Eretz Nehederet, Israel’s premiere sketch comedy show which runs on Keshet 12, is known for providing lots of laughs, but on Wednesday night, its highlight was more emotional: Alon Ohel, a gifted pianist who was held hostage by Hamas for two years and who was released on October 13, appeared on the set, playing the song, “Under the Sky,” while the cast sang.
Ohel, who has problems with his vision because he was beaten by the terrorists, wore a patch over one eye as he sat at the piano, smiling. The piano was adorned with a yellow sign that said, “Alon, You’re Not Alone.”
The song he performed, an Israeli classic with music by David Broza and lyrics by Meir Ariel, was especially fitting for the occasion. It features the lyrics, “We have time/Under the sky/In the meantime/We’re still here,” and finished with the words, “Despite the gap/Despite the pain/Despite the sorrow/I love/And love/And love.”
The poignant song played by a young man who has suffered so much brought joy to a show that mostly poked fun at Israeli politics as usual.
It opened with a “Bring them home now” rally, only this time it wasn’t for the hostages, but for the ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers currently in jail, hosted by United Torah Judaism party leader Yitzhak Goldknopf and Shas head Aryeh Deri. This skit was a reference to the fact that three weeks ago, Goldknopf actually compared the draft dodgers in jail for a few days to hostages facing torture and starvation at the hands of Hamas for two years, which sparked widespread public outrage.
A New York City sketch
There were skits about the disarray among political opposition leaders and jokes about celebrities, but for likely the first time ever, there was a sketch about the New York City mayoral election next week, specifically the presumptive winner, Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani, whose candidacy has caused fear and even panic among Jews in New York. Mamdani has repeatedly made virulently anti-Zionist statements, refused to condemn the phrase “globalize the Intifada,” and palled around with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who has said that the US deserved the 9/11 attacks and that Israel was responsible for the October 7 attack. Mamdani posted a statement on social media on October 8, 2023, before Israel responded militarily to the October 7 attack, criticizing Israel for “occupation” and “apartheid,” but not condemning or even mentioning Hamas. His mother, filmmaker Mira Nair, has accepted millions of dollars from Qatar, a country that hosts Hamas’s leaders.
The skit showed Mamdani, featuring his trademark fixed grin, as a director coached him in making an ad to calm Jews’ fears, but he kept getting the words wrong, saying “Happy Rosh Intifada” instead of “Happy Rosh HaShanah.”
In a reference to comments he made earlier this week about an aunt he said feared to wear her hijab on the New York subway after 9/11, which drew criticism for the way the candidate seemed to be conflating the suffering of his aunt, who received nasty looks according to him, with the thousands who were burned alive in their offices, killed in the plane crashes, and hit by falling debris in the Al-Qaeda attack in 2001. In the Eretz Nehederet skit, he also started saying that he deplored the suffering of Jews in the Holocaust, but then spoke about how much his aunt had suffered. At the end, he started to do the usual candidate sign-off, confirming that he had approved the campaign ad, but instead said, “I’m Zohran Mamdani, and I approved this massacre.”
Wednesday night’s show featured a visit by a figure who has become a regular guest, US President Donald J. Trump, who spoke to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. The three Israeli political leaders met at the US military headquarters compound in Kiryat Gat, where some US soldiers are now stationed. Trump spoke via video from this trip to Asia and wasted no time telling the Israeli government representatives exactly what they could and couldn’t do in Gaza, finishing by making them do grueling pushups.
With all the often sophisticated snark that came before, it was nice to see the finale with Ohel playing, as the cast members singing alongside him were visibly moved.