It's a big
deal. This is our first show together in New York. It's a big deal.
For those of you guys that don't know us,
I'm Jess.
I'm Eman. Thank you for not speaking.
Thank you. We're a Jewish Palestinian,
lesbian, married couple, you know.
Yeah.
How our families reacted.
Exactly.
Like, complete silence. A few shots in the back.
I thought she was nuts because she left a career in international
law. So we were sitting at the bar
and a friend of ours,
picture, like, an Italian Belushi brother
type guy.
He's going through his own stuff.
His dad had passed away. We were all just,
yeah,
comedians who probably should've been in therapy
but were at the bar instead.
Drinking, yeah.
So he walks over
with a tray filled
with shots and was like, 'Hey, why don't you broads kiss?'
And like the good Montreal party girls that we were,
we kissed. And like the good lesbians that we are,
we immediately fell in love
and got married.
That's our story.
We obviously were kind of like drawn to each other naturally because Jewish,
Palestinians, so discussing that topic.
And that created a space for us to be alone because everybody ran
away.
But we were both very moderate.
I guess we were able to have civilized conversations.
Because you do grow up
with so many just engrained,
like, talking points on this issue.
Like, being Palestinian, a new immigrant in a Western world,
being Palestinian on its own was a controversial thing.
I knew a lot of Palestinians that wouldn't say they were Palestinian because it was,
like, too controversial. They'd say they're Lebanese
or something.
And I'm, like, such a proud person.
I'm like, what is wrong with you?
Like, our identity's being erased slowly
and you're not telling people,
like. It's been, like,
a very fun relationship between the whole way through.
From, like, the first night we got together.
The first time we got together, we were very drunk.
It was very romantic.
And as we were taking clothes off,
Eman stopped me and she was like, you might see something you don't like.
Yeah, I was like, did you not wax?
'Cause I haven't either. You know,
it's fine. We're both women.
This is like 50% of the reason we do this.
And she's like,
no, that's not it. I have a tattoo.
And I was like, is it a swastika?
Like, what is it?
And she's like, no it's the map of Israel
and it says 'Palestine' over top in Hebrew letters.
And I was like,
maybe we could cover that up with a swastika.
That was, like, very hard for me because I thought that my parents were really
smart. And for them to think that it's not a natural
thing and just,
like, something is wrong with you.
You two are pretty girls,
what's wrong?
They were worried for me, too. They're nice to us privately.
They just don't want to publicly show people that they're ok with it.
They're in the closet about our
relationship with them.
Like Eman, I have also always,
like, challenged my parents,
I guess, with my choices, which weren't choices that they had hoped for,
whether it was comedy
or my dating life.
Too many things: gay,
Arab, Muslim. It's just,
they can't handle it.
There's so many women who've left
and didn't continue,
because they were just being harassed.
Starting out, you have no power.
You haven't proven yourself in any way comedically.
In my head, I'm already, because I've heard these comments so
much: why does everything hav to be gay?
It's just, I'm just talking about my marriage which is a very common
theme.
But I'm in a gay marriage.
You have to know, Jess ruined my life. She ruined my life.
I used to be, like, I'm so over the top in love,
for sure.
But I used to be such a respectable,
such a
respectable, independent person.
Now I spend my day tagging her in cute animal photos
on Instagram.
Such a f*cking loser.
You have to know the kind of person I used to be.
I was the kind of person, when I saw happy couples on the street holding
hands, I walked in between them so they let go
of each other's hands.
Now I talk like a baby. I'm 30-something years
old.
Who came up with this concept, I need
to know, to talk like baby when you're in love?
It must've been some kind of influential pedophile
or something. It's disgusting.
So, of course, I'm over the top.
I do want to, like, make out on
stage and everything.