Dean Obeidallah (Arabic: دين عبيدالله) is an Arab-American/Italian-American comedian, who was born in Lodi, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby Paramus.. His father was born in Battir, Palestine- a small village near Bethlehem; his mother's parents were born in Sicily. He is part of a small but growing number of Middle Eastern-American comedians who have increasingly received media attention in the past few years, as they use comedy to both entert...
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Dean Obeidallah (Arabic: دين عبيدالله) is an Arab-American/Italian-American comedian, who was born in Lodi, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby Paramus.. His father was born in Battir, Palestine- a small village near Bethlehem; his mother's parents were born in Sicily. He is part of a small but growing number of Middle Eastern-American comedians who have increasingly received media attention in the past few years, as they use comedy to both entertain and dispel negative stereotypes of Middle Eastern-Americans.
Like African-American comedians in the 1960s and 70s, Obeidallah and other Arab-American comics have been compared to the groundbreaking comedians who have used comedy to raise political and social issues in an effort to change them as noted by The Baltimore Sun's David Zurawik:
"Just as comic Lenny Bruce battled the stifling conformity of the 1950s or Dick Gregory and Richard Pryor challenged racism in the '60s and '70s, these performers now are challenging mainstream notions...
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