The ‘Israeli SNL’ Just Took A Stand For Refugees In An Unbelievably Creative Way

African migrants at a demonstration in Israel on January 22 Image by Getty Images

By Jenny Singer January 29, 2018

“Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt,” the Torah tells us. Even if you are now an actor starring on one of Israel’s most popular and influential television shows, you were once a stranger. That’s just what the team behind “Eretz Nehederet,” Israel’s version of “Saturday Night Live,” reminded their viewers during the show this week.

In the title sequence for “Eretz Nehederet” (it translates to “Wonderful Country”), names of comedians were replaced by the comedians’ relationships to refugees. Where the segment at the opening of a TV show would usually flash performers’ names over their faces, the words instead read, for example, “grandson of a refugee from Lithuania.” He sits near “daughter of a refugee from Romania,” who is sitting near “granddaughter of a refugee from Libya.” The show’s performers are directly descended from refugees from Egypt, Iraq, Russia, Poland, Germany, Morocco, Argentina, Bulgaria. There is also one “refugee from reality.”

Most of the people who provide vital services in our lives — entertainment, friendship, government, education — were once refugees, just like those African migrants who may soon be deported from Israel. And so, “Eretz Nehederet” seeks to remind us, were you.

Watch the clip of the title credits here:

סחטיין עליכם ארץ, ריגשתם pic.twitter.com/7sC7ngY2VE

— Shira Makin (@shiramakin) January 29, 2018

Jenny Singer is a writer for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Jenny Singer is a freelance writer with pieces in Vox, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, and more. She was previously a staff writer at Glamour and the Forward, and she’s currently getting an MFA in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO