JM in the AM: Benji Lovitt

benji lovett is here benji lovett has been um described to me as a comedian as a writer as somebody who comments about especially about uh the news of the day and the times that are that people are going through here in israel benji lovett welcome to jm and the am thank you it's wonderful to be here oh that sounds cool wow this is great sound quality well you guys don't mess around here we got the best engineer in the business what do you want jewish of course wow what do you expect all right it's been a tough few months here in israel we know there are certain realities we've addressed them this morning uh here at jm in the am we have certain realities of what people are going through random attacks are not anything pleasant to live with obviously at the same time we're here to celebrate we're here to celebrate jewish life or to celebrate how incredible it is here in israel we're to encourage people to continue to support our brothers and sisters here and to um maintain their trips with regularity to israel so you i am told have a unique take on all of this you have a unique take on what life is like in this great country that's what your staff is telling me yeah if you don't have a sense of humor here you will go nuts and uh the jewish people have been able to uh laugh through adversity and no one does it better than in this country imagine that that's what it is yeah it's simply that if you don't laugh it's impossible to be jewish yeah you know uh you know nothing like a good uh talk about uh terror in the a.m but you know we're right down the street from the shooting about a month right now that was on disney golf what a blocker a block or two down uh and look life is going on it's wonderful i mean you see it it's a beautiful day so you know people should continue to come visit because uh you know it's probably more dangerous driving over the gwb in the morning whatever your your observations are always comedic ones i mean the could you give us a sample of you know of looking at jewish life in israel you know from a comedic angle oh god it's so hard to perform yeah i know you know i talk about a million things and uh you know for example the holidays here you know hanukkah and those are easy some holidays you know i didn't even know much about before i got here like what are we doing memorial day in america right shop shop bbq what do people do here there's a siren 11 o'clock in the morning they get out of the cars and they freeze for two minutes okay that would have been nice to know i had no idea you know i said i'm walking down the street everything is great suddenly i thought aliens had come to eat my brain i'm like is it a flash mob what is going on i had no idea funnier on stage but nevertheless well i think it's pretty funny even off stage this is how you discovered it it just happened to happen to you yeah you have to yeah it's just you're a fish out of water here uh you know israelis being americans just clash of cultures and it's hilarious uh yeah there must be a lot of material when it comes to that not just americans israelis but really people from around the world in israelis and there's so many different cultures here jewish and non-jewish absolutely it's uh hilarious what's your latest uh article or uh post about what's this um well i've been pretty busy i'm going on a tour in the state's real comedy tour um you know synagogues jcc federations things like that so i've been written for a while but i wrote like what was it uh top 10 reasons the christmas stinks in israel no chimneys you're going to get kids very good santa claus you know the minute santa gets to israeli airspace he's getting shot down by the iron dome he could not possibly penetrate area not a chat so you know just stuff like that benji lovett is here he's got a comedic angle on uh what's happening here in israel what do you think of the seinfeld visit to israel uh well you know what uh it was great when anyone comes it's a national event i mean you know if you look at the headlines of the last couple of hours everyone's going crazy about springsteen rumors not confirmed beyonce but when anyone comes it's so exciting it's like a validation of us so when jerry seinfeld came it was even the comedy aside it was wonderful uh and uh does your tour have a name does your tour have a title to it yet it's called uh jm and the am comedy tour wow it's uh you know i am flattered you know about five years ago when i started doing these tours i realized i could give it a name so i called one tour hummus face because why not if you could name your tour no but they're no names but uh i'll be in you know silver spring and toronto and uh memphis and minnesota all over the place then i'm back again uh right around yo mot's food it's clean it's kosher uh you know just it's fun it's fun simple as that yeah a lot of observations you can make about this country uh yeah there are no end of observations and uh you know and how is it that so many of the of the of the uh tragic episodes i hate to put it that way they just don't bring people down it's amazing how how everyone here bounces back the way they do well look you know from the minute i've gotten here i'm in this weird situation where you know you so badly want to be a sabbah or an israeli we don't you know we don't totally get it i haven't you know thank god i haven't experienced close loss but you know life you know you have to get up and go to work in the morning i mean life continues i wasn't here during the second intifada you just come but everyone says you compartmentalize you have to keep going otherwise you go crazy it's a little harder with facebook now because when these things happen everyone posts everyone brings each other down but it's still a magical wonderful place and we're you know when you're a member of this community and you're grieving you're grieving with members of your family and you know it's you know shabbat comes every week that's nice or there's always a cog coming up you know this country is a bunch of miracles when you live here you may forget about it but uh or you may take it for granted but you know i mean look at the city it's great there's you live in tel aviv i do i live down the street what do you think of this place rob doesn't go it's great yeah it's down the street yeah it's like you know it's like little manhattan little new york right pretty amazing how do people find you on the web uh my website is benjilover.com we are redoing it right now new website to launch next month so if it doesn't look so nice don't hold it against me but uh i write out the times of israel i've got youtube clips facebook is where uh some of your staff here discovered me and uh my frequent you know observations about elections or conflict or whatever but uh what is it like uh performing during a war in bomb shelters for people who are basically holed up in those it's extremely rewarding you know when you feel like you're doing a mitzvah because you're making people laugh and you know and they can laugh at a bomb shelter yeah people want to let people want to laugh while under fire people want to laugh i mean thank god you know thank god you know it's uh thank god for the iron dome but uh if you didn't laugh you'd go crazy so the sense of humor is often a little darker here but because we're in it we can joke about it uh benji love it everybody you could check him out on the web he'll be in the united states for the big tour and of course uh um it lives right here on rahul disney which is pretty cool in the center of tel aviv well i i just want to say thank you for coming israel and all your listeners please come please come visit it's it's amazing and if you don't you know if if you're ever worried that it's not safe just talk to anyone who's been here or is here and we'll tell you everyone will say you feel safer here than you do in america usually so say it again please come now let's please come visit it's uh you'll never ever regret it benji thank you thank you great meeting you you too great meeting you