Dean Obeidallah is an American comedian. He is the host of SiriusXM Progress' The Dean Obeidallah Show. A journalist and frequent contributor to CNN, his work has also appeared in various publications, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Newsweek. Obeidallah was born in New Jersey, and is of Palestinian and Italian descent.
Early life and education
Obeidallah was born in Lodi, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby Paramus. His father was born in Battir, Mandatory Palestine prior to the creation of the State of Israel; his mother's parents were born in Sicily. Obeidallah received a J.D. from Fordham Law School and practiced law from 1993-1998 with the firm of Beattie Padovano. His first stand up comedy show was as part of the NJ Bar Association's stand upcomedy show. He then left the practice of law and was accepted into the prestigious NBC Page program in 1998. Thereafter from October 1999 through May 2007 he was a rights and clearance researcher for Saturday Night Live while performing stand up comedy in the comedy clubs of New York City.
Career
In 2005, Obeidallah received the first "Spirit of Bill Hicks" award, named in honor of comedian Bill Hicks for "thought provoking comedy" from the NY Underground Comedy Festival and the Hicks family. He co-produced with the Emmy Award winning comedy writer and best-selling authorMax Brooks a new show entitled The Watch List for Comedy Central's Internet channel. This was the first show ever produced by a major American entertainment company to showcase all Arab-American performers. Obeidallah has appeared on Comedy Central on the critically acclaimed "Axis of Evil" Comedy special. Obeidallah is the founder and editor of the blog The Dean's Report which addresses topics of the day. Obeidallah is a columnist for The Daily Beast and a CNN Opinion contributor. He is the co-founder, along with Maysoon Zayid, of the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival. This highly acclaimed, first of its kind festival has received national and international media coverage. It is held annually in New York City and showcases Arab-American comedians from across the United States. The 13th annual Festival will be held October September 29-October 1, 2016. He co-created The Muslim Funny Fest in 2015, the United States' only Muslim stand up comedy Festival. The second year of the festival was held in July 2016. Obeidallah is the co-creator of Stand up for Peace which he performs across the country with Jewish-American comedian Scott Blakeman. Stand Up for Peace brings Arab-Americans, Muslims and Jews together through comedy in the hopes of fostering understanding and supporting a peaceful solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Obeidallah has been featured on numerous national and international television programs including Comedy Central's "Axis of Evil" special and The Watch List, ABC's The View, NBC's "Rock Center," Current TV's "Young Turks," MSNBC's "Up with Chris Hayes," "Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen," PBS' Newshour with Jim Lehrer, ABC's 20/20, CNN's "Inside the Middle East" and Japan's NHK. He can be seen in the PBS' documentary, "Stand Up: Muslim American Comics Come of Age"PBS Programs. Obeidallah can be seen in the bonus feature of the DVD version of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 in the section entitled: Arab-American comedians. He has been featured in various publications and radio networks including The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, "The Washington Post," The Los Angeles Times, NPR, BBC, Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, and The Associated Press. Obeidallah served as the Executive Producer of the AmmanStand up Comedy Festival held in Amman, Jordan from December 2–6, 2008. This was the first stand up comedy festival in the history of the Middle East outside of Israel. The third annual Festival was held December 4 to 10, 2010. He co-directed/co-produced the award-winning documentary with comedian/filmmaker Negin Farsad entitled The Muslims Are Coming! focusing on freedom of religion for all Americans. The film focuses on a free stand up comedy tour by American-Muslim comedians across the South and West. It also features celebrity interviews with a wide range of people including The Daily Show's Jon Stewart, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, CNN's Soledad O'Brien and Ali Velshi, Congressman Keith Ellison, comedians Lewis Black, David Cross, Colin Quinn, Lizz Winstead and others. The film was released in September 2013. In addition to appearing at hundreds of comedy clubs and colleges across the United States, Obeidallah has performed stand-up comedy in Canada and in the Middle East in Amman, Dubai, Beirut, Cairo, Haifa, Oman, Sharm El Sheikh and Ramallah. In June 2019, a federal judge ordered Andrew Anglin, editor of the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer to pay $4.1 million to Dean Obeidallah, whom Anglin had accused of orchestrating the Manchester Arena bombing.
Controversy
Obeidallah appeared on the December 28, 2013 episode of MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry show. On a "photos of the year" segment of that program, Obeidallah and a panel of comedians made several jokes about a family picture featuring former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's family, including his adopted black grandson, joking that the photo represented the diversity of the Republican Party. This sparked outrage, and Obeidallah later apologized to the Romneys for the remarks.
