Literally minutes after Jerry Seinfeld and I finished four great shows at the Menora Mivtachim Arena in Tel Aviv, where we played to a total of 32,000 people in two days, we stood at the stairs of the plane.
We were getting ready to board and leave Israel to head back home to America. I hugged the head of our security team Amir and said goodbye. Jerry and I agreed Amir was the type of guy that either one of us could easily be friends with. He was amazing. Every minute we were out of our hotel rooms, we had 4 to 6 security people walking with us. Some walked in front, some in back and some rode in a Mercedes SUV in case we wanted to ride. Plus Jerry had 2 or 3 guards outside his hotel room door every night. It was a small dose of what it must be like to be a Prime Minister, or a President, or a cartel kingpin. And everywhere we went people yelled out, “thanks for coming to Israel Jerry. We love you.” The Israeli people could not have been nicer. I wish I got half that when I walk into my own home.
My last thought before boarding the plane? Now is always the right time to visit Israel.
Because of the recent events in Israel, I felt that almost everyone I saw walking towards us, whether it was a man, woman or anyone over 12, could be a potential killer. I never felt like that in Israel before. It was very sad to me. I also found that while walking the streets of Tel Aviv, I turning around occasionally to make sure no one was running towards me to stab me in the back.
My friends, Alan and Rachel Jacoby, who came to our show, emigrated to Israel 10 years ago. They told me that just that morning three people were stabbed just a few blocks from their home in Ra’anana.
“We certainly didn't expect this when we moved here,” Rachel said to me, “but then again, we're not going anywhere.”
But Israelis are tough, and you'd never know the terror exists when you’re out and about walking in Tel Aviv. The beautiful streets and cafés were full, and people were surfing and swimming in the ocean. People were playing paddle ball on the sand. Young lovers were strolling in the park holding hands. And tourists are still flocking to the holy land.
On Sunday morning, Jerry and I took a long walk through Tel Aviv and talked about how much we love Israel and the people of Israel and what an amazing trip this was. We also stopped at two very memorable places during the walk. One was Independence Hall, the site of the signing of Israel’s Declaration of Independence. I could not stop starring at the building. Not since the splitting of the Red Sea has there been a bigger or more obvious miracle. And then we went to Ben Gurion’s apartment. The apartment consisted of 5 rooms and had over 10,000 books. They don’t call us The People of the Book for nothing. After Jerry and I left Ben Gurion’s house, we talked about how much Ben Gurion looked like Larry from the Three Stooges and wondered which one of them came up with the haircut first. We could not come up with an answer to that question but we both agreed that this trip brought us both much closer to Israel and to the Jewish people.
It's hard for most people to understand that these killers who are doing the stabbing are doing it for one and one reason only: they want to kill Jews and terrorize the rest of the people of Israel. And eventually the rest of the world. And they are having some success. As my mother would say to me when I would do a bad thing, “So this makes you happy?”
One thing the world knows is that you can kill Jews with little flack from most of the world. But they also know you can't get rid of the Jews. We are not going away. Not now, not ever. Many have tried and none have succeeded. As my mother used to say, “If you’re trying to get rid of me, good luck.”
I opened for Jerry. When we did our shows, it took longer than usual to get people into the theater. There was a more noticeable presence of security since the Paris and San Bernardino attacks. Those events have somewhat changed things. We also had a few guards around the stage and bomb sniffing dogs were brought in before the show. While I was standing in the wings waiting to be introduced, for a split second, I thought “Where should I run in case there's an attack while I'm on”? Not a great thought moments before doing standup comedy. When Jerry was on, I thought “if someone goes for him, I'll run out and kick them in the face.”
At the end of Jerry’s act, he came back out to the audience to answer question from them. Someone yelled, “Have you been here before?” Jerry then told this great story about when he was a teenager, his parents sent him to Israel to work on a kibbutz for a few months. The first day of work, the Israelis had him standing on a truck cutting banana leaves with a machete. He said he lasted one day at that job. The next day he left the kibbutz and toured Israel by himself for a few months and had the time of his life. You could feel his love of Israel pouring out of that story.
My opening joke at The Menora was this: “You know before I came here to Israel, people were saying to me, ‘Hey Mark, aren't you scared about going to Israel with all the problems they are having now? Aren't you frightened?’ I said, “Hey, I'm married over 25 years. Nothing frightens me anymore.’” Cue applause and laughs.
But then something else happened — God added a few more words for me to say that just popped in my head. After the applause died down from my opening joke, somewhere deep down in my gut I felt obliged to scream out as loud as I could, “SCREW THOSE GUYS. SCREW THEM!”
There was a beat and then the applause from the audience was deafening. Then even louder I screamed it again. More big applause. Everyone in the theater agreed with me, “SCREW THOSE GUYS.” We are Jews and we are here to stay. Not for a while but forever.
On the way back to America, Jerry and I were talking and he asked me when I thought would be a good time for him to come back with his family to visit Israel. I told him a line I had heard before. “There's never a good time, but for sure, there's never a bad time. No matter what's going on. Now is always the right time to visit Israel.”
The feeling I had from the second I landed in Israel until the flight home as I wrote this is: “Yes, I'm going home to Los Angeles. But yes, I left my real home and my people back in Israel.” God bless Israel and the Jewish people.
Mark Schiff is a Jewish comedian, actor and writer living in Los Angeles. His website is markschiff.com.
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