Lots of comedians perform solo sets, but Noam Shuster Eliassi may be the only comic on Earth who could pull off anything even close to the routine that she does. An Israeli fluent in Hebrew, Arabic and English, Shuster Eliassi doesn’t shy from tense material. To all appearances, she disarms divided audiences without ever compromising her activist’s edge — or her sense of humor.
Shot from 2019 until the near-present, “Coexistence, My Ass!,” directed by Amber Fares, is a winning introduction to Shuster Eliassi, who grew up in the Oasis of Peace, a village in Israel where Jewish and Arab citizens have chosen to reside side by side. That upbringing left her dedicated to the simple premise that Palestinians and Israelis should live as equals. (It seemed to work during the pandemic: In the film we see a convalescing Shuster Eliassi quarantined with a diverse group of Covid patients at a Jerusalem hotel in 2020. Recalling the experience later onstage, Shuster Eliassi notes that everyone was “radically getting along.”)
Israeli-Palestinian relations have never been natural material for comedy, and Shuster Eliassi confronts audiences of varied political perspectives. (“I’m only staying for seven minutes, not 70 years,” she tells the crowd at a Palestinian comedy festival.) At one point, she notes that at her U.S. appearances, she doesn’t care who disagrees with her, but that in Israel, she is sometimes afraid and could pay a higher price for her words. During a protest in West Jerusalem, she argues with a man who calls her “an enemy of the state.”
Then the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, scrambles politics for some of her ostensible allies. The film leaves the impression that, sadly, comedy may be one of the only paths to peace left in the region.
Coexistence, My Ass!
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters.
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