Stand Up NY's "Comics for Conversation" Event is Naked Pro-Israel Propaganda

The fun never stops with Stand Up NY owner Dani Zoldan, the serial entrepreneur, stiffer of lenders, and alleged wage thief. His latest project is an event called “Comics for Conversation,” purportedly a dialogue between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine comedians that he’s producing with The Heart Monitors, a marketing consultancy. Per the event description on Stand Up NY’s website: 

In an era where polarization and divisive rhetoric dominate, *Comics for Conversation* stands as a beacon of civil discourse. The initiative combines humor with humanity, encouraging real conversations around some of today’s most challenging topics. Together, we are proud to launch this pioneering event, set to take place on December 16th in New York City.

Comics for Conversation is the launch initiative of the Don’t Hate, Debate movement - a marketing platform committed to dialogue, not discord, that aims to build bridges in a world of extremes. Our vision is to bring together the “moderate middle.” uniting those who feel disillusioned by polarized extreme rhetoric and behaviors and creating a space where meaningful conversations thrive. This movement recognizes that real impact comes when influencers, artists, and cultural voices lead the charge to foster understanding in ways that politicians and academics often cannot have one conversation at a time.

If this strikes you as an odd turn from a guy who just spearheaded a multi-city tour to raise funds for the IDF—and who also called protestors of that tour “Hamas”—well, you’re right to be skeptical. In an April interview with the publication Jewish Link, Rachel Lemberg, co-founder of The Heart Monitors—Zoldan’s partner in producing “Comics for Conversation”—explained in no uncertain terms that her mission is to create pro-Israel propaganda:

Our children attending secular colleges today are constantly bombarded by anti-Jewish and anti-Israel rhetoric, from Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), part of the “Free Palestine” movement, among other such groups. The Free Palestine movement is a Palestinian-Syrian-backed movement and community organization opposing the existence of Israel. Since the horrific events of October 7 they continue to garner support from young people and push lawmakers to stop giving money and weapons to Israel, and work to influence young Democratic voters to threaten to boycott President Joe Biden as political retribution for any support he has shown to Israel. They appeal largely to young people’s emotions and feelings as opposed to the facts.

That’s the first paragraph of the article and it’s already one of the most cynical things I’ve ever read. Somehow it only gets worse from there. 

And so, on October 11, Robin Lemberg and Jon Bond, co-founders of The Heart Monitors, a new strategy and insights marketing consultancy, came together to help the Jewish world deal with their fragmentation and fact-driven messaging that was no match for the call of “Free Palestine,” which thrives on fueling the fire of anger and confusion. “The Heart Monitors was born out of crisis,” said Lemberg. “It’s a war of words,” noted Bond.

The co-founders of The Heart Monitors view the current war of messaging as “arguably one of the biggest emotional events to hit Gen Z, and ‘Free Palestine’ one of the best marketing campaigns of the centuries, seeded for over 20 years and launched on October 7.” According to The Heart Monitors’ findings, “Free Palestine” messaging has 50% of Gen Z inspired to act and support its cause while the slogan #BringthemHomeNow matters to Gen Z Jews personally but only matters to 51% at this point in the war.

[…]

While it may be surprising to many that people, especially young people, are turning away from Israel and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, The Heart Monitors is working to better understand the younger generation’s psyche in this regard. Since January 1, The Heart Monitors has fielded over 300 market studies to explore why Gen Z as a whole (while focusing specifically on Gen Z Jews and Gen Z Muslims), seems to be shifting away from supporting Israel and Netanyahu, and how Jews view their own Jewish cultural identity. “What we have uncovered is that Gen Z is majorly swayed by their emotions and feelings evoked from what they read and see,” Lemberg said. “This Palestinian appeal to feelings is what is paving the way for the blatant antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment that has swept across the nation.”

Our children attending secular colleges are being exposed to anti-Jewish, anti-Israel thinking because that what their peers are thinking. As Bond told The Jewish Link, “The pro-Palestinian movement has recast Israel as big, bad Goliath and themselves as heroic David.”

The article goes on to describe the “jarring” results of The Heart Monitors’ market research: many young people believe Israel is an apartheid state responsible for the killing of innocent Palestinians, and they do not believe it is antisemitic to protest the Israeli government:

Lemberg told The Jewish Link: “Our findings do indicate that Israel makes it difficult to be Jewish for our kids. Almost half believe that Israel’s actions are hurting Jews worldwide and that as a result 50% see that protesting the Israeli government is not antisemitic. Worse, the IDF is also seen by some to be engaged in the killing of innocent civilians.

