It’s been a whirlwind few weeks for Jewish comedian Ariel Elias. About four weeks ago, Ariel performed at Hey Alma’s High Holiday stand-up comedy show “Atone, Bitch.” Not long after, she went viral for beautifully handling a heckler (at a different show) who threw a beer at her while she was performing. (Spoiler alert: she chugged it.)
And last night, Ariel made her extremely Jewish late night TV debut, performing a 5 minute set on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” (After seeing Ariel’s viral tweet of the beer-chugging incident, Jimmy agreed to have her come on the show.)
In the set, Ariel touched on topics like being a woman and having kids, but her main theme seemed to be her experience growing up Jewish in Kentucky. Like her appearance on Hey Alma’s show, Ariel began by explaining that she has some confusion about how to pronounce her name “Ariel” — Jews pronounce it “Ah-riel,” her Spanish father pronounces “Ariel” with a rolled “R” and people from the south pronounce it “Earl.”
She also told a hilarious joke about her childhood Christian friends. “[My friend] came up to me and said, ‘Earl, I’m so sorry to tell you this, but we learned in Sunday school that because you’re a Jewish, it means you’re going to hell.’ And I was like, ‘Oh wow. You think about me on the weekends?!”
She also told this Jewish joke we recently shared on Hey Alma TikTok! Check it out:
@heyalmaofficial If you couldn’t make it to Ariel Elias’s 10/10 performance at our High Holiday comedy show, “Atone, Bitch,” this is what you missed #caveatnyc #arielelias #kentucky #jewtok #jewish #standupcomedy
Mazels, Ariel! We can’t wait to see what you do next!
