Jewish comedian Ariel Elias, the star of a recent viral video clip in which a beer is thrown at her on stage before she calmly chugs some of it, continued her newfound time in the spotlight during the Oct. 24 episode of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
After airing the clip of the beer incident, late-night host Kimmel said, “I mean, you can’t handle anything better than that, right?”
In her ensuing five-minute comedy routine, Elias lamented that she doesn’t know how to say her own name, whether it be a Jewish pronunciation, a Spanish one from her father, or “Earl” as her friends growing up in Kentucky would pronounce it.
She described the implications of her progressive parents from New Jersey moving to a more traditional state. When they spoke to her about dating, they said they’d accept “whatever you’re into…as long as they’re Jewish.” Elias quipped, “As long as they’re Jewish? We live in Kentucky. The choices are my dad and my brother, that’s it.”
In middle school, she said her friend told her that “we learned in Sunday school that because you’re a Jewish, it means you’re going to hell.”
“And I was like, oh wow, you think about me on the weekends? That’s so nice,” Elias said.
In a recent interview with JNS, Elias reflected on not growing up around a lot of Jews.
“In a lot of my friend groups, I was the only Jew, so I became sort of a representative where people ask questions about Judaism,” she said. “Most of my friends were curious because they’d never had the opportunity to meet a Jew before. Because my community was small, we were tight-knit. So, going to services was a time to relax and be amongst people you had a lot in common with.”