“From our work, the conventional Jewish fact-driven slogans and marketing approaches are no longer resonating with our kids, and worse, are further alienating Gen Z overall. When we tested Jewish slogans, even ‘Never again is now,’ they are seen to be in an echo chamber and lacking inspiration. While the Holocaust is primordial to us as a people, our kids face the pushback that it is ‘history,’ especially when their peers see modern-day ‘genocide’ is happening now.”

Then Lemberg and her co-founder, Jon Bond, declare quite brazenly that their solution to these problems is to forsake the realm of facts and morality entirely: 

So, what can be done to counter these thoughts and feelings? Bond said: “We need a single-minded approach, but one that involves herding the Katz! Meaning the Jewish nonprofits. Jews must stop worrying about being right and start worrying about winning the propaganda war. Gen Z relates to Palestine because they themselves feel oppressed by the establishment.”

Echoing these sentiments, Lemberg said: “The Jewish world must stop fighting a war of facts in a world of feelings, especially to connect with Gen Z. We must accept that many of our kids have a different lens than we do.

There is much one could say about this: in fact, the Jewish world ought to worry more about being right; in fact, people relate to the Palestinian cause because it is a righteous one. What really gets me, though, is the utter flimsiness of the pretense behind “Comics for Conversation.” The event’s website includes a “Contract of Civility” that asks signatories to commit to “fostering thoughtful dialogue, listening with an open mind, and prioritizing understanding over conflict.” Yet it is quite clear from their on-record statements that Lemberg and Bond (let alone Zoldan) have no interest in any of these things: they are consciously, deliberately seeking to wage a propaganda war on behalf of genocidaires, and they are leveraging comedians to help them win. It’s one of the most disgusting things I’ve seen in this industry. 

Speaking of disgusting things I’ve seen in this industry, here’s Theo Von answering a viewer’s question about how to make more white and Asian friends in addition to his Black friends: 

You can get all types of friends. That is for sure, man. You know, I think, you know, basketball is a gateway drug to just a brother-ific type shit. Go out into your neighborhood right now. Dribble a basketball in the street. See if a couple brothers don't show up. You hear a basketball banging on that street, that's the Michael Jordan mating call. That's how it is. You put a rim up anywhere and you going to get some Black friends. 

Man, that's not a racial thing. That's just facts. You put a basketball rim up anywhere and you going to have some brothers show up. You put that bitch up in the ocean, you'll have a couple wet brothers out there, just double drowning out there. So you have to think if you want to get different types of folks, you have to put out different types of activities.

So if you want to get more Asian friends, you might want to do a—Asian people like hide and go seek. That's easy man. And that's wild, bro-bro. Look at an Asian. Look at any resting or sitting Asian. Resting Asian. Or AARs or whatever, Asians At Rest. Look at, look at one. [To his producer:] Bring up a couple, right? Go to any of these folks and say, you keep counting, I'll go hide. Because Asians got that clock in 'em, dog. So that's something you could do to meet some Asians right there, man.

And also, it's okay to be a white guy that has black friends. And I know you're not saying there's anything wrong with it, but when I was getting into life or whatever, they had a lot of wiggers out there. And no cap, bro, wiggers used to be the thing, bro. Thomas Jefferson was a wigger bro. Real talk. And people don't want say that shit, but he was, man. But now they got blonkies [ed. note: ??], even. They got blonkies out there. You got a lot of Black dudes that want to be white or are having white—more white stuff going on in them. I mean, I saw a brother crying in his car the other day outside of a Jimmy John’s. That's the whitest shit you could do. That's our shit. So it's all good. What I'm saying is the portal is always open, guys.

And here is an obscenely transphobic segment in a recent episode of Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast, featuring guest Bill McCusker, who declares that trans people’s “days are numbered”:

Matt McCusker: What was Nancy Mace doing?

Bill McCusker: She’s fucking pissed ‘cause there’s a fucking tr—y in Congress. It’s huge. It looks like if Shane had a wig on, bro. And they’re like, dude, fuck that. She can't come in the bathroom. "Why not?” It’s crazy. But they all want to kill Nancy Mace 'cause she's like, dude, I don't want fucking dudes in our bathrooms. And it’s really odd.

Shane Gillis: The videos they make, I saw a video of her rip—because they put up a bunch of trans flags over the bathroom sign and she had somebody film her ripping them down and be like—literally, they're all like teachers making TikToks. That's what Congress has become. It's like, “Follow me on my day as a congresswoman. This is what I wear. And then I signed a bill.”

Matt McCusker: “Then I had to have the mocha latte.”

Gillis: “We are at war. We haven’t addressed the homeless situation.” 

Matt McCusker: So she was like, "watch this" and just ripped down the flag?

Gillis: Yeah.

Matt McCusker: Damn.

Bill McCusker: Their days are numbered, bro. Chicks are about to start rising up against the trans. It's going to be one of the great battles, like the titans versus the gods. 

Gillis: If the womens [sic] rise up against the trans, I'm siding with the trans.

