Noam Shuster-Eliassi
Israeli comedian
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Noam Shuster-Eliassi (Hebrew: נועם שוסטר אליאסי; born 1986 or 1987), is an Israeli comedian and activist. She performs in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.
- Brandeis University (2011)
- Harvard University (fellowship at the Harvard Divinity School)
Noam Shuster-Eliassi | |
|---|---|
נועם שוסטר אליאסי | |
Shuster-Eliassi in 2025 | |
| Born | 1986 or 1987 (age 38–39)[1] |
| Education |
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| Website | www |
Biography
Shuster-Eliassi was born to an Iranian-born Jewish mother and a Jerusalem-born father whose parents were Holocaust survivors from Romania.[2] From the age of seven years, she was raised in Neve Shalom/Wāħat as-Salām ("Oasis of Peace"), a community north of Jerusalem where Jews and Palestinians live together by choice.[2] Therein, she learned Arabic quickly and was often mistaken for an Arab.[2][3]
Shuster-Eliassi performed national service instead of serving in the IDF, then attended New York Film Academy for a year.[2] She played a part in Talya Lavie's 2006 short film "The Substitute" before attending Brandeis University on a scholarship, graduating in 2011.[1] Through an internship with Women's Equity in Access to Care & Treatment (WE ACT), she went to Rwanda to help women obtain medical treatment.[2]
When she was in her early twenties, Shuster-Eliassi became a co-director of Interpeace, an organization founded by the United Nations.[2] She worked on a project in Israel that aimed to involve groups that had been excluded, or had excluded themselves, from conversations about a peaceful future with Palestinians. Her outreach included ultra-Orthodox Jews, Russian-speaking Israelis, Palestinian Israelis, and even those strongly opposed to a Palestinian state, such as religious Zionists and settlers. After directing Interpeace for five years, the United Nations shut the program down in 2017 due to "political concerns".[1][2] Looking for another position, she applied to become a member of the Jewish engagement and social change leadership program ROI Community, and delivered a stand-up comedy routine at an ROI Summit talent show in Jerusalem, where she realized that she needed to perform comedy as part of her activism.[1]
In 2019, she attended Harvard Divinity School as a fellow under the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative, where she was to develop her one-woman show to be performed at various venues in major US cities.[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 until testing negative.[5]
She was the subject of the mini documentary Reckoning with Laughter, directed by Amber Fares and produced by Al Jazeera.[5] The film was released in 2021.[6][7] Their further collaboration resulted in the 2025 feature documentary Coexistence, My Ass!, directed by Fares.[8] In Coexistence, My Ass! Fares follows Shuster-Eliassi's path from a diplomat to stand-up comedian.[9] The movie won several awards, including the Golden Alexander Award for Best Documentary at TDF 2025,[10] and the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Freedom of Expression at Sundance 2025.[11][12]
"Dubai, Dubai"
Shuster-Eliassi had a viral moment in Arab media January 2022 in response to her performance of a satirical song called "Dubai, Dubai" in Arabic on the program "Shu Esmo" (שו־אסמו, الشوسمو) on the Arabic Israeli station Makan 33.[13][14][15][16] Performing as "Haifa Wannabe" (playing on the name of the Arab pop star Haifa Wehbe),[17] 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.[13] The song was written by the program's editor, Razi Najjar.[14]
Awards
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]