Two comedians spotlight interfaith differences

By Jane Lee     4/10/08 7:00pm

"Comedy's Odd Couple," a show featuring nationally known comedians Rabbi Bob Alper and Muslim Azhar Usman, came to the Baker Commons Tuesday as part of an interfaith event to promote tolerance on campus. The comedians' routines covered their family backgrounds, current lives, religious experiences and the elephant in the room, as Alper referred to it: Their separate faiths.Usman, a Chicago-born Indian Muslim has served as a lecturer and lawyer, community activist and co-founder of the Allah Made Me Funny Comedy Tour. He told the audience of his experiences with religious and racial intolerance.

"People see me and they can't help but think, 'Bin Laden . Saddam . Obama?'" Usman said.

Alper, an author and an ordained rabbi for 14 years and a Ph.D from Princeton University Theological Seminary, followed Usman's routine. Alper's routine covered his experience as a rabbi. After their individual acts, the two shared the stage to discuss how they came to work together.

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Alpher, who had previously done a comedy routine with a Muslim comedian, looked for another partner when the two went their separate ways.

"When [Ahmed Ahmed] decided to move back towards movies, I had to find another partner, so I Googled 'Muslim Comedian,'" Alper said.

Usman said Alper found him because there were not many Muslim comedians to choose from.

"If you googled ['Muslim comedian'], I'm going to come up," Usman said.

The two comedians discussed their religious differences and animosities, as well as their similarities. For example, Usman said Jews and Muslims are similar in that they are willing to spend $1,000,000 on a temple or a mosque but not on a $50 sound system at a garage sale. The two finally displayed their idea to arrive at interfaith peace via Irish dancing.

Rice Hillel President Lauren Henderson and executive board member of the Muslim Student Association Zabeena Merchant, who cosponsored the event, said she hopes the show will be the beginning of further dialogue on Jewish-Muslim interaction.

Henderson, a Will Rice College junior, learned of the comedy act earlier this semester through her rabbi, Houston Hillel's Executive Director Kenny Weiss, an acquaintance of Alper's.

"I thought it sounded amazing, and I thought it would be even more amazing if we could cosponsor it with MSA and the Boniuk [Center for Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance at Rice]," Henderson said.

The show fits into the Boniuk Center's Bridge Builders Initiative, which supports religious events put on by cross-faith campus groups.

The show occurred April 8 to fit the comedians' schedules, but the large venues in the Rice Memorial Center were already occupied by this time, so the Boniuk Center booked the Baker commons to get a comedy club feel, Boniuk Center Special Projects Coordinator Calvin Preece said.

Preece said he considers the $5,000 the Boniuk Center paid for the comedians' performance, transportion and hotel rooms to be well-spent.

Both comedians said they will consider returning to Rice in the future.

"I love being invited into this kind of environment [with college kids] because there's an opportunity there not only to make people laugh but also to make them think in a way that can actually have some long term effect on their perception of reality," Usman said. "I take the responsibility seriously and hopefully the impression you got is a positive one.

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