A Jewish comedian from Brooklyn became the unwitting star of an international controversy when tens of millions of people watched footage supposedly showing him declare, \u201cI support Israel\u201d and emptying a Chicago comedy club \u2014 except none of it happened.<\/p>\n
Now-embattled comic Menachem Silverstein and a show producer told The Post that not only was the statement never made and no one walked out in disgust \u2014 but the comedian wasn\u2019t even at last week\u2019s event.<\/p>\n
Here is comedian Menachem Silverstein actually performing at the Laugh Factory in Chicago \u2014 only it\u2019s in February. Courtesy of Svitlana Soroka<\/p>\n
Silverstein, 31, was instead offline observing Rosh Hashanah in Los Angeles when the bizarre story began racing around the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cI turned my phone on after Rosh Hashanah, and I had over 40 messages from people being like, \u2018What the hell is this? Is this you? What\u2019s happening?\u2019 \u201d recalled Silverstein, a father of two with a third child on the way.<\/p>\n
The controversial viral clip was filmed at the Laugh Factory in Chicago and shows the crowd suddenly leave with a comic still on stage.<\/p>\n
The performer was comedian Kieron Harrell, who was appearing in the Laugh Factory\u2019s aptly named prank show \u201cWhat Could Go Wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n
Harrell never uttered the reported \u201cI support Israel\u201d statement, his producer told The Post, citing full footage of the event.<\/p>\n
The crowd also did not walk out because it was supposedly offended.<\/p>\n
Fellow comic Kieron Harrell was misidentified as Silverstein. Instagram\/@ki_almighty<\/p>\n
As part of the gag, Harrell was blindfolded and given headphones \u2014 while the audience was secretly ushered out, leaving him performing to an empty room when he took off the blindfold \u2014 giving the impression in some of posted footage that the room cleared over a pro-Israel comment that was supposedly uttered.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere isn\u2019t a single element that was true,\u201d Silverstein said of the reports. \u201cI wasn\u2019t there. The comedian didn\u2019t say anything about Israel. The audience didn\u2019t walk out because they were offended.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe entire thing is fake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silverstein said he believes Al Jazeera English was the first news outlet to falsely identify him as the performer and say he made the statement at the show and that the audience walked. The story was later removed, but Arabic-language Al Jazeera stories naming him remained online Saturday, he said.<\/p>\n
One of the outlet\u2019s stories even included an actual old Silverstein joke as background: \u201cMy name is Menachem Silverstein. I stand with Israel. Not politically, they\u2019re just the only people who can pronounce my name.\u201d<\/p>\n
An X account called \u201cTruthseeker\u201d meanwhile posted some video of the bit identifying the performer as Silverstein and claiming he had told the audience, \u201cMy name is Menachem, and I support Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harrell appears in the Laugh Factory\u2019s prank show \u201cWhat Could Go Wrong?\u201d X\/Truthseeker<\/p>\n
That post racked up more than 2 million views, while versions of the supposed pro-Israel walkout spread across X, Instagram and Facebook.<\/p>\n
Dan Kass, who produces the prank show, told The Post the walkout was planned in advance as part of the blindfold bit and that the show\u2019s four cameras captured the entire stunt. He said an audience member apparently filmed the crowd leaving and posted the footage without the producers\u2019 knowledge.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have all the footage. Nothing was ever mentioned about Israel,\u201d Kass said. \u201cI was in shock that I had to explain to people, \u2018No, I run this show. I was there. This was not the case.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n
Silverstein added, \u201cI haven\u2019t been to the Chicago Laugh Factory since May.<\/p>\n
\u201cI looked at the video and the person is clearly not me. It was just bizarre. It literally had nothing to do with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other international outlets, including India\u2019s The Print and Iran\u2019s Press TV, also reported versions of the false account as the story continued ricocheting around social media.<\/p>\n
Then Alex Jones got involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a comedian, Mr. Silverstein, Menachem Silverstein, says, \u2018I support Israel,\u2019 and literally 99% of people get up in a full house and leave instantly,\u201d disgraced Infowars founder and conspiracy theorist Jones told his audience while discussing the clip.<\/p>\n
Disgraced Infowars founder Alex Jones reacts to a controversial misleading clip about the Laugh Factory show. X\/@RealAlexJones<\/p>\n
Silverstein said AI search tools made matters worse. When users asked Grok to identify the comedian, he said it named him and even supplied his old Israel joke as the supposed line that sparked the walkout.<\/p>\n
He said his Instagram inbox became flooded with abuse.<\/p>\n
\u201c \u2018Free Palestine, \u2018F\u2013k you Jew\u2019 \u2014 every kind of ridiculous DM,\u201d Silverstein said he was bombarded with.<\/p>\n
For Silverstein, a Crown Heights native who has been doing stand-up for nine years, the potentially devastating career consequences linger.<\/p>\n
He was preparing to approach clubs about his next tour but now worries that bookers who search his name will encounter stories claiming he \u201cwalked a crowd\u201d \u2014 jargon for driving an audience from the room.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to be reaching out to any clubs until I either get this fully sorted or have enough positive press to explain why that would even come up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said the episode did deliver one particularly strange punchline: He had spent Rosh Hashanah praying for a career boost.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve spent eight years trying to go viral,\u201d he said jokingly. \u201cApparently the secret was not showing up.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the punchline is no laughing matter,\u201d Silverstein said.<\/p>\n
He said the episode reflects what he sees as a growing willingness to target Jews simply over a perceived connection to Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt started off with people demonizing Israel and demonizing Zionism,\u201d he said. \u201cNow it seems like it can be used to demonize any Jew whatsoever for a potential association with Israel, without even any sort of proof.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither Al Jazeera nor Alex Jones responded to Post requests for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Jewish comedian from Brooklyn became the unwitting star of an international controversy when tens of millions of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3862,8287,2574,9,56,63,65,64,7714,58],"class_list":["post-351902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-antisemitism","tag-chicago","tag-comedy","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-orthodox-judaism","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}