show, called It’s Judy’s Show: My Life as a Sitcom debuted to rave reviews in Washington DC, was featured at last year’s Williamstown Theater Festival, and will be opening Off-Broadway this summer.
She received a Cable Ace Award for her HBO half-hour special, won two Emmy Awards for writing and producing The Rosie O’Donnell Show, and was nominated twice for The American Comedy Award’s funniest female stand-up.
While the focus of her act in Israel will be on her mother, raising her two sons, and being Jewish, she will also talk about being a lesbian. “It’s not a huge part of my act,” she said, “But I’m not afraid of who I am. Hiding who I am tells my children there’s something wrong with it. In our country it’s important to not be ashamed, not to hide it, but not to make a big deal out of it either.”
SOURCE: Jerusalem Post
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