Palestinian's are funny! The evening show will feature two comics sure to have your side's splitting:
Born in the Great State of New Jersey, Dean's comedy comes in large part from his unique background of being the son of a Palestinian father and a Sicilian mother. Dean, an award winning comedian who was at one time a practicing attorney, co-starred in the Comedy Central special The Axis of Evil. He is a also columnist for The Daily Beast and has written for CNN.com and The Huffington Post.
Dean is the co-director/co-producer of the recently released comedy documentary entitled The Muslims are Coming! featuring a stand up comedy tour of Muslim-American comedians performing free shows across the South and West in the hopes of fostering understanding. The film features interviews with The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, comedians Lewis Black, David Cross and many more.
He was also the co-creator of Comedy Central.com’s critically acclaimed Internet series The Watch List featuring a cast of all Middle Eastern-American comedians.
Dean has appeared twice on ABC’s The View, on Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen, and was one of five comedians profiled in the one hour PBS TV Special entitled: Stand Up: Muslim-American Comics Come of Age. He has also appeared on numerous international and national television programs including on NBC, MSNBC, CNN, VH1, Al Jazeera, and BBC. In addition, he has been featured in various publications including Time magazine, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times.
Dean is proud to have received the first annual Bill Hicks Spirit Award for "thought provoking comedy" (named after the late comedian Bill Hicks) from the NY Underground Comedy Festival and the Hicks’ Family.
Dean is the co-creator/co-producer of the annual NY Arab-American Comedy Festival, which celebrated its 11th anniversary in the fall of 2014. He has also served as the Executive Director of The Amman Stand up Comedy Festival, the first stand up comedy festival ever held in the Middle East, from 2007-2010.
He also co-created the comedy show Stand up for Peace along with Jewish comic Scott Blakeman which they perform at colleges across the country in support of peace in the Middle East and fostering understanding between Arab and Jewish-Americans.
In addition to performing comedy throughout the US, Dean has performed across the Middle East. For more details, please visit his website, Dean of Comedy.
Amer Zahr is an Arab-American comedian, speaker, and writer. Drawing on his experiences growing up as a child of Palestinian parents, he finds the humor in society, culture, and politics.
He has produced and headlined in 3 of his own comedy tours, 1001 Laughs Comedy Tour, We're Not White! and In 1948. He is also the producer of the annual 1001 Laughs Dearborn Comedy Festival in Dearborn, Michigan at the Arab American National Museum.
Amer recently completed production on his first documentary film, We're Not White, a comedic and informative approach to the Arab-American struggle to get a box on the United States Census Form. Join the We're Not White! Facebook page.
He is also the author of the well-read blog The Civil Arab, as well as his first book, Being Palestinian Makes Me Smile, a collection of his writings relating to being Palestinian.
Amer holds an MA in Middle East Studies and a JD (law degree), both from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He writes and speaks widely on political and social affairs, and has appeared on radio and television, including ABC's Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. Some of his writings have been featured in major publications, including Time magazine