Matt McCusker: Are you serious?

Gillis: Yeah, it'll be hilarious. See a bunch of dudes beat the shit out of women.

Matt McCusker: Yeah, but it's going to be a lot of covert psychic warfare. It's going to be a lot of relational—

Gillis: I'm with the Ts.

Matt McCusker: —just kind of walk in and be like, "nice shoes." 

Bill McCusker: Imagine just barged into a chick's bathroom, especially a locker room. Whew… 

Gillis: Think about this. It probably doesn't work on them. They probably try to hit the Ts with what would hurt a woman. "Your shoes look shitty." It's just a guy going like, "I don't give a fuck. I don't give a fuck. I'm sneaking into the bathroom."

Matt McCusker: "I got these for 12 bucks down at the Ross. Comfortable as hell."

Gillis: And wearing cell phone clips on their belts.

Bill McCusker: Shirt tucked into his huge tits.

I think it’s safe to say comedy is going to get very ugly over the next four years. 

I know what you’re thinking: surely none of the other usual suspects have said anything grossly racist in the last few weeks, and if they have, surely they haven’t doubled and tripled down on it? I’m sorry to report that yes, Andrew Schulz has.

The saga began late last month, when the rapper Kendrick Lamar released an album whose intro track featured the line, “Don’t let no white comedian talk about no Black woman, that’s law.” As The Root and Vulture both explain, many took this to be a reference to a previous controversy on Schulz’s podcast, in which a pair of British podcasters joked about “the Black girlfriend effect,” earning backlash from their fans and ultimately issuing an apology. (Schulz did not apologize for his own comments, but he did make fun of his guests for apologizing.) Shortly after the track’s release, the podcaster DJ Akademiks said he asked Schulz about it, to which Schulz responded by asking if Lamar is “too woke to understand a joke.” 

Responding to the track on his own podcast last week, Schulz called Lamar a hypocrite: “Nobody has respected women more through art than rappers,” he said, before pointing out that Lamar has worked with the creators of South Park, “white comedians that make fun of Black people.” Then he suggested that if he ever ran into Lamar, he would rape him:

I would make love to him and there’s nothing he could do about it. Just Kendrick Lamar. I would make love to him and the only thing he could do is decide if it’s consensual or not. That’s the only thing he could do. If it’s me and Kendrick, it’s about physics. I don’t even know if I’ll get hard. But, if we’re in a cell, and we’re bored and we’re done tattooing each other and we ran out of board games and we did all the other things, and we cleaned everything, and I’m like, “Man, I might as well fuck you.” There’s nothing he can physically do to stop that besides put his legs in the air and choose a position. Maybe I’d let him choose a position.

[…]

Yo, I'll be honest. I would, I would go so far as to say, I don't think he could stop most people on the planet from having sex with him. The only reason he got security is to stop people from having sex with him whatever he wants. Now, don’t get me wrong. There’s people who could fuck me against my will. I was in an elevator once with this drag queen and this motherfucker was like six-five. And we’re in the elevator, we’re going down, I’m like, yo, if he wanted to take it—I gotta cause a ruckus or something like that. I gotta shit my pants, I gotta do something. I gotta do something to stop it. He might enjoy it. I have no clue what they’re into. 

But I know for with Kendrick that he's talking a lot of shit, but if it came down to it, I can put him on my lap, I could feed him a bottle. I can put him on my lap, I could feed I can feed him a bottle and make love to him if I wanted to. And there's nothing he could do about it.

That was on Wednesday. In a Patreon-exclusive episode released on Friday, Schulz stood by his remarks:

Schulz: I am a white comedian that makes fun of black women. I can't stop doing that. That sounds crazy. But I will say this crazy. After saying that I'll have sex with him. if Kendrick responds, he's flirting. If Kendrick responds after I said I have sex with him, no matter what he says, that's flirting.

Alexx Media: Then what are you going to do?

Schulz: Fuck. Because now I know it’s mutual. Because that's his way of saying, I want it, daddy. And if you want it from daddy, then I got to talk to my wife and do what I got to do […] Drake! Drake, bro.

Mark Gagnon: Are you going to team up with Drizzy now?

Schulz: Nah man, I’m just trying to let him know how it’s done, bro. You just got to tell him you fuck him. That's how you win a beef. "I'll fuck you." What you going to say to that?

Media: That’s a play that only white people can go to, and it’s genius.

Schulz: Exactly.

Akaash Singh: Go to it. Drake is white. And you’ve doubled down on that. “You keep calling me white, fine, I’ll fuck you.” That’s what white dudes do. “I’ll fuck you.”

Schulz: I’m going to have sex with you. If you open your little mouth again, I’m going to have sex with it.

Schulz just recorded his next Netflix special at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.