Eretz Nehederet, Israel’s beloved sketch comedy show, has been helping Israelis find some laughs during one of the most turbulent periods in the country’s history throughout its most recent season, which came to a close on Wednesday night, just as Israel’s 78th Independence Day celebrations wound down.
The series, which runs on Channel 12 on the Keshet network, opened its 23rd season just after the last living hostages held by Hamas in Gaza were released in October, and it hosted the former hostage Alon Ohel, a pianist, just two weeks after he came home. His performance of David Broza’s “Under the Sky,” during which he was joined by the show’s cast, was one of the most moving moments in the show’s history.
On Wednesday night, the cast came out again at the end and joined host Eyal Kitzis as they celebrated simply getting through the season, during which, from the end of February until well into April, the cast, along with all Israelis, were frequently running to bomb shelters.
Audiences grew used to seeing the right side of their television screen light up with missile alert warnings for different towns as the cast performed. Pre-ceasefire, thousands of Israelis ran to bomb shelters in the middle of the show, and most tuned back in as soon as they got out, because the need for jokes and a little fun was so strong.
The show made fun of virtually every aspect of Israeli life during Operation Roaring Lion, from crowded bomb shelters, one of which featured Tel Aviv resident Quentin Tarantino (Ori Laizerouvitch), to mood swings, comfort-food binges, and the rising gap between the have-bomb-shelters and the have-no-bomb shelters.
For weeks leading up to the Operation Roaring Lion war, Kitzis would quiz US President Donald Trump (Omer Etzion, who is so good he puts all Trump impersonators to shame, even those in the US) on plans for a war to follow up the 12-day conflict against Iran in June, but Trump played it close to the vest, even admitting, “I don’t know s**t,” at one point in February.
On Wednesday’s show, Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu (Mariano Edelman) kept thinking that every noise he heard was Air Force One bringing Trump back to Israel, since Bibi had promised the US president the Israel Prize, Israel’s most prestigious civilian honor, and that he could light a torch at the official Independence Day ceremony.
Bibi boasted of how close he still was to Trump, and said the president always answered him, as long as he called from the phone of Channel 12’s White House correspondent, Barak Ravid.
Trump answered from the White House, pretending to be a Spanish-speaking cleaning woman when he realized it was Bibi and not Ravid. The prime minister reminded Trump about all the honors awaiting him in Israel, and Trump told Bibi he could have a messenger leave the Israel Prize outside the White House door.
Asked by Kitzis why he was no longer close to the Israeli prime minister, Trump replied that, because it was Independence Day, he had watched some classic Israeli “seretei bourekas” comedies and realized that Israelis had been fooling him. The prime minister had told him that the war with Iran would be a “piece of cake. I said yes because I like cake… Iran is not cake… No more boom boom, Bibi.”
‘When I say ceasefire, I mean all the fire’
Trump told Bibi that Israelis couldn’t even celebrate Independence Day with traditional barbecues, just with the cans of foam that people like to spray on each other at open-air parties, because, “When I say ceasefire, I mean all the fire.”
But Transportation Minister Miri Regev (Yuval Semo), who is also in charge of the Independence Day festivities, reminded Bibi that even if Trump couldn’t make it, there was another crazy foreign president at the torch-lighting ceremony, President Javier Milei (Mariano Edeleman) of Argentina, who actually attended the event and sang a song in Spanish.
Much of the show focused on this year’s torch-lighting, which was criticized by many for being too complimentary to the prime minister and for failing to get any young celebrities to take part.
There was also a sketch with a new spy series about how Turkish intelligence had rigged the heads of Israeli men who went to Turkey for cheap hair transplants to explode, and how they had to be stopped by actor Yehuda Levi, whose mane of hair has remained thick for over 20 years.
The show’s cold open was about resilience, a quality much celebrated when the missiles were falling but perhaps overrated in peacetime, as it showed a woman dumping her boyfriend and immediately praising him for his resilience.
In the continuing parody of counterculture life in Pardes Hanna, a straitlaced woman who has been staying home watching the news all the time is finally persuaded to get out and dance in the sun with New Age hippies.
A new band
Kitizis then said that the army had added a new band: the Home Front Command Troupe. In a loving parody of Avi Nesher’s classic 1978 film, The Troupe (Ha Lahaka), inspired by an army entertainment troupe, soldiers appeared dressed to resemble characters from the film and performed a medley of the beloved songs from the film, with the lyrics updated to reflect today’s reality.
The songs touched on subjects such as running to a bomb shelter and locking others out as explosions are heard outside, emotional eating, repairing broken windows, and perhaps, most cynically, the words to the lilting “What Birds” were replaced by “What Launches.”
Meanwhile, “Song of Peace” was rewritten as “Alerts and another round of fighting/Will be here for many years/So don’t sing a song of peace/There’s already no such word/But just sing there’s a light in the bomb shelter/For next time.”
On that sad note, the cast assembled at Kitzis’s desk and proceeded to take off their elaborate masks and wigs, while Kitzis signed off by saying that he hoped Israel’s 79th year would be marked by healing, rebuilding, and peace. saying, “It’s in our hands, and it’s worthwhile to make an effort because, remember, we have a wonderful country.”
Source:
www.jpost.com
