A Talk with Comedian & Activist Noam Shuster Eliassi

Sunday 21.6 12:00 | Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Schillerplatz 3, 1010 Vienna

Noam Shuster Eliassi is a comedian, activist, and former UN diplomat whose work uses humor to confront difficult political realities and challenge deeply rooted narratives. Raised in Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, a mixed Palestinian-Jewish community known as the “Oasis of Peace,” she performs in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, bringing sharp wit and personal insight to conversations about identity, inequality, violence, and dispossession. Through her performances, public speaking, and viral satire, Eliassi has become a distinctive voice pushing audiences to face uncomfortable truths with honesty, humor, and humanity.

In her talk at the event, Shuster Eliassi will focus on questions of personal responsibility and individual agency within Israeli Jewish society, and how knowledge, identity, and public narratives are shaped and often fixed over time. Drawing on her work as a creator and performer engaged in both local and international spaces, she explores processes of unlearning and relearning, and the gaps between dominant public discourse and lived realities. The talk will also reflect on the role of prominent cultural and artistic figures in confronting racism, violence, and the willful ignorance and deliberate disregard of Palestinian realities, and what it means to take responsibility and act with integrity in the face of ongoing structural violence and entrenched inequality.