Wausau Daily Herald · 30 December 2004

CP-2004-006

Disabled Palestinian-American comic builds bridges with laughter

She gives others a chance to entertain while sharing diversity

By Heather Salerno, Gannett News Service

Transcribed from the clipping

“When Maysoon Zayid takes the stage, she knows the audience probably never has seen a comic like her. So she lays it all out right from the start. ‘I’m a Palestinian-American virgin from New Jersey with cerebral palsy.’ With that zinger, Zayid loosens up a crowd, which otherwise might not know what to expect from this wild-haired woman with an Arabic name and shaking limbs. ‘I get these things out of the way, so they know who I am,’ Zayid says. ‘And I always laugh, because I wonder when I’ll stop saying I’m a virgin.’… She’s brassy, tough and opinionated — not exactly traits most Americans associate with Muslim women… ‘Stop with the suffering,’ she playfully told her fellow Arab-American artists. ‘That’s so easy. Stop making the suffering films and suffering plays where people are killed. Start doing something funny that make people feel good and want more of.’ That’s not to say she hasn’t seen her share of horror back in her parents’ homeland. Zayid’s stand-up earnings pay for an art program she runs for disabled and wounded children in Palestinian refugee camps four months out of the year. The barbs in her comic routines come from personal experience: Two of her students have been shot and killed by Israeli soldiers in the past three years.… She’s called Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a war criminal, though she notes that she was just as tough on the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Zayid is very clear on one point: She might poke fun at Israel, but never at Jews. ‘Judaism isn’t Zionism,’ she says. ‘I live and work in a society of all three Judeo-Christian religions, and I have respect for all three.’… She is vague about her exact age, putting it between 25 and 30. ‘Too old to be unmarried, too young to be dead,’ she deadpans… The only concession Zayid makes to her disability is a stool she uses during performances… ‘Yes, I’m a sit-down stand-up,’ she chuckles.… ‘I’ve been told by some great, great, great comics that I respect, ‘Baby, step away from the Palestine thing. You’re not going to go anywhere with this. You need to be careful. People don’t like it. It’s a ball and chain,’ Zayid says. ‘But I say, no, no way. I can’t.’”

Context added by this archive

She co-founded the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival in 2003, funds an art program for children in the camps out of her own stand-up earnings, has lost two of those children to Israeli soldiers, and tells her fellow Arab-American artists to stop making suffering plays. Comics she admires have advised her to drop the Palestine material. She is also the only person in this archive to settle in three words a question the United Nations spent sixteen years voting on.

Cite this item

"Disabled Palestinian-American comic builds bridges with laughter," Wausau Daily Herald, 30 December 2004. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2004-006. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2004-006

Elsewhere in the archive

• Middle East blood politicsThe Day · 21 March 2004 · the same year
• Refugee camp in Gaza hitThe Times Leader · 18 May 2004 · the same year
• U.N. wants Israel to avow nukesWaco Tribune-Herald · 7 July 2004 · the same year