Elon Gold. Photo: provided.

At a recent show at the Westside Comedy Club in Manhattan, Elon Gold thrilled a crowd by doing impersonations of former (and future) President Donald Trump and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

In a stellar Trump accent, he quipped: “They tried to get me. I saw the bullet. I saw the bullet. And I went, ‘I don’t like that.’ Then it just pierced my ear. I never thought I’d get my ears pierced…”

Performing before the election, Gold said that Doug Emhoff would be well prepared if Kamala Harris had been elected.

“If you are a Jewish man and you’re married, say nothing,” Gold said.

“Colonizers?” Gold asked. “Jews! The only place we colonized was the Catskills.”

Gold said the secular new year is fun because people get drunk, whereas for the Jewish New Year, Jews read from the machzor about possible ways to die.

“Who by fire? Who by water? Who by beeper?” Gold quipped.

He said Jews need to explain to people how Israel is not an oppressor.

“Jews are not in the oppression business,” he said. “There’s no money in it.”

One of the opening comedians, David Weinbach, a former winner of The Jewish Week’s Funniest Comic Contest, took the stage before Gold, telling the crowd that this Rosh Hashanah, instead of dipping his apple in honey, he’s dipping it into Ozempic.

“You gotta do what you gotta do to look good,” he joked.

Weinbach said he admired that Gold has used his platform to combat lies against Israel, as did opening comedians Eli Lebowicz and Talia Reese.

While some Jewish celebrities have stayed away from commenting about Israel, Gold has spoken at rallies and been extremely vocal in support of the Jewish State. He has also gone to Israel to perform.

While he is a master of comedy, he takes antisemitism very seriously. I wish there were more comedians who could be like Gold, but we are lucky to have him.

Gold was a recent guest on the Here I Am podcast of Columbia University professor Shai Davidai, who went viral with a video in which he highlighted injustice against Jews at Columbia and in the US.

“Why, when the Jews defend themselves and their country, they’re not allowed to?” Gold said on the podcast.

He also said that it’s an insane twist that Israel has been accused of genocide.

“No, we’re preventing genocide [by Hamas],” Gold said. “…Everybody wants to hate…”

Gold said the deaths of Gazan civilians are tragedies of the war started by Hamas, which bears the responsibility for the harm they suffer — especially because Hamas uses them as human shields.

“Israel wants not one dead civilian,” he said. “Hamas wants not one living civilian.”

Gold explained that he is able to compartmentalize the situation in Israel. He says that there are times he is filled with anger, but must do his job — although he cancelled his immediate gigs after October 7. Then one Jewish organization asked him not to cancel, saying they needed the humor.

Gold said he said the name of Hersh Goldberg-Polin every day in his prayers, and it was earth-shattering to find out he and five others were murdered.

In an old interview, Gold told me that four Middle Eastern men in a car screamed at him while he was with his family in Los Angeles in 2014, while there was a war in Gaza, and the man yelled to Gold that he hoped his children died, while his children were standing behind him. Gold went to the police, and it was not considered a hate crime.